christina_bme

After six months of complete silence (during which I was admitted to several other schools, went on visits, and made a final choice because I had long ago given up on ever getting a response from this program) I get a rejection letter from Purdue's BME department, in which they tout themselves as being a "highly selective" program. Maybe I'm just being sensitive, but doesn't that seem a bit tacky to you all? I mean, I'm quite aware that they're selective. No need to rub in the fact that I didn't meet their high standards. The other outright rejections I got were much more gracious and prompt. The last paragraph of the letter made very little sense to me. "Please note that because admissions is a confidential process we are not able to provide you any feedback about your evaluation. Therefore we ask that you not contact the Weldon School to ask for any information about your application or your review. " Er...yes, but it's my application, what's in there that can't be shown to ME? It sounds to me like their way of blowing off applicants yet again. "Don't call us, we'll call you." Why not just say, "We are too busy to waste our time helping you?" I guess any letter beats the complete lack of a response from Case Western. Still, I hope a paper copy is coming so I can burn it out of sheer malice. Overall I am very happy with my final choice, but this was just so inconsiderate. Thanks for letting me rant.

I wouldn't be this worried about moving if it weren't for the new couch, coffee table, and bedroom suite I just purchased last year. I LOVE this furniture and will really need it at the new place. Everything else I could move myself with the help of family. Right now I'm calling around for estimates on professional moving. I'm also considering U-Haul-ing it and hiring some locals to help move the heavy furniture. I'll have to get a friend or family member to help me drive the truck, though...I don't really see myself driving a 14' truck down the interstate.

I'm living off-campus in an apartment. I don't think I could go back to living on-campus after being out in the "real world" for a year. What about you?

Yeah, I would not even be thinking about it if I were living solely on my grad student stipend. My soon-to-be husband has a "real job." He and I have talked about buying a house. The area is very affordable and we are both tired of apartment living. But things just seem so unstable these days and property taxes in the area are ridiculous. We decided to wait a while and see if the market bottoms out. Plus I think we need time to educate ourselves a bit more on the ins and outs of homebuying/home ownership before we can even call a realtor. I would stay away from the adjustable rate mortgages. They seem like a good way to get into BIG trouble from everything I am hearing on the news.

UndraftedFreeAgent - Already got the great winter coat! I snagged it on a clearance sale (it was originally $300 - I got it for $125) and had a chance to give it a test run on my visit up thereI love it - it's lined with Thinsulate so it's very warm without being bulky at all. I have good boots and leather gloves, too. As far as hats - I crochet, so I make all my own hats. And thank you for your posts in the South Bend thread, they were very helpful!

*waves hi* I never noticed this thread...I guess it got buried pretty quick. I'm going to ND in the fall to start work on an engineering Ph.D. Any other future Domers around here? Is anyone else worried that the winter in South Bend is going to give them major depression? I'm from the South where we don't have much of a winter at all. I can get used to snow, but I'm afraid the lack of daylight combined with the stresses of a grad program will affect my mood. I may be getting one of those "fake sunlight" lamps.

Hey, I wouldn't knock Cornell BME, they have a good reputation too. My friend is a first-year Ph.D. student at Cornell and is liking it so far. If you want to do anything nanotech or materials science-related in particular, it's a good place. As far as your questions, I'd strongly suggest emailing current grad students in both departments. Most are happy to share their experiences with you and will probably be able to help you out. Also, if it's at all possible to visit, you should do so.

Sorry, I can't tell you too much about rankings in civil engineering, since I'm in biomedical engineering. I think Pitt is a good school, but I really don't know too much about it. Pittsburgh is definitely a much bigger city. In any case, ranking isn't as important as how well the research in their department fits with your interests. Location isn't totally unimportant either. It takes years to finish a Ph.D. and you don't want to be somewhere you absolutely hate. You just have to figure out where you'll be happy spending 5-7 years and take ALL factors into account - location, reputation, research and advisor fit. Only you know what is best for you. Browse the forums and look at the Applied Sciences postings and the City Guide. The City Guide forum has threads on both West Lafayette (Purdue) and Pittsburgh. If you're getting funded for a master's at Purdue, I think that's VERY good. Funding for a master's is hard to come by, even in engineering.

