DerpTastic

Do you mean awards that you won but personally declined, or awards then you didn't win?

Holy shit, I now love that song. I would love the sheet music for violin.

I think the first three words, "Overlarge, uneven, and ultimately disappointing" might be the deciding factor in the reasoning.

We have about 8k students total. I'm not sure of the actual numbers, but from past years the graduating class size seems to always be around 900-950. (Which isn't too low compared to the 8k total, since we graduate somewhere around 500 in the fall too). Possibly up to 1000 this year, as they ran out of extra tickets for people. I had figured, assuming each person takes about 5 seconds, and a couple extra for in between videos, we can probably get 8-9 students a minute. It's still nearly two hours of names. I went to my sister's graduation at Penn State a few years ago, and her boyfriend at the time. They broke their's up into different days based on majors, although I still think they had over 1,000 on each day! It was interesting to see which were looped together. He was on the engineering day, but they looped a few in like computer science and physics. My sister's had a whole grab bag of random things like hotel management, restaurant management, education, nursing... and so on.

I think I would try any beer at 50 cents a can. (I'm classy that way )

I agree that for an MA you've probably made a fine choice. You have funding, and even though the other is more money, it shouldn't be a huge factor in your decision making! It may have put you on slightly shakey ground with the school you retracted your acceptance from. I think you will be plenty happy.

"Things" is a pretty vague word, but I was wondering if your school has any weird things they do for graduation that most schools don't? I had a friend on facebook from another school who mentioned having a yearbook. I found that odd, as to me, that seems like such a strictly high school and below thing. There are so many more students in college! That book would be huge. Additionally, at our graduation commencement, we actually go a couple weeks in early, they put you in a graduation gown and record a video of you saying your major, hometown, and major. They play these videos on a screen during commencement while you walk, instead of reading your name. I had to record mine today. And off-topic from college graduations, I had a 5th grade (elementary school) and 8th grade (middle school) graduation ceremony. Someone told me today they found that unusual.

I'm not alone! Cheap beer. <3 I'm not a huge fan of Miller, but Budweiser and Rolling Rock are two of my go to beers.

I think even retaking it and getting an A would still show up as a red flag. They'll want to know why you got an F in the first place. Is there some reason you are struggling this semester but wouldn't next semester? (Just curious!) Medical schools can be incredibly competitive, so I wouldn't bank on retaking it and thinking it won't affect it. They'll be able to see grades, not just GPA. I'm not sure a 3.1 would be considered very high for core class GPA. I'm not sure coming from a top 50 school would change the fact. There are a lot of students that are applying from good schools. :s I have a friend who is having a hard time getting in medical school (biochem/physics dual as undergrad, MS in bioengineering from top notch school, decent GPA for both). It can be quite a challenge to get in. :c

Your dog is ADORABLE.

Good luck to all still waiting!

I'm not sure why you got downvoted for this one, I love me some pokemonz.

The only one on that list was that I knew I was going to college. (Just because my family almost never made me believe not going was an option). My GPA in high school was actually somewhere around 0.2 lower, and I did generally all homework the day it was due, in the period before it was due. I've sort of lost that bad habit.

I will be attending U of A in the fall! Very excited. I was also kind of wondering about the bug problem. I've heard about the bugs and roaches as well. Is this a huge problem for most people?

Previous experience doesn't need to be at a graduate school. Many students can learn skills in either labs or research under profs (you may not have done this one, but I assume you have had labs). It could also be in classes, but a lab/research based experiences might be better? Once again, you don't really need to have done research to answer this. You have to have picked up some skills or abilities along the way. Even being able to think about problems in a different way, or anything. Even traits you have that are beneficial can be mentioned. As long as you don't try to make this sound like you're the only one in the world who has these traits and that no one even comes close, you're probably fine. You'd probably have to type something and have people critique it. No one can really tell you what to say without any idea of what you're thinking of saying. For the last one, you just need to stress how you'd be a valuable grad student to them. I would suggest being pretty specific, as most people can answer this with, "well I'm pretty smart." I would aim this at how you would help with research projects specifically, as that's really what they're looking for? That one is pretty tough and this answer is probably pretty worthless. xP Overall, I would suggest giving some kind of an answer and having people critique it. Either people you know or pm some people on here.

I almost always send a thank you email. It would seem weird to give someone advice, and then they just disappear. Makes me wonder if they got the email, haven't read it, don't like the advice... Who knows.

I could see this if the salary difference was comparing something like 25k to 60k, but I think OP is comparing 80k to 140k. I honestly don't think 80k would make it a struggle to settle down and live comfortably.

This statement kind of confuses me. Tattoos are for people to express themselves, or really do whatever the heck they please. To say, "you can express yourself with pictures, but not words," just seems odd. Why can't you put words on a canvas? Also, on topic, some of my favorite tattoos are biology ones where it looks like the muscle or bone in whatever body part the tattoo is. The ones that look really realistic are pretty sweet looking. (Although it's a little too creepy for me to get, I don't really like the idea of blood and muscles and stuff, to look at a reminder on my body every day would give me the heebie jeebies.) Also, I really found that book by Carl Zimmer very interesting! I would love to look through the entire book.

Have you take generally all of the physics classes that are on the physics GRE? You will be up against, for the most part, only physics majors, so you will have to be really prepared for it. I kind of doubt it would help it that much. You could always take a practice test, treat it like a real test, and see how you do.

Good luck Scarfy! :C Luckily there's still about a month before April 15th, so there's still time to have it work out.

It's really odd that you didn't get in anywhere with a resume that good. I agree with Geodude and TakeruK, there has to be something that just isn't clicking. I would also be interested your relationship with your LOR writers. I assume they were research advisors, did you get along? It's hard to tell about the SOP without reading it. :S

People have been constantly confusing University of Rochester with RIT. I tell them I was accepted at or visiting at Uni of Rochester, and they're like, RIT? Nope.... Uni of Rochester... like I said. >.>

I have a semester of withdrawals due to health reasons. I missed a lot of school, and came back and dropped one of my classes. I tried to finish out the semester, but it was just too much with everything that was going on. I withdrew, which left me with a semester with one W and about 4 WP's (withdraw-pass). Our school has a policy where if you drop past the withdraw date they state whether you were failing or passing when you dropped. I explained it in my SOP, but only used about a sentence. It didn't seem to really effect my results. You seem to have a strong application, and health reasons are usually a good explanation for withdrawals. I wouldn't worry too much. At this point, it is out of your hands anyway.

It's very possible that this was the only section available, or it was the only section with a time slot that worked for his/her schedule. There have been TONS of times I have scheduled and even if there were three or more sections, only one fit in my schedule. There's not way you can assume that they could have without getting that information directly from the student.

It sounds like something possibly happened at the interviews (as previous people already mentioned). Since your background was biochemistry and you applied to biophysics, how strong is your background in physics? Did you take extra physics classes?