Meanyus

@Eigen, too lazy to go back and read. But what I remember from reading the thread earlier was that they have to pay tuition in the summer while not receiving a stipend. Correct me if you care more than I do about looking back!

I would definitely email each one of those programs and ask if there is any remedy. NC-Chapel Hill let me send in two recommendations a month after the deadline. Although in my case, both had submitted the letters and something happened with the system deleting them.

As a tenant you are provided with rights that may allow you to get out of your current situation. Because I don't know what school you go to so I can't provide you their documentation, but here is something to look at from a place near me. http://www.ucdenver.edu/life/services/housing/commuter-services/Documents/Basic_Tenant_Rights.pdf Invasion of privacy Making you feel threatened. Threat of damage to your property both in the apartment and your vehicle. Threat of harming you dog. All of those may help you fall under #8 on that list. I honestly think you are being too nice to the office people. Tell them that this is an unlivable environment. It is affecting your work and your mental state. If they don't have a vacancy for you immediately and refuse to let you out of your lease without penalty, they are looking at their own lawsuit. Your lawsuit isn't with the roomate, it's with the complex. The complex is in charge of keeping their tenants in order. That said, keep documenting like you have said you have. Picture and videos are damning. Drug use in the apartment is reason for immediate conviction because you don't live in a state where marijuana is legal, from what you've described as your location. You don't need to treat the office staff like shit when you talk to them, but quit letting them off the hook. They have the power to help you, you are just being way to nice to them about it so they have no reason to help you. If you are gonna let this girl piss in your cereal every morning and still eat it, why should they help you? There's just no incentive. Time to kick her to the curb!

Our Communication Studies program has a few classes that meet for 1 hour 3 days a week but a vast majority are 5-8 or 6-9 PM. Good thing my wife is the one who does the schedules at her work!

Hey Raimuda, Graduate school can be trying at times, and the people here have offered you quite a bit of good advice. Some people are mean. You could be working in an office with an asshole coworker just like you have in your current program. I have one member of my cohort who I absolutely cannot stand, who happens to also be in my office. She's rude, pushy, and a complete narcissist. I have decided to cope with this by not giving her a single second of my time. Sure, I'll talk to her if she asks me a question, but I provide no validation when she tells me inappropriate stories about her sex life and I do not seek her out for anything, ever. It actually worked for about a year and she was bearable for the first half of last semester. After she fell off the wagon again, I just stopped dealing with her again. You actually don't really have any obligation to make this girl your friend, so talk to her when you need to and don't when you don't. Regarding funding, I have never heard of a program making you pay in the summer except in the case that you don't finish your thesis in time for spring graduation, then you need to pay for continuous registration because you must be registered in the semester in which you graduate. Are you sure they charge you 2+ grand in the summer for nothing? It might be something to talk with your adviser about because it sounds pretty suspect. While you can't just forget your past, eventually, you will have to overcome it. A lot of us have gotten pretty bad hands in life but found a way to make it work. As part of that, you're going to need to toughen up quite a bit if you want to survive academia, which I assume you do from your listed major. The first article I submitted to a journal had one of the two reviewers attack me (the writer because he did not have my name) personally in many of their comments. It hurt, but I also took it as an opportunity to say that something in my work was causing a problem for this reviewer. If they stumbled over my writing, then perhaps there are some flaws I need to work out before I send this off to the next place. While doing that, I let the comments that made me feel unfit for consuming oxygen roll off my back and produced a much better piece of work because of it. You will get comments from peers and teachers that will offend you. You will have teachers who interrupt you and tell you that you are wrong. You will feel inadequate at some point through your degree. Undergraduate programs give a sense of accomplishment that can be somewhat damaging to prospective grad students' egos. You were probably always the smartest person in the room, but you were also in a room filled with mostly idiots. Now that you are in a graduate program, you are in a room full of fairly smart people, and the expectations have increased significantly. Because of this, graduate school isn't for everyone, but that is a decision you will have to make for yourself. For what it's worth, it sounds like you have a lot you need to figure out. Might I suggest finding other people in a situation similar to you and spend some time finding ways to cope. I honestly did get a sense from your original post that you were wallowing in your own pity, which can be abrasive, so my best advice would be to be proactive instead of reactive. Seek out the solutions that will get you where you want to go in your own life. None of us can tell you what those are.

Coworker just informed me that she was also accepted to Kentucky.

@JLRC - Yes the Comm dept. I sent a text asking my colleague asking if she had heard back from Washington yet because I saw those last night. I assume those two posters might have been in the first round of cuts and they haven't emailed everyone yet.

Quick update for anyone who applied to CU-Boulder. They sent out a mass email this morning to just let people know they are starting to look at applications now. Decisions should come pretty soon.

Regarding both UIUC posters. I haven't gotten that email, checking my application portal all of my stuff is still there, but I did have a problem with two of my LORs getting deleted for UNC, which I believe uses the same system. Those professors were able to just resubmit the letters. I have not heard any updates from any of the six I applied to including UIUC. I don't think Utah has made any decisions yet judging from a conversation I had with Kent Ono a couple days ago, although he's not on the committee so I may be wrong. Well . . . back to doubting myself!

If you go to a Master's only program you are the cream of the crop for that department. Master's students can fall to the backburner in some (notable) Ph.D. programs because the professors are simply more worried about the students who have been there longer. Some people may also struggle with funding issues. As far as I've been told at both my undergrad and grad school, the Ph.D. students just come first.

I agree, make the call. It shouldn't be hard to convince them to take your money.

Are you lucky enough to have different last names? If so, I wouldn't even mention it.

I would also support finding another route. I would hate to see the professor get pissed off because you asked again causing them to write you a mediocre or bad recommendation. As a note of habit, I always ask my LORs if they can write me a positive letter of recommendation. You don't only need people who are willing to write a letter, but that will also go to bat for you.

