expressionista

I received an email that I was waitlisted for architecture almost exactly 1 month ago. It said they should have final decisions within 2 weeks, and I still haven't heard anything (nor has anyone else, from what I've found online).

I'm kind of in the same boat, although I don't have a job offer (yet). I'm currently an interior designer (but working a non-interior design job for the past year due to geography/family issues), and I've applied for architecture programs. I'm still waiting to hear from my two main ones (was rejected from the one I always knew I'd be rejected from), but I've started re-thinking how much I really want to go back to architecture. I'm free to move now, so I could get an interior design job and remain a designer, spending the next three years working, making money, and getting experience, or I could go to school and increase my debt for the next three years and then start out as an entry-level architect. It's a tough call. I think I'd RATHER be an architect, but I also like being an interior designer, and I don't know if the change is really worth the added expense and time (I'm already 30).

It looks like I may actually hear from 2 schools this week. One says they're sending out all admissions decisions by the end of this week, and the other one actually has an acceptance posted now on the results page (the first result posted for any of the 4 programs I applied to). This is making me even more anxious than I already was. It doesn't help that the one school I feel certain I won't get into is the one that's sending all decisions this week, and the other one is definitely the second most competitive of the four I applied to, so it's highly likely I'll end up with 2 rejections to start things out with. Based on last year's results, I may not hear from my other two (less competitive) programs until April.

Oh man, definitely March 13! May 13 would be horrible! I keep mixing up March and May (like, this is probably the 10th time I've done it in writing already this month). I think it's because I'm so ready for it to be May already.

One of the schools I applied to has said several times (on their website, in mass emails, in personal emails, etc.) that they will send admissions decisions by March 13, which is next Saturday, but they're also on spring break all week. Based on previous years' admissions results, it looks like they will actually stick to this deadline, so I guess that means someone is working this week.

I took pre-calculus a month or two before I took my GRE, and I found it helpful. I hadn't taken a math class in 12 years, so it was most helpful for me just to get back into the mode of like factoring equations, dealing with exponents, etc (all things I had done before, but just hadn't practiced in ages). I wouldn't have taken it just for the purpose of GRE prep, but it did help me with that.

My sister got around 1100 on her GRE and didn't get in to any programs the year she applied (I think she applied to 4 and was waitlisted at 1 and totally rejected at 3). She was a communication sciences and disorders majors with around a 3.0 gpa, and she had a year of graduate education classes with like a 3.9 gpa in those. While I think you could be fine with your score and GPA combo, Speech Language Pathology programs are really quite difficult to get into, so I do think the higher the better. Because it's a professional program, it's also not really the same as a lot of the programs people on this board apply to (phds, humanities, etc.) where "fit" and the statement of purpose are sooooo important.

I agree with most of what Medievalmaniac said about Raleigh, although I don't necessarily think it has a higher cost of living than Norfolk. Well, maybe compared to Norfolk it's high, but most people seem to think Raleigh's cost of living is very low (I see it on a lot of low cost of living lists). 3 years ago, I paid $585 a month for a nice one bedroom apartment. I could have paid less in an older development. I love Raleigh, and I've also applied to NCSU. It can be a very spread out area because it has grown so much in the past 30 years so the suburbs have really grown outward in all directions, but the NC State area is in the old part of the city ("inside the beltline"), which is more compact. I love all of the pretty trees in Raleigh (this sounds kind of silly, but they really do just have tons of beautiful trees there), and I really like its size- not as big as Atlanta or the DC area, but big enough to still have plenty of good restaurants and shopping. It's a great area for college and graduate students too because there are so many colleges and universities in the area. If you end up going to school there and/or have any more questions, feel free to send me a message.

I've never lived in Norfolk, only visited (several times though), so I'm totally not an expert and haven't seen everything it has to offer, but I'm personally not a big fan of it. I feel like the military presence is very strong, and in general, I just don't think it's a very pretty city. I like a few small neighborhoods or individual streets (places I think previous posters have mentioned), but I feel like the city overall has an industrial/military feel. I see you've been accepted to NCSU and are applying to UCSD- I've lived in both of those cities, and I like them both about five million times more than Norfolk. That being said, I still like Norfolk more than plenty of other cities too. No offense to Norfolk fans, but I just wanted to give my alternate opinion.

St. Elmo's Fire is actually set around Georgetown. I love that movie!

Some programs just don't do interviews, so no, this does not mean you're being rejected. Generally speaking, science programs tend to do interviews, but in the humanities, interviews are uncommon.

I don't consider Raleigh a pain to drive in at all. I've lived in Raleigh, southern California, and northern VA, and of those three, Raleigh is by faaaaar the easiest city to drive in (least traffic, easiest directions, etc.). I'd say the biggest issue with driving in Raleigh is that there is truly a disproportionate number of really bad drivers in that area. Also, no one uses their turn signal. It does have a good bus system, but it's also a sprawling southeastern city, so it wasn't exactly made for people without cars. If you went to NC State and lived near campus, you could get around fine on public transportation though.

Some of the negative ones annoy me while I find others perfectly understandable. I think it's just the tone being disappointment vs bitterness and entitlement. This is my favorite result today: Ball State University Proctology, PhD (F10) Accepted via E-mail on 11 Feb 2010 A 11 Feb 2010 Yay! Bottoms up!

My plan B is to stay at my current job for a few months while living with my parents (I'm currently in the process of selling my house so I don't have a mortgage holding me down) so I can save some money while searching like crazy for a new job that is actually in or related to my degree and interests. This would also help give me related experience if I decide to re-apply next year. I'd quite possibly end up moving to one of the more urban areas in VA or NC. That doesn't really thrill me because I love my current small town, but if it's necessary to get a better job, I'll definitely do it.

