prolixity

You kidding? You've got a special accent and novelty going for you. People will be interested in you.. all you have to do is remain interesting after the novelty wears off. Trust me, you'll be fine.

Just to be artistic, I signed my reply form to a prominent institution with a fountain pen and ink mixed with a few drops of my own blood.. I mean, come on.. you need to set yourself up for stories at cocktail parties forty years in the future. edit: ah I see someone beat me to the punch on this.

Sent in my positive reply to GSAS today. I never thought I'd be in a situation where I could say, "Hi, I'm 28 years old and I live in a residence hall." Anyone else doing the residence hall thing?

Don't consider your boyfriend's feelings at all. You'll regret compromising and not being a bit more selfish in the future. My wife and I are starting PhDs on opposite coasts this fall.. but we'll fare well.

I've always enjoyed a good ten hours of sleep before a test. For me, if I needed to pull an all-nighter to feel comfortable about the work, I've obviously not been studying properly. It's hard to know when to cut yourself off from studying and go to bed, but sometimes being the only fresh-faced person in the classroom gives you an immeasurable advantage.

I brought my wife with me on a few visits. I didn't bring her on the visit part itself, of course, but I did bring her to the open bar after the visit... The point of the visit is to interact with the other students and faculty.. not to cloister yourself away in an already established social bubble.

I've been up on the fence but they just awarded me another fellowship, and I think the hat is finally tipped in their favor. Waiting for wife to return from her visits before I make my final decision.

Stanford has a small undergraduate student body, and TAships are required for incoming PhD students, so it might be VERY difficult to get a TA position as an MS student. Seriously, take the PhD with stipend. Your future will thank you for it. UCSD is a solid university in a killer location.

Lol, why does this sort of technical elitism stereotype persist? I design and talk with sophisticated instruments such as airborne mass spectrometers, spectrophotometers, quartz microbalances, etc. all the time with my tiny macbook. It doesn't matter what operating system you're using since you're talking using an interface, and who really needs to mess with hardware anymore besides upgrading RAM for most mundane daily tasks? Hell, on my 3 year-old Macbook I can run molecular docking simulations/graphical manipulations, a variety of mathematics suites, etc. etc. ad infinitum. And it still works flawlessly. I haven't used a PC laptop in 3 years, but my experience before my Macbook was one of frequent software/hardware problems. I'm sure there are plenty of equally reliable PCs and I don't issue blanket statements, but I have to recommend macbooks for their sheer utility and durability.

R is all you need. If it doesn't do something you want it to do, make your own package. I mean, the same can be said for other packages, but R is really fantastic. I prefer Stata myself for statistical things, because I first learned on it, but any mathematical program will do the trick. Mathematica, R, MatLab, etc..

I'm in my upper twenties with a wife. Both of the two programs I'm considering average about 60-70 hours a week/ 6 days a week of work, in addition to teaching fellowships and other sundry things, but I met a couple other married students at both schools.. Not too scared about it yet.

Just for the science geeks out there: My two year-old macbook (macbook 3,1) with 4GB ram can run perfectly fine the following: Mathematica Igor Pro Labview Molegro MMV Molegro Docker VMD pyRX Gimp Stata 64SE Nanorex knime datastudio various flavors of TEX Open Office/MS Office I carry this thing in my backpack everywhere I go. I have 532 charge cycles and my battery still holds a four hour charge. I run Folding@home at night when I'm not using it. I can even run docking simulations locally while running other visualization programs or mathematics programs at the same time. The only downside is the lack of support for Origin/Sigmaplot. But Igor is better in my opinion anyway. Buy a mac.. they're workhorses. A newer macbook with more memory will do you even better. edit: I forgot to add, I have about 30 GB of academic ebooks on my computer. Using Spotlight, I can nearly instantaneously find exact inline pdf citations for whatever it is I'm searching for. Want to know 10 different ways to synthesize CdSe quantum dots? Got it. Want to know the basics behind FRET? Instantly I have ten resources for that. Seriously, if you're an information horder/fan of computational techniques like I am, you'll appreciate the mac (terminal is easy to launch and nice too).

If your dog is prescribed to you for a nervous or anxiety disorder (hint), you can live with your dog in Grad Student housing. I have several friends with small dogs on campus.

Same boat.. for Chemical Phys. I have no idea who to work for. Both places were AWESOME, with great work being performed. I suggest you coin-flip it.

