joro

I'm paying $15k per year, plan on being there for maybe 2 or 2 1/2 years. Living expenses will be about $700/month. I will be roughly $60k in debt. This is the cost for my dream school anyways.

If I attend in California, then I will not be in debt at all.

I will be doing whatever I can to pay for this and will be taking on summer internships. If I do summer internships, then I will probably be making $10k each summer. I expect to pay everything off my first year after graduating..

From my first choice - *looking at my portfolio* "Why on earth is he applying here? He doesn't even have a solid foundation of skills!!"

From schools I got into last year - "Oh, so now he's reapplying after we accepted him last year? We weren't good enough for you last year and you've decided to use us as your safety school, eh? REJECTED!!!"

From schools I got rejected to from last year - "How many times are we going to have to tell this guy no?"

From new schools I applied to - "A colleague of mine told me about this guy who applied to their school. Let's reject him too!! MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

Oh? Can you post that picture you found?

My facebook picture is what my profile picture here is, except bigger.

If you google my name only, then you'll come across:

-linkedin
-facebook (private)
-twitter (private, I don't use it though)
-research lab (where I worked for a year)
-a bunch of tournament pages for badminton (Nationals, State, etc.)

There's more, but that's just the first 2 pages.

You should have sat outside his office till he finished them. I really hope he pulls through for you.

First it depends on how fast your school takes to process your transcripts which I assume is a week. Then the time it takes to get to the school which I assume would be 3 days. Finally, the time it takes the school to process and enter your transcript into the system which is probably another week. I say it will take a little over 2 weeks, at least that's how long it took for my stuff.

Why did you send it only 10 days prior? Unless there was a very good reason to send it 10 days prior such as changes in the transcript, then you should have requested them a month before. Take care of what you can at your earliest convenience so that you won't run into problems like this around deadline.

I had a very weird dream about WashU and I woke up this morning with an email from them telling me that my application is almost complete with the exception of the 3rd LOR.

It took me a while to piece that together. I thought Texas T&A was a rival school, then you guys started to make it a bit more obvious and it finally clicked.

I'm just throwing this idea out there and I would totally understand if no one would be interested, but I was just thinking that it would be nice to meet some of you guys (those in my area anyways). It could be something to do to take our minds off decisions and to get us away from the computer.

Your admission isn't always in the Professors hands. Last year, I contacted a few Professors and they said that they would definitely take a look at my application after I get through the first round of admissions and that they don't choose students till they're accepted.

You don't need a laptop and I think it would be more distracting to use in class. I think you should go through the first couple of weeks without it and decide if you really need it. Although, this probably all depends on your major.

If you do decide on a tablet and you're a Mac person, I think there's one being released later this year.

I recently got sick again. I'm not falling asleep as easily anymore either.

I have gained an excessive amount of weight and got sick more times than I normally would.

I started applications last year. I was lean, a bit muscular, and athletic before the start of my applications. I am 5'10 and went from a size 32 waist (it was somewhat loose too) and now wear a size 36 (which is a bit tight). I am not exactly attracting the ladies now and I don't think I was before either.

Once I am over this whole missing LOR problem, I will get back to working out. I don't want to start grad school in an unhealthy state.

Since I don't have all 3 LORs submitted yet, I may only get schools emailing for me the 3rd LOR. Other than that I don't expect any emails till the end of January.

I wish it did...I'm still emailing and calling. My calls go straight to voice mail and my emails remain unanswered...next week I may show up at his office demanding an explanation...

I wish I knew this answer, I guess we're not on their priority list and we just get bumped down to the point where they will only write one if they have absolutely nothing to do or bored out of their mind. The same happened last year for me, the Professor said he sent them and the department tells me they haven't received it. Even when it was supposed to be submitted directly by email. I'm not exactly sure how much emails the department receives on a daily basis, but I don't think it would get lost in their inbox.

I have currently found a replacement on my part, but I need to let my 3rd LOR know that unless he's already written it that I will not be using him as a LOR anymore.

I may do that if it comes down to that. I'm not a very good writer so I may need someone to write one for me. Any takers? I'll send you my SOP and resume.