I know at a school where I just interviewed, if you're in state and receive an assistantship, they reduce your tuition by half. If you're out of state, they reduce you from out of state to full in state tuition. So the out-of-state student would still pay more than the in-state, but the in-state student's discount is actually smaller, which makes them cheaper to the university.

The programs I'm hoping to go into just don't do full funding like most programs that people on this board seem to be going into (like phd programs). I'll be in grad school for 3 years. The first year, it's highly unlikely I'll get any funding. Years two and three, I should be able to get at least half my tuition paid with an assistantship, but that's about it. I could potentially get a rare fellowship or something, but I definitely can't count on that. Since I plan to work in the summers and hopefully take care of at least half my living expenses without loans, I'll probably end up with about 60k in debt when I finish. I currently have about 40k from undergrad, so I'll be at 100k total. It sucks, but when I start to panic I just think of my poor (literally and figuratively) cousin who just completed vet school and is now $250,000 in debt. Joro, I don't mean this as a critical question, but I just am truly curious as to how you plan on paying off $60000 in debt within a year of graduating? Perhaps I can use you as my loan repayment inspiration.

I don't think the standard 2 weeks notice applies to every job though. I've heard (from MBA students, business journals, etc.) that for lower/middle management positions, 3 weeks is appropriate, and upper management employees should give 4 weeks. When an upper management employee at my current company gave 2 weeks notice last year (he ended up staying with the company in the end), everyone flipped out and then made him sign some kind of agreement that if he ever quit again, he needed to give 4 weeks notice. I am fully in the camp of business being business, but I also know that my employer is going to panic when I give my notice because no one else in our company does my job and someone will have to be trained before I leave. If I give my notice 3 weeks in advance, I give them time to have me train someone on the basics, and I don't think there's any risk of them telling me to only stay for 2 more weeks. Now if I gave something like 8 weeks notice, that could be a different story.

I plan to give my notice approximately one month before I intend to stop working. I also have a job that has put a lot into training me and has like a ten year plan for me, so I want to give them quite a bit of notice. I don't want to tell them too soon though and risk having them tell me to go ahead and stop working immediately or something (I don't think they would do that, but you never know). However, once I am accepted to grad school (if I am) and sell my house, I'll feel more open about letting the secret out if needed (like if they try to send me off somewhere for training).

I submitted my first app in late August and my last app in early December. I probably won't hear back until at least March. So that would be 6-1/2 months or so.

I disagree with the statement that "verbal is just as important, if not more" based on what the admissions person said. You've acknowledged that you probably won't be considered with a quant score below 750, but you definitely don't need a 750 verbal score to be considered (I mean, maybe at the highest ranked program in the world or something, but not generally). He can say that they look at the verbal scores more and directly compare them more, but you still need that even higher quant score to just make it to the point where they're going to look at your verbal score.

loremipsum, what's your undergrad degree in? I couldn't tell if it was architecture or not by your post, but I'm curious!

I'm actually doing this soon, so I hope it's ok! I live about 40 minutes from one of the schools I applied to. They recommend coming for a visit, but it's not required. I would have gone in the fall before the application was due, but I wasn't able to go during the hours they're there, so I've scheduled it for later this month. I do feel kind of weird about it. Like what if they've already decided to accept or reject me? I wonder if they'll give me any idea.

A few comments: You could probably use more of an introductory sentence. You sort of just jump right in with the first sentence, and it seems kind of awkard. I think "under an alien sun" is totally corny. "Take up the cross" also strikes me as cliche. To be fair, I have a low tolerance for corniness. You used pretty extreme passive voice with "It was here that I was" and later "it was not until I read." I'm not 100% opposed to passive voice, but I don't think you used it effectively in these cases. A few words don't seem like they mean exactly what you want them to, and I would use something different. Examples: "strong basis in medieval history" (basis), "argument allowed me" (allowed), and maybe "in which to situate my interests" (situate). Some of your pronouns aren't complete clear in what they're referring to. For example, "they" at the beginning of your third sentence and "his" at the beginning of your second to last sentence. I mean, I understand what they're referring to, but I think the pronouns are too far from the nouns they're replacing to be used. I do think your overall subject matter is very good and this is improved from the original introducation you posted.

I'm paranoid about revealing too much too. I realize it's extremely unlikely that any admissions people are here trying to figure out who I am, but I still don't want to take that chance. For example, I have one school that I applied to that is absolutely my first choice school, but I wouldn't necessarily want them or the other schools I applied to to know that because I'm afraid it would sway their decisions on either admission or financial aid offers. Also, my employer doesn't know about my whole plan to quit working there in May to go to grad school (because I don't know yet if it will actually happen), so I worry that someone affiliated with my work (my boss's daughter, etc.) could be here and figure out who I am. My specific background is not common (I have a strange combination of degrees), and I really think anyone who knows me would figure out who I am if I posted the specifics of my previous schools. I'm also generally a private person, so there's that too.

For two of my four applications, I really don't feel like I personalized my personal statement enough towards those specific schools. They were the first two that I wrote, and I just wasn't thinking about it enough. On the plus side, I'm applying to professional masters' programs where fit isn't quite as big of a deal as for like a PhD or research-based degree. I also think my portfolio is way too short. I made it 10 pages because one of the schools I applied to had a 12 page limit, but then all of the other ones I've seen from people online are like 30-40 pages! I just really feel like 10 pages is enough, like if I added more, it would just be more of the same kind of stuff (plus I didn't include fillers like divider pages, blank front and back pages, etc. like I've seen a lot of people doing). Anyway, it stresses me out.