ASzofer

Ugh a whole business day with no news. :-/ I need a drink.

I haven't even got the Financial Aid email!! Damn it. My stuff must not be there.

I just wish they'd let us know!!!!

I wish I'd hear about funding from Vandy!! That would sure make things nicer! And I wish I slept in. I'm dog sitting and my parents' dogs woke me up extra early. Just more time to keep checking me email and hyperventilating.

I would have voted that one up too...

I tried to vote up your comment, but was told I have reached my positive quota for the day. Apparently, they do not want me to share the love.

Haha I know! None of the other threads seem to be this full of anxiety.

Ugh, not good! I mean, at least at Visit Day it sounded like most people do find their way into great assistantships and internships even through summer and the beginning of the school year so even if we don't get the ones we interviewed for, there seems to be a good chance of finding something. I don't know that they will let us know if we receive no aid though, so as people get scholarships and such, it would be nice for them to let us know as it might be the only way we learn we aren't getting aid.

Personally, location was huge for me, not just in making decisions, but in sending applications. For example, I decided not to apply to Michigan because even though they have a great program, I did not want to leave Chicago for Ann Arbor for two years. I really wanted to be in a city. I figure that wherever I go to school, there is a good chance I will be making connections in that state, which is part of why I like Vanderbilt. Because Nashville is the state capitol and I am going into policy, they have a lot of great opportunities linked with the state government. If I am going to end up outside of Chicago, there are only a select few locations I am interested in living. None of the great schools in Chicago offer my specific program. Weather isn't a real factor, but looking out at this blizzard and then checking that it's supposed to be 70 in Nashville this weekend... well it's certainly not a factor working against Vandy . Still waiting to hear from a couple of programs though - hopefully soon!!!

How fun is that???!!!! I love it! I plan to make a slow cooker meal today. It's blizzarding here in Chicago so I took a personal snow day. Snow is a lot better when you're looking at it out the window than driving an hour to and from work in it. (That's an hour without snow... God knows what it would be today). Nashville is looking really good right now... haha.

Well I haven't heard anything either so either neither of us got aid or they haven't released information yet. I am living on these forums just waiting to hear decisions about so many things!!!! I was told I would hear about a grad assistantship I interviewed for when I was down for visitation day by the end of last week and I still haven't heard. The suspense is killing me. I want the position so bad and the interview went really well - they spoke very positively about the likelihood of me getting it, but now I'm nervous that they were just being nice. AHHHhhhh. I want to know! And I want money!! Haha.

I still don't understand where you would actually see the status. I mean mine says it has my materials, but that is all. Nowhere to put a PIN or anything...

I'm stuck here snowed in with no working Internet (ready to scream at every Comcast employee). But the result is I am glued to my phone making it refresh my email every minute as though they'd ever send the decisions at 8 am.

Hahaha. I think tomorrow is going to require some definite drinking either way as well.

I did and I am also awaiting the decision. I agree with what a few others have said in that I have not been impressed with their admission correspondence when compared with say, Vanderbilt and Harvard, both of which have been immediately responsive and helpful throughout the process. I feel like I sent TC this application back in December and cut off ties with them or something. I will say that being in NYC for edu policy is probably a great advantage just in terms of the connections you could make to internships and such, but that being said, I am pretty sure I will be going to Vanderbilt unless I get into Harvard, and then I will have a big decision to make.

Ah yes! Sorry!!! Didn't mean to confuse. The Vandy grad assistantship I interviewed for two weeks ago. Do HSGE grad assistantships even exist? I was told almost all positions go to PhD candidates.

