RiffRam

Hello Heimat! Congrats on your acceptance to the U of I! I am a fellow Texan, so I felt compelled to respond to your post! The job market in Iowa City is pretty good when compared to the nation as a whole. The state has a very low unemployment rate, I want to say I saw a statistic that noted it was around 3-4%. My wife accompanied me when I chose to attend Iowa, and she has had no problem in the job market (she's a medical coder). Homes here are much more expensive than a standard home in TX. Being a college town definitely plays into the hands of the market, but if you look around, you will be able to find something that suits your needs. My wife and I were able to find a 3/2 duplex with a large back yard for $825/month; whereas, one of my colleagues found a 1/1 apartment for nearly $1K. You just have to be willing to dig through all of the listings, and being in the city to just drive around and look for "For Rent" signs helps a ton. When we moved from Fort Worth, we signed a sublease for the summer, which allowed us to drive around the city to find our current space. To buy, homes run well into the $200K plus range, and it is far less than what you could get for that amount in TX. I hope this was of some help to you!

I think mine is around 10. I only know for sure that 3 are American, and the rest are a mixture of Comparative/IR.

When I took my visit last month, the only thing I kept hearing was to avoid living downtown. Most students also said they lived west or east of campus, and a couple lived in Coralville.

Congrats, and best of luck!

This made me laugh! Just to clarify, Texas is NOT the South. Texas is Texas, and there is a difference. And having grown up in Austin, there is definitely not a big racism problem. The only "racist" part of the state is probably East Texas. You'll enjoy your time in Austin. Have a purple margarita at Baby A's for me, and a Mexican Martini at Trudy's!

Forgot to mention the happy dance my daughter and I did following the call.

I was rolling around on the floor playing with my daughter. I had given up hope because I had started seeing acceptances for half of the schools I applied to in the previous 2 days. I swore off grad cafe for the day, and was enjoying the day. Then suddenly, my phone rings. I looked down at it, and it was a number I didn't recognize. Then I see under the number it says Iowa City, IA. I immediately started hyperventilating and ran to get my daughter a snack so she wouldn't disturb the call!

He didn't tell me the title, but said it's a book that he read prior to starting grad school. He said it helped him tremendously, so hopefully it'll have the same effect on me! It was also nice to meet you Hawkeye78! Apparently I remembered exactly who you were when I described you to Lemeard! lol

This! My POI is actually sending me a book to brush up on some Stats. Also, it was nice meeting you the other weekend!

After I received my acceptance from UIowa, my ISIS still said "In Progress" for like a week afterward, so it's not very reliable. If the history dept is anything like the PoliSci dept, they make offers by phone.

Officially turned down a funded offer from Arizona. Will be turning down offers from Florida (wait listed for funding) and Arizona State (no funding info) once I figure out how to do so.

Officially headed to the University of Iowa w/ full funding. Stoked!

hah! Really? What's his name?

Now that I've taken my visits, I can say with some confidence that I will be attending Iowa in the fall.

lol This times one thousand. Everyone thinks I should go to ASU because they are " close to Phoenix" instead of Iowa City, Tucson, or Gainesville (which are all apparently too far from civilization and not worth a look). And to top it off, upon hearing the news that I received a research fellowship at one of the schools I've been accepted to (that happens to be a 15 hour drive from home), my mom had responded that I'm "slowly killing" her. Thanks for the congratulations, mom!