Jump to content

SimianVirus

Members
  • Posts

    16
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Location
    Washington
  • Application Season
    2017 Fall
  • Program
    Biostatistics, MS

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

SimianVirus's Achievements

Decaf

Decaf (2/10)

1

Reputation

  1. Hi there, Yeah, that's the thing, the syllabus does not give a grading scale estimate, it just says that the numeric cutoffs for deciding the final grade letter would be based on overall class performance. But just like you pointed out earlier, I thought that merely meant that he was going to curve to help us if the overall class hadn't performed as well as expected, not that he'd start giving out B's to whomever got a grade below whatever numeric cutoff he had. I still don't know what that was because he didn't mention it, not even in his response email..
  2. Hi all, I'm a first year student in a Biostatistics program. I was hoping to get some advice from someone regarding a delicate grading policy question. Here is the background. This past semester I was really surprised to see I got a B+ for a class where, according to all calculations, the overall grade should have been an A. The reasons I say it should have been an A are as follows: The syllabus says the overall grade will be calculated as weighted average with the following weights: homework - 30%, midterm - 30%, final - 30%, attendance - 10% My grades for each of these three components were as follows: homework - 97, midterm - 88, final - 100, attendance - 100 Given all this, my overall final grade for the class comes out to be 95.5, which I fail to see how it could possibly be assigned a B+... I emailed the professor for clarification as soon as I saw the grade, since I assumed it was probably a typo but he said that the reason I got a B+ was because most students (70% of students) in my class got a higher overall grade than me.. I'm really confused and I was wondering if anybody else had come across similar grading policies? Is this common? Any suggestions/comments would be much appreciated.
  3. Hey, I received an unofficial email from an official at the university and a couple of weeks later, got an official letter of admission but now my decision is also available to see via SOPHAS. I applied to their ScM.
  4. Hi all, I recently got an offer of admission to both Brown University's MS in Biostatistics, as well as to Georgetown University's program. Brown offered me a scholarship which would bring my total tuition cost for the program to be $31,000 cheaper than Georgetown's (Georgetown's letter of admission did not include any mention of financial aid), which is great. However, I am not sure which of these two is the better program. Both are great universities, that goes without saying. But on one hand, I keep reading that Brown's School of Public Health is unranked, that the program is still relatively new and so on. And I cant really find many rankings or much information about this program outside of Brown's website. I'm sure that Brown being an Ivy and all, the program is not horrible but nontheless, I'd obviously rather spend the extra money to go to a program that would maximize my chances of getting employed shortly after graduation. On the other hand, whenever I check the gradcafe's admission results for biostatistics, I see 5 pages of results of people who applied to Brown's PhD and/or MS biostatistics programs, vs. only 5 results for Georgetown.. Also, it seems like Georgetown's curriculum is more heavy on the epidemiology part (which I like, as my specific interest would be in cancer epi and public health), as opposed to Brown. In addition to all this, Georgetown has an internship/practicum element to their curriculum whereas Brown doesn't, as far as I can tell. While I am aware that I am in a very privileged position to pick between two outstanding schools, it is still very difficult to make a decision and I've been dwelling on this for the past couple of weeks now with no answer. Basically, if money wasn't a big factor in the equation, I would choose Georgetown (outrageously expensive) but since Brown would significantly slash my total costs, I am in this pickle. Anybody have any suggestions or advice? Any opinions/thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you!
  5. I agree :). I guess at this point all we have to do is wait and see what happens. I did reply to the email with some generic questions mostly about financial aid opportunities for admitted students but haven't heard back yet.
  6. Thank you very much for your input Congrats for your admission too! Just curios, was your similar email followed by an actual phone or in person interview or anything like that, if you dont mind my asking?
  7. Hi all, I applied to a MS in Biostatistics. Just curios if anybody else here got a rather ambiguous email from Brown University, saying something along the lines of they've started reviewing their applications and are very impressed with mine. Mind you, the email was sent by the Program Director, saying that while the Committe is still working on their decisions process, he'd like to get to know me better and asks me how my graduate school search is going and if I have any questions about their program or life in Providence... I'm a bit confused as to wheter this is an unofficial acceptance or what exactly it means. Is this a thing Brown does with a small group of applicants that intitially catches their eye or what? Also, not sure what my next step should be? Like, do I email him back with some generic questions, do I provide my phone number in the email signature so he can reach out if he wants to talk on the phone, how should I go about this? I'm afraid of coming off as either too straightforward or maybe not straightforward enough lol
  8. Thank you for your reply. Yes, WES sent me an email confirming that they resent the report for the second time, and in that email they had my name and the address they sent it to. I forwarded this email to the university as soon as I got it (this was before the holidays) and they confirmed receipt of the email saying "Thank you for letting us know". I had a slight issue with my TOEFL score, as well, with a different university, due to my name being hyphenated. But as soon as I contacted the university to let them know about how the hyphenation might be causing them to not able to match the TOEFL score with my application, they solved the problem immediately, with no further hassles or complications.. I just don't understand how or why this particular university cannot retrieve my WES report. It's very frustrating at this point. I wish they could at least allow me to email them a scan of my personal copy of the WES report so that my application can be reviewed already but whenever I ask this question in the emails, they don't respond back.
