Minnesota Decision

It is possible to get accepted at Minnesota with a personal statement that is less than two pages (granted, it's short by a few lines) that does not address a specific reason for applying to Minnesota. I got the call that I had been accepted a few days before Christmas. My package arrived in the mail today with a scholarship offer of $18,000 a year. I thought that Minnesota was the most likely after UVA to reject my application. Now I've been accepted and offered a pretty nice scholarship. There is an applicant on LSN that has numbers very similar to mine (and a few schools that overlap, It will be interesting to see how his cycle compares to mine as he is still in undergrad). He was given a scholarship for $12,000 a year. I guess my career experience and PhD bought me an extra $6,000.

Only IU-Bloomington and Washington University are pending. Once rejections start going out I'll be able to see how much of a boost my PhD gave me in my cycle.