lordofthedoge

As the title implies, I'm having a dilemma currently. I've been with my girlfriend for about three and a half years now and I'm extremely happy with where our relationship is and I think that she would agree. We spend a significant portion of time together and enjoy each other's company tremendously. I will spare your all from the ooey-gooey, but we could definitely see ourselves in a much more serious situation down the road. But our graduate admissions have sort of thrown a big question mark into the future. We applied to schools in the same general vicinity with the hopes that we would have one match-up with schools that we really would like to attend; however, this hasn't happened. She was only able to get accepted into one program, and while this was a school that I was also able to gain admission to, it has a significantly lower appeal to me than other schools that I got into (though I should note for her it is a perfect fit and that academically, the school isn't that far behind my other schools). So now I'm in this bind....do I go with her to this school? Or do I go to the highest appealing school to me? With that in mind. I completely realize that education stays with you forever and that relationships have the potential to be lost. Additionally, it is possible that I could resent her for giving up a dream school to go with her to a lesser fit of a school, though my thought is that I wouldn't and even if we broke up I wouldn't regret it that much that I had given up my other choices. I've also sought advice from graduate students at my own institution and they suggested pursuing a LDR and that if it didn't work out that way then the relationship was probably going to end anyway (input on this view would be appreciated). The tough thing with this is we are both going for Ph.D. programs so this will be a 5-6 year separation, though the distance is about 2.75 hours flying and ~8 hours driving between the school I would attend if I didn't go with her and the school she intends on attending. From what I've read around online and have gotten from other graduate students, the consensus seems to be that a LDR is most ideal as it allows one to see if a relationship was going to end anyway or if it is important enough to both people to keep it going and doesn't have one person "sacrificing" to the point where they might resent the other and the relationship dies anyway. I'm curious as to if people agree with this view or if going with her is a better idea? Also, if a LDR is pursued, should I be expecting stagnation of the relationship and it not maturing any more? And if I should not expect it to level off, but should expect it to keep growing and it doesn't...what then?

For people that live in the Carrboro/Chapel Hill area, where do you suggest living? I'd like to keep my commute <2miles if possible, though I'm open to living further than that if necessary. Also I'm looking for something <$800/month for a 1br if possible; I definitely prefer living alone as opposed to with someone else. Was looking at GSC properties but from the looks on apartment review websites they're pretty bad. Also, how scooter/motorcycle friendly is the area? I've been toying with the idea so that I could live further away and not have to deal with the parking prices at UNC for a car.

If you're referring to the IDP program, yes, I went there for their first weekend (the 26th-28thish)?

Great! Thank you!

Did they mention how soon they'd start getting back to you guys in terms of decisions?

Being from New York I can give you a little perspective on the weather haha. It's been fairly calm for the past few days so I would assume the weather has been nice. We're supposed to get that triple storm rolling through starting tomorrow so I can only imagine that the weather and travel is about to get worse (especially if you're making a connection in O'Hare or anything east, if you make it through Atlanta you might have better luck). Good luck though! Both travel and interview wise.

I don't think it'd hurt you to send some e-mails (beyond anecdotal evidence I couldn't tell you whether it helped or not). Also they're still rolling through their admissions so there's definitely still a chance you could get in. I believe this weekend will be their 5th weekend of 8 assuming they've had one every week since the first one they did (Jan 10th) so I would imagine that they're still looking at people to invite for the later weekends. As for perspective, if you do get an interview they mentioned that they give offers to about 88% of the people they interview and if I recall correctly they're looking for a class of about 65. Hope this helps!

For anyone that attended the Northwestern DGP interview last weekend or knows anything about this. What's their admission offer percentage post-interview? To me, it seemed like it would be fairly high seeing as in the past they have made 60-70+ offers and interview about 90 kids.