The only correct answer is, "it depends"... on many factors. Some people have relatively low GREs and get into the best schools.. some have stellar GREs and don't. I kind of think GREs are more or less a formality as long as you're not an outlier skewing left.

Grad student housing is quite cheap relative to the surrounding area - though not as cheap proportionately as other universities. Included in rent is electricity, gas, internet, furnishings, television, and laundry... It's actually a sweet deal.. making me reconsider my tentative decision now that I think about it - the other university I'm considering only offers academic-year residence halls (ew). Here's a rundown on rates: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/rde/shs/grad/res_chart.htm

I'm in the exact same boat; however, my wife and I were accepted at the same school, but I decided to turn down that school's offer. I'm currently choosing between two schools: one on the East coast that will dramatically increase my chances of having an amazing career and one on the West coast which, while very very prestigious, is not as prestigious as the one on the East coast. My wife is going to attend UC Davis. So, do I want to be 3000 miles away from her and have the opportunity to finish my PhD in record time with no familial obligations, or do I want to locate myself about 150 miles from her, and face the burden.. hmm.. as I write this out, I just realized I should probably choose the closer one.. I'll still have the opportunity to see her and I'll still have the opportunity of working without familial obligations. Though I've always wanted to live on the East coast, and I've always wanted to wear crimson when I graduate. I empathize with your plight, because I'm living the same story.

I'm an undergrad in chemistry here, finishing up this year and going either to Boston or Northern California for my PhD. Irvine is a great school.. a little quiet, but the academics are great. We have an awesome park and a bunch of cafes/places to eat on campus, so it's not a bad campus to hang out at and study. Obviously you're not looking for a crazy party-scene (or you wouldn't be going to grad school), but there is stuff to do about six miles away in Newport Beach. You'll want a car if you want to leave the campus area, and I recommend you do bring one; however, it is certainly possible to live without one here. I've put about 300 miles on my car in the last two years.

If you're sharing an apartment with someone, you should be okay. I just got back from a good Friday night at the campus bar.. spent about $50, but there were about ten of us who were splitting drinks. What is your background? Your grammar sounds very Turkish. It is hard to live off campus with just a stipend. You may be able to find tutoring jobs (some pay up to $60/hr) for local rich kids, but that's not guaranteed..

I live in graduate student housing at UCI. I pay $860/month for a 2 bedroom apartment all to myself. I don't pay electricity, gas, sewer, trash, water, or cable.. this comes gratis from the university. (This is why you should try to live in Verano Place). Compared to any other university, UCI offers the best bang for the buck in terms of on-campus housing. There is a bar on campus (10 minutes walking distance from Verano Place) with about thirty QUALITY beers on tap.. cheap pints and pitchers during happy hour (pitchers are minipitchers though.. like 3 pints). There is an Albertson's grocery store across the street (you can walk there) and a Trader Joes as well. There's an independent/art-film movie theater about ten minutes walking distance. If you don't want to leave the campus area, you can get by without a car. You can get anywhere in Irvine in 30 mins by bicycle. Send me any specific questions you might have.

My wife was/ is going to be, again, an Aggie. You need to go to picnic day on April 17th if you can. Certainly visit the school during the welcome weekend, but you really need to get the whole crazy public drunkenness feel of Picnic day to truly appreciate UC Davis. http://picnicday.ucdavis.edu/

Uhm, what wording did you use to elicit this hostile response? A university I'm visiting next week booked my wife's flight for me through their travel division and arranged for us to have our own room.. no hostility whatsoever.

Whoa, you guys are way proactive. I didn't bother studying beyond flipping through the practice exam sent when I signed up for the subject test.

I don't think this means you're guaranteed acceptance. I've also received (I'm not bragging, but several dozens) of mailers and emails from schools you've never heard of about their chemistry programs. I'm pretty sure they just send bulk mail to anyone who exceeds a certain trigger on GRE scores or has attended a graduate school fair. I'm pretty sure if you've been flagged that you're a strong candidate for the program, but.. admissions decisions are made by people, not algorithms.

Yale is a major research university with a great reputation and plenty of innovation in the hard sciences. True, they're not really regarded as an engineering school (neither is Harvard), but honestly they're among the top physics programs in the United States.. I wouldn't worry about it unless you have other offers from more techy schools. I don't have the specifics you are asking for, but you shouldn't have any doubts about the quality of the program. .. and I'd recommend using the airplane.