Salute to Spouses Blog

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Choosing a school for my master’s degree

By Jenna Moede

We have already covered how I narrowed down my potential Master's degree options, but while I did that, I had to narrow down universities as well.  

This process took a lot of time, but once I figured out what I wanted out of a school, it became much easier.  

First, I took my time researching schools that offered the programs I had chosen as options. I looked into which schools offered those programs completely online because some of the schools offered them as hybrid programs which would have done me no good. I don't have the option to attend campus.  

Through my search, I found a couple of schools that really peaked my interest. They interested me for different types of reasons from website usability to extracurricular options, but at that point, I hadn't yet looked into the most important factors for me.  

I needed, most importantly, to look at some key information for each university. First, I wanted to know about their reputation overall.  

I wanted to know not only about the reputation overall but also about retention rates, graduation rates, return on investment, cost to students and the rate of students getting jobs in their fields after graduation. I factored each of these into my consideration and decision making.  

After I learned everything I wanted to know about the schools and their reputations, I had about five universities left.  

I finally requested information from those universities about the programs they had that interested me, and once I received the information whether by mail or email, I began to read through it and reach out to the admissions teams.  

Several of the schools assigned me to an admission advisor upon requesting information which made it super easy to ask questions and find out answers. One university did not assign me to an admissions advisor and because of that, I eliminated them from my options.  

Having learned my lesson the first time around with my Master's, I asked the admissions advisors right away about the programs, outlooks and told them about my goals. They helped me determine if the programs under consideration would really help me meet my long term goals or if they would waste more time and money (again).  

From there I could eliminate a few more schools, and I found that the admissions advisors told me only the facts about the program so I could make informed decisions. They didn't try to sway me into a program that wouldn't help me just to have another student attending the university.  

By the end I only had two universities left. By this time I knew I liked the website, extra-curriculars, education platforms, programs, staff and options so I checked out the last, deciding factor: money.  

I had already looked at the degree plans for each of the two final programs and I knew how many credits each would require so I looked at the cost per credit hour. One university of the two gave a significant discount for the spouses of active duty military personnel while the other did not.  

I made my final decision based on that. While I didn't consider cost the most important factor, leaving it for the final decision seemed like a good option because I already knew I liked everything else about the school and that the university would help me reach my goals so I knew I wouldn't be compromising based on a cheaper tuition.  

If neither one had offered a discount, I would have had a tougher decision to make because I liked both options very well, but in the end, I feel like I chose the university that checked all of my needs and most of my wants off of the list.  

 

 

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