Library School update

I received my 2nd Library School acceptance today - to University of Pittsburgh.  While that is of course great news, it is actually causing me a great deal of stress!  Having a choice of top schools means a lot of legwork in the next couple of weeks on my part.

Although I’m still waiting to hear from Rutgers, now that I have been accepted to two top library schools, it’s time for me to do some serious research.  I have to decide where I’m going to attend before Syracuse University’s April 1 deadline – and I’m going to be starting classes in May! 

The major deciding factors as I see them now are:

-       Is the Pittsburgh FastTrack MLIS program the same degree that MLIS students that attend full-time and on-campus receive?  I know that Syracuse’s distance program is actually equal in all ways to their program on-campus.  In fact, they are the same program, just delivered two ways.  If this is not the case for Pittsburgh, I may take issue with paying the same tuition for a different degree than on-campus students would get.  I will be contacting someone in Pittsburgh this week to get a better idea about this.

-       How long will the degree take me to complete?  Both programs require 36 credit hours.  Pittsburgh’s MLIS page states that it is designed to be completed two classes at a time over the course of 6 semesters.  As I mentioned above, I am not sure if that is because the FastTrack program is considered to be a truncated or “light” version of Pitt’s MLIS degree.  While 2-year completion is also theoretically possible at Syracuse, some of the admissions staff and current students I met said they would not recommend taking more than 1 class at a time if I plan to continue working full-time, so the degree could take up to 4 years at Syracuse. 

-       What are the programs' differentiating factors?  From what I can tell, Syracuse University offers unique specializations such as the Digital Libraries Certificate.  On the other hand, Pittsburgh requires a much shorter residency, which would be helpful since my vacation time at work is extremely limited.

-       Dollars and cents.  University of Pittsburgh offers no merit-based aid for part-time students.  Syracuse University offers limited options to apply for merit-based aid as a part-time student that I’m sure are highly competitive.  So while it’s at least possible at Syracuse – it may still be a long shot for me.  In terms of tuition costs, both schools are in a very similar price range since I am not a resident of Pittsburgh, so it will likely be up to my ability to close the gap with loans, and if I really want to borrow that much. 

-       Location, location, location.  If financial aid proves to be too large of a challenge, another option for me would be to apply to a CUNY school and start in September, but the in-person format could be challenging (I would need to live in Brooklyn, work in Manhattan and go to class in Flushing, Queens!).  Furthermore, I would be tied to living in the New York City area at least until my degree is completes.   The advantage of Syracuse, Pittsburgh (or Rutgers), is that while substantially more expensive, the programs are much more robust and should my husband and I choose to relocate prior to me finishing my degree, I can live anywhere and finish without worrying about transferring schools.