I'm still a bit frustrated about my missing LOR, but my hobbies normally include the following:

1) Playing badminton (no...not that backyard stuff)

2) Computer graphics: animation, modeling, crowd simulation, particle simulation, shader development

3) Topcoder (programming competition)

4) Playing video games

5) I'm really into self help stuff now (books, audio, video)

6) Apply for a job (only applying for one job actually and I'm sure they'll understand if I tell them I'm going to grad school)

I rather not be famous on the forum for that. I do plan on calling him tomorrow, but I will need to script out what I will say so I won't get tongue tied or let my frustration take over what I will say.

One school has now emailed me asking me for the letter. They said that once they receive it, then they will review my application...

Just called my final LOR again and was sent straight to voice mail. I think he probably just flagged my number to do that. I bet if I called with my other number, it would go through.

So good luck to all, I think I am screwed...

Sorta hard not to give up. I'm pretty much emotionally drained from all this. I really don't know what to do at this point. I tried everything I could think of without overstepping boundaries. Hopefully my first choice school will get back to me about reviewing my application with only 2 of 3 letters.

Contact the grad admissions directly and ask if you can have your LOR just submit it them.

If I get in anywhere, then I will have to start reviewing material because I don't really remember all too much.

You sound like one of those commercials. To say that you will never have to buy another computer again may be true for certain people. That is if you do nothing except for chatting, surfing the web, watching movies, listening to music, and word processor stuff. If this is all you do, heck you don't even really need a current computer.

Just thought I'd warn you that I will be attacking your statements now:

"MacBook Pro all the way." - You do mean OSX all the way, right? And when you talk about PCs, are you referring to Windows? Linux? Hackintosh?

"I still have the one from when they first came out in 2006, and it's working like new." - I built my PC in 2003 and it still works just as well if not better than it did before. Why is it running better? I upgraded the CPU, added more memory, and installed Windows 7. Was there anything wrong before then? Nope, just wanted more speed and memory for all the other things I do.

"Never a problem, no spam, spyware, never crashed, never lost data." - No spam? Do you mean pop ups or are you referring to spam you receive in your inbox? Spam pop ups are handled by your web browser, which will most likely be Safari in your case. It should have a built-in pop up blocker like most other web browsers. If OSX has never crashed on you, then good for you. It doesn't mean it never crashes at all. Do a search on google and you'll discover that OSX does crash. I have no idea what you mean by never losing data. If by losing data you mean hard drive failure, then that's something wrong with the hardware. Sorry to break to it to you, but Apple doesn't make their own hard drives. It may be Hitachi, Western Digital, Samsung, or Seagate.

"I had PCs for years before, one lasted 4 years, the other only 2." - I have and still use a PC because I've had no issues with it. A PC suits all my needs and it meets my budget. If I were to configure a similar Apple computer to my PC specs then it would cost about $1500 more. I also know what is installed on my PC and never install programs I know nothing about.

/endRant

Anyways just pick whatever fits your needs Fallapplicant77. If you need to use a program that is only available on OSX (Mac), then by all means buy a MBP. Other options may include installing OSX on your laptop, which I will not discuss here. Doing this will not only be cheaper, but you'll have better hardware specs. If you want to learn more about it, just search OSx86 Project. I'd suggest against it unless you're incredibly computer savvy.

If you do go for a Windows laptop, you should do the following:

-Uninstall bloatware - There's a lot of pre-installed programs that you really don't need. There's a program called Decrapifier that will help you get rid of most of the useless programs. I say useless because I have never found a need for any of the programs. If you do a completely clean install where you installed Windows 7 on a blank hard drive, then you don't need to do this.

-Uninstall the included antivirus - Do not, I repeat...DO NOT use the antivirus included even if it is a free year. Most of the time you'll be given Norton or McAfee to use, but these programs are so memory hungry and will really slow down your computer. My own personal favorite antivirus program would be Avast. It is absolutely free and very good at detecting viruses on websites, in files, etc.

-Abandon Internet Explorer and use a different web browser. I would go with either Firefox or Chrome.