daymoose

I got my reimbursement from Stanford a month ago. At this point you should probably call them and ask.

Hi everyone, My partner and I are starting our respective graduate programs in Houston this fall (I'll be at Rice and she'll be at the Texas Medical Center). We originally wanted to live in the Rice Village Apartments but they don't open until August and her program starts in June. Since we only have one car between the two of us, we'd like to live someplace where we can walk, bike, or take the rail to the TMC. In particular, we were looking at some of the condos near the Reliant Park metro station. Do you guys have any advice about that area?

Congratulations! Since you're studying sociology, I'm assuming you're looking for places near the Homewood campus. You might consider looking at the high-rise apartment buildings directly north of campus on West University Parkway (Uni One, Carlyle, Hopkins House, Uni West). Some undergrads do live there, but in my experience it's a bit quieter than Charles Village proper (the area south of 32nd Street can get rowdy on the weekends because of frat parties). I live in one of those buildings and it takes me 10 minutes to walk to campus and 10 minutes to walk to the Giant grocery store on 40th Street (I don't drive either). Most of the people I see in my building are grad students and postdocs with families. As for safety, I've never felt unsafe walking around at any time of night. Feel free to PM me if you want specifics.

Just declined the last of my remaining offers yesterday. Best of luck to everyone who's still waiting Anybody else going to Rice?

Hi everyone, I've recently been accepted to both the Biomedical Engineering PhD program at UC Irvine and the Bioengineering PhD program at UC San Diego. I attended both visit weekends and I got great vibes from both programs - coming from the east coast, I'm especially impressed by the weather I also identified a couple of POIs at both schools within my primary area of interest (tissue engineering). My understanding is that although UCSD is a higher-ranked program for BME/BioE, UCI is definitely up-and-coming as well. How does this translate into student outcomes in academia and/or industry? The faculty I'd be interested in working with at UCI are newer, untenured professors, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. The other complicating factor in this decision is that my partner will be at UCI, so I'm trying to consider whether the increased "prestige" of UCSD is worth adding an extra 1-2 hours to my commute every day. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

School B is offering a slightly larger stipend (about $2,000 more per year, plus a small one-time recruitment fellowship). Cost of living in both areas is roughly the same.

Hi everyone, I've been lurking on these forums for a while but I'm finally making my first post because I've got a bit of a dilemma. I'll admit, it's not a bad problem to have: I've been fortunate enough to be accepted to two fantastic engineering PhD programs. School A is a well-established, top 5 program with several tenured faculty within my field of interest. On the other hand, School B is a younger, lower-ranked (top 25) program that doesn't have as much of a presence in my field yet, but they've been actively recruiting new faculty over the last 5 years to make up the difference. The problem is that my partner, who's applying to graduate programs too, got into School B but not School A. Normally I'd agree with the advice "don't choose a grad school just for your significant other", but we're getting married next month, and staying together (even if we have to live apart) is our top priority. The two schools are about an hour or two apart, so theoretically either we could live on separate campuses and visit each other every weekend, or we could live in the middle and both commute. It would be a little hard logistically, since we only have one car between the two of us right now and I'm not sure if we could afford a second one on top of renting two residences, but we could make it work if we wanted to. I'm just not sure whether it would really be worth it. I went to both of the visit weekends and identified several POIs who I could potentially see myself working with. (The ones at School B aren't tenured, though - I'm not sure whether that would be an issue.) Demographically and geographically, both programs are very similar, and there's a lot of industry in the entire region (I haven't decided what my plans after graduation are, but I'm leaning towards industry right now). Honestly, my biggest hangup is the "prestige" - I'm worried that going to the "lower-ranked" program will adversely affect my career prospects compared to the "higher-ranked" one. How much do things like that really matter in the long run? TL;DR Is going to a top 5 (versus a top 25) PhD program really worth spending the first two years of our marriage living apart and/or commuting for two hours a day each?