origin415

Not unless you actually live on campus. There are a couple of apartment complexes near north campus that provide shuttles, but its a sort of long walk. When I left last year, the north/south campus bus ran 24/7, and the trip perhaps took 30-40 minutes IIRC. Probably less of a nuisance than driving and finding parking anyway. The area around south campus is a sort of sketchy student ghetto, with a real ghetto nearby. There is a gym on the far east of campus, the building is called alumni arena. It is here: http://goo.gl/maps/Bjwf There is a primary care place for students on south campus, michael hall. It is about an hour and a half drive, so an easy day trip. I've never taken the train.

I would look at craigslist. For apartments: http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/apa/ For shares: http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/roo/

PhD programs will expect much more background, but masters programs will be more accepting, and will get you the necessary background. Look to apply to those.

Learn the bus schedules so you aren't waiting long. If you have an iphone or android or some other fancy phone theres http://www.onebusaway.org/ which lets you check when the bus is coming in real time and plan accordingly if it is late. I plan on selling my car and investing in a nice raincoat and a bike, myself.

When you get out of your masters, your application will be stronger than anything else you could do before the next round. Put the dream aside for the time being and add a masters to your resume.

Send off an email to each of the schools and see what you get back, it really can't hurt you.

It definitely is the right attitude to tough it out instead of not going to a perfectly good school because the weather isn't just so. Besides, from everything I've heard, half the year its sunny everyday, the other half its cloudy/drizzly everyday, so what you saw is actually worst of it, on average its much better. I have never heard of the "seattle chill" and I'm not from the area, so what I know is from what I just googled now (that generally Seattlites are bitter to outsiders and its difficult to be accepted and find local friends). Regardless of whether you'll make native friends, there are plenty of people you will meet and befriend plenty of fellow grad students. I seriously doubt this is really the case though, everything I've heard goes against the "seattle chill" theory. Obviously if you are really this concerned and you have a school which is equal otherwise but sunny, go for it, but I think its silly to give the weather a lot of weight. Especially as being a grad student is a lot of work and you'll be inside most of the cloudy winter anyway.

An admit is an admit. As long as you have funding I don't see the problem.

Those are all good schools. Without funding, going to an inexpensive school is important (especially if you are thinking about continuing to a phd), so choose that way (just guessing that UMich is probably the least expensive as its a state school).

If you are just going to get your PhD after your masters, the reputation of your masters school won't matter at all once you get your doctorate. To this end, I would say you should avoid debt in choosing a school. However, you make it sound like funding is possible for that last quarter, just not guaranteed. Also, going to a public school as an instate (I assume) student and only paying one quarter at that, UW probably isn't that expensive, and the leg up it will give you in applying for PhD programs (just looking at US News, in engineering they are 28 vs 76, but I don't know about civil in particular) may be worth it if you have the money to pay for it.

Maybe its a sign. Are you sure sports management isn't what you really wanted the whole time?

The whole of Seattle is pretty good without a car as I understand it, but theres a lot of information here to look at:

Welcome to the club Theres already a thread here:

If you haven't been offered funding, I personally would not go on the hope that such funding might appear. Unless you plan on paying your way through at least the first year or so, don't go. No point not at least emailing and seeing what possibilities there are though.

I don't think it matters that much, the reputation of the department is much more important. You are being hired by statisticians, after all, who will know how strong your department is, not a layman who just goes by a schools overall rep. That said, are these MS programs funded? If not, I wouldn't think twice about it, especially if you are planning on getting your PhD after. Paying to have the Harvard name on the line below the school that actually matters, your PhD program, is silly.