  9. Hi everybody, I am writing in the hope that somebody might be able to offer some advice regarding the situation I am in. Here is my predicament: At the end of October I submitted my complete application for a MS in Biostatistics (Fall 2018) at a very well known university. Since both my undergrad and graduate degrees were from a foreign country, I had to obtain a WES ICAP report which served as the equivalent of my transcripts. I had WES mail my ICAP report to the exact address provided by the university. However, sometime in mid November when I checked my application status online, it said "status incomplete" because my transcripts (WES report) were not received. I immediately contacted WES and they confirmed that the report had indeed been mailed to the university address provided on the 4th of November. Afterwards, I contacted the university via email telling them that WES confirmed that my report was mailed on the 4th November. They replied pretty promptly saying my application would be updated as soon as they process my materials. Long story short, after a lot of back and forth between me and the university (emails and phone calls), they conclude that they haven't received my transcripts and that I need to have WES resend my report. WES sends me a confirmation email that they resent the report on the 15th of December and I forwarded this email to the university admissions office. They replied saying "Thank you for letting us know." After the holidays, on the 8th or 9th of January, I check my application online again and same problem. Missing transcripts, application incomplete. I contact the university again and they email me back asking me if I go by some other nameā€¦ After I reply, again no answers back. My question is: what should I do at this point to have this university review my application already? I honestly have no idea why they're not receiving that WES package. Would you recommend I personally go to their office (I live about an hour away) or how should I proceed? Their stated deadline for the program is spring 2018 for the fall 2018 semester but I wanted to apply as early as possible. I just noticed that somebody posted that they already got accepted in December for fall 2018 to this same university for the same program, which means that they're reviewing applications as soon as they get them and make their decision. So now I'm starting to worry that I might be left at a disadvantage because eventhough I applied at the end of October, my application has not even been reviewed yet.. Thank you in advance for any recommendations/advice you might have.
  10. Thank you for your reply, Splanga. Georgetown has a list of places where their alumni got employed on its website, plus it offers to put you in contact with any particular alumni for a more detailed discussion about that so I'm guessing their program is pretty good. As for GWU, I know the Milken School of Public Health (the Biostats program is a joint program between their School of Public Health and their School of Arts and Sciences) is constantly in the top 20 best Public Health schools in the country so...Plus, I think that in the DC area, at least, graduates from these two top DC schools are pretty highly regarded when they apply for jobs.
  11. I guess nobody knows anything about this topic?
  12. Oh man, I'm planning on applying to a master's for fall 2018 and my first choice university requires official transcripts OR instead of that, an official course by course evaluation from WES. But here's where the problem is: WES also requires official transcripts (that is, diplomas and transcripts in an envelope sealed and signed across the seal by the university, AND on top of that they also want these documents to have an official apostile from the Ministry of Education in my country...) And in order to get all these things released to me, I probably have to be there in person, which I obviously cant, or send someone in my place with a special document signed by me and legalized by a notary authorizing that person to act on my behalf. It's going to be tough, I dont even want think about it. I graduated from a foreign country in 2012 and then moved to the US in 2014 and I have all my original diplomas and transcripts with me(I have a BA and MA already) and they do have the seal of the university and signatures on all pages and it is one of the oldest, most prestigious universities in my country so there should be no shadow of a doubt as to the authenticity of my documents. But of course, they're not in an envelope sealed and signed across the seal by the university and they dont have a apostile,. I wrote to the school I want to apply to and explained the situation but they dont seem to care very much as they keep up their tune about official transcripts directly from the school OR WES official evaluation (which again requires me to get the official transcripts in an envelope and apostile anyway) Deadline for my application is May 2018 so I have plenty of time, I know but I cant help freaking out already reading about how unecessarily complex they make what should be a pretty straightforward, easy process. Is anybody here from Romania, by the way, who went through this process already and can help me with some pointers/clarifications on what exactly is the best route to go about submitting the transcripts? Thank you,
  13. Hello, I realise that this is 3 years after your original post but I'm new here and was wondering as to how your situation turned out eventually. Where did you end up going? I'm asking because I'm also interested in applying to a MS in biostats at GWU and Georgetown and wanted to know which school is better in terms of better job opportunities afterwards. I'm pretty much in the same situation described by you. I finished a bachelor's and master's already, both in Economics and Geopolitics, except I did both at a university abroad, in Romania, Central Europe (I'm not American). I only moved to the US in 2014 and have been in a full time job in finance ever since while also taking Calc I, II, III, linear algebra and statistics classes at my local community college, as pre-requisites. I want to do this Biostatistics masters in the hope that it'll help broaden my job opportunities. Any thoughts, advice? Thank you,
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use