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I will second the hearsay about avoiding grad student housing. We went on an apartment tour during interviews and the one person we visited who lived in the dorms seemed quite eager to get out. I was fortunate in that some of my friends from college will also be living in New Haven, so four of us are renting a privately owned house on campus.

I'll be going for Neuroscience!

Hey, I live in Boston and just got my rejection for Harvard CBB in the mail this afternoon. The letter was dated March 8th (yesterday), so you should find out soon either way. Good luck!

MARCH IS IT! Last decision came today! Good luck to everyone still waiting!

Just waiting to hear from one more program... SO CLOSE!

For what it's worth-- Cheap Monday makes a GREAT pair of slim-cut black trousers. They're of a sturdy material that feels nice and thick, but not as coarse as denim. I like them because they're flattering and high cut enough to tuck dress shirts into but don't give you the dreaded high-waist tummy protrusion You can even press them with an iron to make them look even fancier. My everyday wardrobe is also heavily black/neutral oriented and kind of disheveled in an androgynous way, but you can bet that I broke out the Banana Republic/J. Crew and makeup for interviews! My one "nice clothes" pet peeve is that I hate, hate, hate wide-leg dress pants, especially ones made of thin, flimsy materials that wrinkle easily and look so cheap. For that reason, I love my Cheap Mondays. I also wore a pair of slim slate grey pants from H&M that were cut sort of like jeans, but made of a nice subtly shiny material.

Here's one I haven't heard: How are you carrying your stuff around with you? My dilemma is that I'll be interviewing with six different people through the course of one day with lots of walking in between and a reception in the evening. I want to bring a smaller purse for convenience (room for a wallet, small notepad and pen, phone and a camera). I've heard that we should bring a few copies of our CV just in case, but I wouldn't be able to fit them without folding them in half. Should I suck it up and bring a larger, clunkier purse just so I can fit my nice resume folder, or should I just go CV-less?

Yup! I live in Allston (2 miles away from the medical school-- 10 minutes biking, 35 minutes walking) and work on Longwood. Many people in the area commute by walking from Brookline or Mission Hill. Brookline is a nicer, more expensive area while Mission Hill is cheaper but has a lot of undergrads. The 66 bus runs from Harvard Square in Cambridge to the LMA and covers a great swath of Allston and Brookline, so that's also an option. In my opinion the entire Boston area is extremely bikeable. It's my primary form of transportation and I haven't had to take public transportation all year except to get to the airport. We've recently seen a huge surge in the number of bicycle commuters, even in the dead of winter, and it really opens up your housing options if you ride to school-- I know some people in the area who commute in from Cambridge/Somerville, which is still only a 5-8 mile ride away. If you have any other questions about riding in the city, please don't hesitate to PM me!

POI has emailed me back! I resume the wait with renewed vigor! Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions and advice.

I completely understand your hesitation. I guess my biggest fear at this point is that something has gone horribly wrong and that I somehow wasn't actually admitted. My second-biggest fear is that cost will become prohibitive and I won't be able to make the trip, as it's something I've really been looking forward to! I appreciate your talking to the student organizer, hopefully it'll all work out... If you have any suggestions regarding people to contact other than the graduate admissions coordinator and my POI, please do send me a PM!

OH, YIKES. Awesome. I've been regularly checking my spam (and trash) folders just for this reason, but I ran another search for UCLA as soon as I read this and came up empty-handed again. I sent an email to the graduate admissions coordinator and I guess I'll call the faculty member who contacted me after the holiday. This is terrifying. Thanks for letting me know.

At the end of January, I received a very nice call from a faculty member at UCLA telling me that I had been admitted to their program and that I should be receiving materials in the mail soon. I was told a little bit about recruitment weekend in early March, encouraged to attend, and that although details were still unclear at this point, it would be possible to have some travel costs reimbursed (I'm on the east coast) and to stay with a current student in the program. When I hadn't received anything in the mail after two weeks, I emailed that faculty member asking for more information as well as if they knew who I should contact to set up travel plans and/or how to get a schedule for recruitment weekend. No reply. Next I tried calling the department, who thankfully got back to me the same day. They assured me that the reason I hadn't received anything in the mail is because the letters actually hadn't been mailed out yet and were going out the next day, but also that they would not contain any information about recruitment weekend. I was given the names and numbers of two other faculty members in the program to contact for that information. I called the first faculty member and left a message-- It's been almost a week and, yup, no reply. The mailbox of the second faculty member was full. Since I'm not sure if I can be reimbursed for travel, I want to buy plane tickets SOON before prices skyrocket. Ideally I would have been able to do so last week, but so it goes. I'm just really nervous because I haven't received written confirmation from the university that I've actually been admitted, and I have no idea at all as to what the weekend will be like. Am I just being ridiculously paranoid? Does anyone have any advice as to what I should do next, other than sit on my hands and watch the mail?

Battle Royale.

Cogneuroforfun: I'm interviewing for your program in three weeks! We haven't gotten our detailed schedule yet, but I'm really excited (and, yeah, a little terrified) to meet everyone. How did it compare to UCLA on your visits, and what made you ultimately choose Yale? Also, now that you're there, how do you like it? Crystalizedjade: I haven't heard from the big H, either, and based on the results search, it looks like we probably won't know anything until late February or even March. Did you apply to CBB?