Aquakneek

Well, cat_2011, its a great place to live! Mountains are easy access and yet theres stuff to do in town. People are friendly. I dont know where in Colorado youre going so I cant recomend anyplace to live, but I wish you luck! As for Louisiana, I would be studying on a medical campus and there is no graduate housing and my boyfriend is coming with me. Im not sure that I have the money to go visit at the moment...so I might have to rely on current grad students. Thanks! And I posted this here because it says something in the description about relocating and renting and such. If it should be somewhere else, please let me know. If anyone knows the area or has other thoughts, please say so!

I have never lived outside of Colorado before and am now considering a move to Shreveport, Louisiana for grad school. Anyone have any tips on the area? Also, what should I consider in moving across the country? How do I rent an apartment when I cant go see it?

I am writing this for the people who struggled some during undergrad. I had one horrible semester, failed a few classes, and dropped my GPA pretty badly. I had good reason (health), but it still looked bad on paper. I also started as pre-professional rather than pre-research and so I didnt start research until my last year. My GRE scores, with the exception of one, are really average. I still applied to grad school. I got interest from 3 out of the 6 I applied to and have definitly been accepted to one, possibly two. I had a 3.1 overall GPA, one year of research, and lower GRE scores. Its possible to get in. Granted, I worked my butt off in my last two years of undergrad to get higher GPAs and I know my stuff when it comes to my research. I got excellent letters of recomendation by fostering relationships with professors. I also didnt apply to schools like Berkeley, Stanford, or Yale. The programs that called me were still good programs with great research going on. You dont need Ivy league and you dont need top ten to be a good scientist, you need realism and a program that fits you. If youre doing badly or are afraid of your imperfections, do what you can to work on them and excel in other areas. Apply to schools that are reasonable that you like and the right school will call you. Take a breath, its ok. I wish someone with my kind of resume had said this when I began applying, it would have saved some sleepless nights.

If so, where did you apply and where have you been accepted? What are you looking at for your programs? Ive applied to University of Utah, Colorado State University, CU-Denver, and Louisiana State for PhDs. Ive been accepted at LSU and pending acceptence from CSU and am trying to decide between the two. If you know anything, let me know. Otherwise, Im curious about where others applied. Thanks!

So, I have been accepted very quickly and unanimously to Louisiana State university Health Sciences Center and had an interview with CSU (Colorado State) last week. I applied to PhD programs in microbiology in both and both are respectable programs. They have very different research (which all interests me) and distinctly different course schedules. LSU is expecting an answer near the beginning of this week but I wont hear from CSU till the end of this week. I am pretty torn between the two and both have several benefits to them. Any advice on ettiquete in this situation as far as holding off LSU for an extra couple of days? Also, I would apperciate anyone in either program telling me about their experiences. Thanks!