IVYDream: What "better" offers are you looking at? I definitely don't think you should turn up your nose at Purdue just because it's in the middle of nowhere. It is very well recognized in all areas of engineering. You may find that the research there and the reputation of the school outweigh the drawbacks of being in a more rural area. And trust me, Lafayette, Indiana is NOT anywhere near as rural as some places I have lived. I consider it to be a nice small town, myself. If you are an international student I can understand you being concerned about needing a car to get around. It's true that Wal-Mart and grocery stores are definitely not within walking distance. But there are TONS of international students there at Purdue - they must all manage somehow, right? There are a lot of us who would have loved to get an offer of admission and full ride from Purdue! Good luck with your choice.

This thread is for biomedical engineering, not mechanical engineering. Please stop spam posting!

Got my rejection letter from BU today. Not a surprise...I'm actually feeling grateful to them for delivering the blow. Someone posted that Purdue is sending notifications this week as well. I hope they send my rejection soon. I suspected it was imminent but it will be nice to actually know.

I was up there looking for apartments/houses with my fiance back in January (he got a job in the area). There probably are charming neighborhoods in South Bend but we didn't find them. We were so pressed for time, having only a weekend there in SB, that we were basically forced to limit ourselves to the generic, dreary apartment complexes. I would have preferred a house or loft much like what you describe but we just couldn't find anything like that on short notice. Either they were already rented out or the people who had Craigslist ads for houses didn't return our phone calls. Elkhart is supposed to be nice, though we didn't go all the way out there. I would advise going up there in person, if you can. I was expecting your typical quaint Indiana small town, but there are some areas that are not-so-nice. (It was rather...interesting to drive through one of the neighborhoods near campus and recognize Vice Lords gang symbols graffitied on some of the houses...) Maybe a current student can chime in with specific locations?

I think that native English speakers also need to be sensitive to the fact that we have a lot of international students on this board. It seems to me that a lot of these students are sincere and really want information about American grad programs that they can't get in their native countries. I hope that none of them would be dissuaded from posting because their English grammar and spelling is less than perfect. Do I find the text-speak and excessive use of "u" annoying? Yeah, but not enough to get my panties in a bunch over it. And I'm a lot more understanding of it if it's coming from someone for whom English is not a first language.

Ha, I'm doing the same thing. Right now I'm paranoid that I've offended a potential advisor at a top choice school because of wording my emails too casually. He was very friendly and asked me to call him by his first name, and now I'm scared that I've been too familiar and made too many assumptions. This whole process has everyone fraught with anxiety. Relax and take a deep breath. (I will attempt to take my own advice.)

UndraftedFreeAgent and thundersaber1985 - thanks for the tips! I'm going for a visit at the end of the month and am looking forward to exploring South Bend. Hopefully the snow will have melted by then, although I'm not holding my breath.

I've gotten a reject from Northwestern - I think I angsted about that a few pages back in the thread. I've been accepted to UAB, Tufts, Minnesota, and Notre Dame. Not a bad haul, I'm honestly OK with it especially since my app was good but not super awesome and I didn't have any illusions of getting into top 25 schools. (Getting into Minnesota was a really nice surprise.) I just want to know for sure because the suspense is killing me!

I have to say, I think that's very strange how BU reviews applications in "waves". What if you have someone who's pretty good in the first group, and you admit them, then by the time you get to the last group you find someone who's even better but there are no slots left for them? Presumably they have some sort of quota...I shouldn't even speculate, but I wonder how that works. I guess they have to have SOME systematic way of reviewing those hundreds of applications. Case does seem to be really slow, but I'm very confused by the fact that they sent me an email on Jan. 22 saying my application "was favorably reviewed" and that they were "finalizing invitations" to the visit day in February...and then nothing. That was the world's biggest tease. I just emailed Carol asking about my application status. We'll see what the reply is. Meh, I just wish they would all send me my stinkin' rejection letter already. :evil:

I wonder at what point do you just write off "no reply" as a rejection? I've still heard nothing from BU, though it seems like they're still sending out both acceptances and rejections. Nothing from Purdue yet either - I emailed Jennifer last month and she said they would keep admitting through the end of March. I know it's still early March, but this thread seems fairly dead and there are very few new results for biomedical engineering. Oh yes, nothing from Case Western either. After that cryptic email suggesting I might be invited to their visit day, I never heard a peep.