Wow... in one day I missed a whole lot of posts!! I have not heard about my financial aid status - I just faxed my W2s yesterday and really hope they got them. I have literally checked my email every three minutes or so today. It's getting ridiculous. And I still haven't heard about the graduate assistantship and they told me they hoped to let me know by the end of last week. I'm dying over here! I also agree that my heart stopped when I saw the HSGE newsletter email. I'm going to be a crazy person tomorrow. To comment on all of the discussions about clothes from yesterday, I actually feel like it's easier to dress nice in the cold than when it's hot out. I am a big fan of tights under knee-length skirts and long-sleeved shirts with a pretty scarf. As a Chicago resident and teacher, I have to dress for winter every day, but it doesn't deter me from wearing nice shoes even. I mean, if it's blizzarding and I have to scrape my car or something, I throw on some boots and switch to heels later, but for the most part, I just trust my ever-accumulating collection of coats and scarves. And generally, I just wear darker colors than spring and summer. Burgandies, purples, greys, blacks, etc. I can't believe it's almost March 5!! (watch us not hear tomorrow and then we'll have no clue what day to wait for!)

I'm actually visiting India this summer. I'm looking forward to it! Trying to cram as much as possible into 10 days, which is probably really difficult. I have some friends in Hyderabad that I will be meeting during the last part of my trip before I fly to Bangkok and spend another 10 days in Thailand. You know, so that I can come home a month before I move somewhere! Yikes. Probably bad planning both time wise and financially, but I figure I'm going to have really busy summers after this so now was the last chance I'd get. Sometimes I think I am posting on this forum just to have a connection to HSGE and my application haha. I don't actually have anything to say. The anticipation is killing me and every time I have a conversation with someone about Vanderbilt, I have to be like "Well... I'm still waiting to hear back from Harvard, so I can't be sure of where I am going at all..." On top of it, I was supposed to get confirmation of whether or not I've been given a graduate assistantship by the end of last week and instead they choose to keep me on their toes! Woe is me! (JK. I will survive). Two more days! (We think and hope).

Hahaha Literal Laugh Out Loud CQE. And oh Stephen Colbert... how much I love thee.

Oooh you got an apartment already?? That's one of the things I'm nervous about is figuring out where to live from so far away and not knowing much about housing there. Is your apartment downtown, right by Vandy or a bit farther off? I was thinking it might be a good idea to find a place that was like 10 minutes away since I'll have a car and it's way cheaper but it would sure be nice to live right by downtown.

I haven't heard anything about aid yet either for MPP. I really want to go though so I'm definitely hoping something comes through. Also, no kidding about eating your way through the weekend OhLaLaSam! I felt like my SWEATPANTS were tight on the way home!!!

I totally agree! I get excited to see what others on here are posting because people in my real life don't exactly care about this and don't understand how jittery I am trying to get things straightened out! At least we should know soon!

Just got rejected from Stanford (not surprising as I sort of half-assed the application and definitely like Vandy more). I assume that means HSGE is just a few moments (or days) away... right?

I would say that if you cannot write a strong letter of recommendation, and the student cannot find someone who can, maybe that student doesn't belong in graduate school - which would be the exact purpose of the LOR in the first place. Graduate school is not for everyone and if the student has not shown you that they are capable of success in a graduate level program, then maybe it would be best for them to try other career options. A friend of mine was recently lamenting that he would not be able to get into a top MBA program because they care about GPA - well, yeah, don't drink yourself through undergrad if you want an academic future. As far as the Apple situation goes, I recently had my hard drive replaced and the Genius Bar representatives walked me through every step of the process and warned me that if I needed a day to take my computer home and back everything up that I should. I highly doubt Apple wiped his hard drive clean without his approval. Maybe that's a tough love approach, but I feel there is a reason students with strong LOR should get in - they worked harder and will be better fit. I have dealt with the same thing as a high school teacher writing letters for high school students trying to get into undergraduate programs. Just because I have liked many students as individuals, did not mean they were successful in my class, or that I honestly believed they would succeed in the programs they were applying to. In these cases, I simply told the student that I did not have enough honest information to write them a strong letter and that they should seek someone who might be more familiar with their strengths.

I got in and am about 95% sure I'm going. I won't make a final decision until I hear something about financial aid. It seems like a lot of students get some level of assistance at least. Does anyone know how it works if you get a scholarship AND an assistantship? Like if you get a Dean's 1/3 scholarship and an assistantship that pays 2/3 tuition plus stipend, do you get to go to school for free? I like free.