Sayani Mukherjee

The School of Social Policy and Practice hosted a Hurricane Katrina study group at the Sheraton Hotel April 29-May 1. The Schools of Engineering and Applied Science, Dental Medicine, Nursing and Design, as well as the Fox Leadership Program have worked for the last three years with other universities and the public welfare offices in Hancock County, Miss.

Though almost all students graduating from Penn Law have secured full-time jobs, about a fifth face staggered starting dates and may have to go for as long as a year after graduation with no full-time job. Those deferred will receive moderate stipends to do public service work while waiting for their jobs to start. As a result, many will have to delay repaying student loans and find alternative health insurance until the deferral period ends.

By SAYANI MUKHERJEE Staff Writer mukherjee@dailypennsylvanian.com A report published this month by the National Consumer Law Center aims to help students with private loans who would otherwise have difficulty making payments. Titled, "Too Small to Help - The plight of Financially Distressed Private Student Loan Borrowers," the report was developed by the NCLC's Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.

Despite significant increases in the numbers of applicants to Penn's Ph.D. programs, the number of acceptances at most schools will remain relatively similar to past years. Some schools, such as the School of Arts and Sciences, School of Medicine, Graduate School of Education and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, saw smaller increases in applications, while others, such as Wharton and the Annenberg School for Communication, reported much larger increases.

Despite significant increases in the numbers of applicants to Penn's Ph.D. programs, the number of acceptances at most schools will remain relatively similar to past years.=Only 10 of Penn's 12 graduate schools offer Ph.D. programs - the School of Law and the School of Dental Medicine do not.

The best landlords are those east of the Schuylkill River, according to the Graduate and Professional Students Assembly's Landlord Survey. That was one of the principal findings in GAPSA's survey that rates landlords in the area based on 1,200 responses collected November through February.

Last week, the Graduate and Professional Students Assembly elected its new executive board, which will take effect May 1. Nursing Ph.D. student Corbett Brown, the new chairman, has been an assembly member since last September. He sat down with The Daily Pennsylvanian to discuss his goals for next year.

Wharton announced yesterday that it will cosign loans with Digital Federal Credit Union for international MBA students who lack a U.S. credit-worthy cosigner. The loans can help pay tuition as well as living expenses and can also offer low interest rates, no origination fees - a processing fee - and attentive customer service.

In today's economic climate, financial uncertainty is problematic for many international students applying to U.S. universities for graduate study - and a Council of Graduate Schools survey released last week confirmed these concerns. Based on preliminary numbers of international graduate applicants, the survey found that doctoral applications increased over the past year, but master's applications decreased.

Dow Advanced Materials, a chemical company formerly known as Rohm and Haas, recently donated an undisclosed six-figure amount to the School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Organizational Dynamics. The Rohm and Haas gift will be used over three years to create a concentration in Organizational Dynamics' Master of Philosophy and Master of Science programs and a sustainable development graduate certificate program.