I did a summer internship with a professor in CEMS at Minnesota. The department is pretty big and diverse (I was in a lab doing molecular simulation work and we were across the hall from people in the biomedical area, to give you an idea), so I think you'll have no problem finding a faculty member who fits your interests. I don't know about how supportive the environment is, since I was only an undergrad intern there for 10 weeks, but the grad students I encountered all seemed to be fairly happy. Faculty and staff were OK - polite, but not as friendly as in other places I've been. That's very subjective, though, so don't take my word for it. Minneapolis/St. Paul is a great place to live, but keep in mind I was there during the summer when the weather was pleasant and mild. I don't know much about either of the other two schools, but I know UIUC is in a rural area, so if you really need to be in a big city it's probably not for you. You may have better luck posting this query in the City Guide forum. You should be able to find information about Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Champaign-Urbana over there.

This letter is made of win. I wish I had the guts to send this to one of my schools that's really pissed me off...but I don't want to burn any bridges, blah blah.

Can anyone recommend good restaurants and other fun things to do in South Bend? For example, local coffeehouses, brewpubs, and places to listen to live music (if there are any). Is there a decent Asian grocery in town? (I love cooking Chinese and Thai food, but unfortunately the really good ingredients are rarely found in mainstream grocery stores.)

I never attended Purdue, but I did an REU there one summer, so maybe I can shed some light. Most of the areas immediately around campus seemed fairly undergrad-ridden, particularly Chauncey Hill. Some of the other interns and I subleased an apartment from Basham Rentals. I would recommend them, they were very prompt in responding to maintenance requests and the girl we subleased from said that Basham was one of the better landlords in the area. Unfortunately I think most of their properties were in the aforesaid undergrad-ridden areas. It was fairly dead in the summer but I imagine when school is in session and 40,000+ students are there it's very different. I know some grad students do live just across the river in downtown Lafayette. You might want to look into renting a house with other grad students, too. Housing prices are very affordable and some of the grad students said they could even buy a house out in the suburbs. My undergrad university was in a VERY small town, so I didn't think West Lafayette was all that bad in terms of things to do. A lot of the other interns seemed to hate it though, especially the chick from Miami...Indiana in general is quite rural and not all that diverse, so some people don't like that aspect of it. If you love urban areas and need a constant supply of new fun things to do, it's not for you. Hoosiers do like their food though, so there are bunches of tasty restaurants around campus and across the river in Lafayette, and you can actually get some decent ethnic food too. We always used to go to Hookah on Thursday nights for salsa dancing. WL is the last place on earth you'd expect to find a hookah bar, but it's a fun experience even if you're like me and hate cigarette smoking. If you want to get away, Indianapolis is only an hour's drive on the interstate. If you're a music lover, it seems like a lot of major acts come through Indy. If Indy is still not urban enough for you, Chicago is a 2-3 hour drive, making for a convenient weekend getaway. People may try to take you to Harry's Chocolate Shop when you visit. It's sort of a campus institution, but I hate super-crowded bars where I'm pressing against 500 sweaty strangers, so I found it highly overrated. Wabash Yacht Club is another enormous dive bar beloved by undergrads. Do go to Triple XXX and eat their breakfast - it's great! (The Triple XXX is a reference to root beer, not exotic dancing.)

Just out of curiosity, has anyone heard back from BU yet? I know the odds are not in my favor but a yes/no answer would be nice...

Hi 1234567, I think whoever emailed you may have been mixed up, because I was told that March 28-29 was the biomaterials/TE weekend. I haven't gotten a confirmation email yet, but I'm hoping to hear a definite answer this week. I'm interested in biomimetic materials and biocompatibility.

Thanks all for the good wishes. I really needed the lift after not getting a positive response from Purdue. I can't say that I know much about how UMN does their admissions, but I'm sure they will be continuing to call people. I'm sure that with the visiting weekends so late, it'll be hell on the waitlisted folks. If I decide to go somewhere else, I'll let them know ASAP for everyone's sake. And yes...Minneapolis is an awesome city. I actually did an internship there one summer. I'm a little biased because I have never experienced snow there, though. Cost of living is a bit high, but I think it's definitely way better than Boston or New York. There's so much fun stuff to see and do, and I loved the variety of neighborhoods in the city. It's very diverse for the Midwest. I'm not expecting much from BU. That application was a bit half-hearted on my part anyway, and the odds are not good. I still want to know who the heck got the rejection letter, though.