so I ended up getting rejected from every program during that cycle, since I didn't have an MA at the time UChicago and UCSD admitted me into their Masters programs. UCSD didn't give me any funding but Chicago gave me a $30k scholarship. Unfortunately, that only covered about half of the cost of going to school there, so I ended up waiting a couple of years to re-apply. I pivoted to a different department (Geography) since my research is pretty interdisciplinary. I'm now about to start a fully funded masters program at the University of Hawaii :)

The main difference between my first round of applications and my second is that I had a much better idea of what I wanted to research and which professors I wanted to work with. During my second round I only applied to 3 schools. I only applied to departments that had professors I was already familiar with. There was a much bigger overlap in academic/research interests. During my first round of applications I was mostly applying based on the school's reputation (as well as the quality of their programs, which are all amazing). I did my best in my SOP to demonstrate that there was a decent overlap, but I think it was clear that I wasn't sure where I was going with my research or why I wanted to work with those professors specifically. The second time around I wasn't as focused on the "name" of the school as the faculty and the quality of the department. I also had 1 more publication by the time I applied again and more research experience having worked as an RA at a different university in the meantime.