I suppose the biggest question is really whether or not the 3AW was due to a bad day. Did you feel the 3 represents your normal writing capabilities? If the answer is no, then I would consider taking the test again, getting up to a 5 would be a huge boon for your prospects, but even a 4 or 4.5 should be acceptable to a lot of places. The reason I bring this up is that if your writing sample is strong enough to wash away the low AW writing score, then your writing is probably good enough to score higher on the test anyways.

I took the GRE at the end of my undergrad and spent about 20 hours total studying for the quantitative section and I got a 151V 154Q and 4AW. I focused heavily on the math section because I vastly overestimated my verbal skills and I was well aware that I was not skilled in math. I recently retook the GRE with about a week to study when my adviser recommended getting a higher verbal score. I read through the verbal section of one prep book and did one prep test and received a 157V 150Q and 5AW. I attribute the writing improvement to a year and a half in a Master's program. While these scores are markedly lower than the average population of gradcafe, I was accepted to 3/4 programs I applied to with my original, lower verbal score when I applied to MA programs. I still haven't heard from any of the 6 programs I applied to with the higher verbal score, but for my field, it appears that my scores should be sufficient.

My wife had our first son a week before I graduated from my undergrad. So while it is a slightly different situation, I can say that having a small child in grad school can be pretty time consuming. I am lucky in that I don't like to go out drinking, so my little guy gives me a convenient excuse to skip out on a lot of parties I have no desire to attend. I'm glad my spouse has been supportive when I've said I needed to reclude myself and study, but having a kid in grad school does not make it all that much harder if you are good at balancing your schedule.

If you do decide to work, even part time. It's a great idea to pay the interest on your loans. It ends up making a huge difference over the 20-30 year repayment period. For your situation it sounds like it might be a good idea to take out the loans to ensure you can make all your payments, then work as much as you can while managing your studies to build a nest egg or start paying back on those loans. I know I'm just pushing off my loan time bomb until I finish the Ph.D., I'll deal with it then!

You will probably end up wearing a huge jacket outside, then taking it off when you get in. I did my undergrad at UMN as I grew up in the Twin Cities and I was able to get by with just a hoodie and jeans on most days. Obviously this won't be what you wear to the interview, but once you get inside it's not really -that- cold. For people looking for affordable living. I actually enjoyed riding the bus to school and you can get a pass from the school for like 90 bucks a semester which is a good price considering what you would pay for parking if you don't want to live downtown. I lived in both Blaine and Columbia Heights the entire time I lived there and was able to park and ride the bus from Northtown mall all the way down to campus. When I lived in Columbia Heights I took the bus straight down central ave all the way downtown. My ride from Blaine was about an hour each way and Columbia Heights was about 30 minutes. If you don't mind the rides, you will be able to find very affordable housing in Columbia Heights, Blaine, and Coon Rapids. For those worried about the bus people downtown, I never had any bad experiences, there are weird looking people but none of them ever did anything that made me uncomfortable.

The transcripts were University of Colorado - Boulder. The department took unofficial ones I emailed them today and told me to send official ones to the graduate school asap. I actually think that might have been my error after chatting with the admissions people. If I understand them correctly, they do not take unofficial ones even prior to being accepted, so that is probably what happened. The letters of recommendation were both from University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Both of my professors confirmed that my eyes had not deceived me when I checked prior to the application deadline. Both were allowed to resend them. I found both errors just by checking the application portals to see if any decisions had been made for me. I had checked all of my applications in late November, when I finished them, and all of them were complete at the time. No idea what happened between the past week and then that stuff wasn't included anymore.

Elvan, I am not much help to you but I can tell you that I haven't heard from Urbana-Champaign yet. I did not reply to the rest of your schools. Congratulations on the interview at Madison, the inside member on my thesis committee graduated from there and the program was highly recommended to me. I just couldn't convince the wife to move back to the midwest. I did see someone post on the results search that they were accepted to Urbana-Champaign, so I'm hoping to hear back from them pretty soon.

Has anyone else been having problems with their applications being screwed up after completion? For two different schools I have had errors that I am 100% sure I didn't make. One application said that I submitted no transcripts, and the other said that two of my LORs did not submit their documents. I checked both these applications prior to the deadline and they were correct, but now as I watch for admissions decisions I'm finding these errors. I'm wondering if it's a web browser issue? One school used the applyyourself program and the other did not. Either way, both schools allowed me to give them the documents, but my imagination is running rampant on how bad these two errors have hurt my chances of getting into both schools. Anyone else experiencing this?

wb.o make sure you double check the major listed. I just did a search of Chapel Hill & Communication and saw that a majority of the responses for just Communication or Communication Studies were Jan15-March. I'd hold out hope for a bit longer. I checked the application portal just now and I haven't gotten any sort of update. I emailed one of the office staff on Wednesday of this past week because there was a problem with the applyyourself portal on my application and due to the context of the conversation, I am left believing that they are still making acceptance decisions.

One difficult part about transitioning to graduate school is that you are likely used to being the smartest person in the room, always. I actualy considered dropping out last year over an A- (underserved!) but it took a lot of contemplating about needing to realize that less than perfect marks =/= bad marks. Your professor said you did a good job, and you could have done better. Both of those things are probably true. It's best to take this as a lesson to say you need this feedback from your next professor. For my program, we are thrown directly into teaching basic public speaking classes with little training beforehand, and a lot of training during the semester. Every other semester we have our course director sit in the class and he writes a letter to both us and the chair about some things that are going good and going bad. I've never agreed with the nitpicky things that are going bad but it at least tells me that there is something that I need to take a closer look at in the future in order to better myself as a teacher. Best of luck with the next semester, you'll be fine!