pea-jay

If you have the resources, do the hotel option or even better yet, the short-term corporate-style apartment rental. WHy? Because this way you can do a search on your pace, visit far more apartments than you could from afar plus check out the neighborhood BEFORE you sign the lease. It would suck to get that great apartment but have a neighborhood that does not meet your needs. Granted Google Maps and streetview helps the initial research process immensely but nothing can beat putting your feet on the streets and doing your own investigating. This recommendation really should apply for anyone moving from a long distance to a new city of a decent size.

museum patron

flea circus

mobile phone

dead meat

I second this. The two NY schools i applied to had the same approaches you are talking about NYU had a full plan that you can only opt out of if you can prove coverage elsewhere. Baruch(CUNY)offered nothing other than the health center fee. But at Baruch you still have the option of purchasing coverage at rates cheaper than what you were looking at

My wait at Baruch was more than two months, applied in Jan, heard back in mid March

run away

hit man

Given the economy, as soon as possible would be ideal even it led to him getting hired months before a move date. It may be difficult to transition but it would be the least disruptive financially. It doesnt hurt he's not thrilled about the current job though. My wife is currently job hunting now from afar so that she is employed by the time September rolls around. We plan on making at least one trip out there (NYC) before moving.

Continental Europe

road trip

Freed up a spot for someone in Wagner's purgatory today...

sweet treat

Beautiful mind

I blogged about this, but the short answer is cost. I got a whopping $1500/sem towards Wagner which covers about one unit. My debt load will be quite large...at least 2.5 times larger than Baruch and that's assuming Baruch offers no aid/assistantships/whatever to me. As much as I would have liked to attend to Wagner, I cannot justify it. Baruch's program is quite good, the faculty/admin friendly and responsive and the demographics of the student body is actually a closer match to me (more older students with families). So I went with them. No hard feelings against NYU since well, I can always say I got in there.

I've been dealing with this too. The words "No Fee" are important to remember on any search. While I can't answer how far out you can secure a place, I know there are many places to look for one online (neighborhood newspaper rental listings, off-campus housing ads at Columbia, Craigslist) without realtor "assistance"

pound cakes

I've actually *attended* grad school once before. That feeling does go away quite quickly and it isnt long before you are consumed by the rigors of whatever program you got into. My stress will actually be over before I start school. Before I get to that point I have a crapload of stuff to do and fall into place, starting with that 3000 mile move. That's stress

Fortune 500

I'll answer question #4 4) The Wagner student body is awesome. Everyone I met during my two-day visit there was super friendly (even got invited to their weekly mixer at a nearby pub). Everyone seemed excited to be there.

You're probably short a few digits there...

Yep, same here. Checking for desirable areas, helping my wife look for jobs, figuring out school options for the kids, and so on. Haven't even got to the move part itself.

Although I am commenting from a straight person's perspective here, there are certainly gay-friendly areas in S.D. starting with Hillcrest, but also including other areas like North Park where we used to live. Our apartment complex was a 22 units, split evenly between gay and straight individuals and couples. We all got along fairly well and after living there for a while I got to know most of our neighbors, sitting outside in the common areas, chatting with everyone. No hostility there or outside on the main commercial drag either. It helps that these neighborhoods are fairly diverse ethnically, socio-economically and by age so it never had a boring homogenous feel to it. Politically these older areas-North Park, University Heights, Hillcrest-were also quite left-of-center though. Hope that helps.

ballon boy