green_tales

I went to Stony Brook (undergrad, applied math & statistics) and have some things to say :-) The city: It's a small town, and it's not very friendly for those without a car. Also, it's hard for grad students to get on-campus housing, and they rape you for room charges at the end of the semester. There're a couple of buses that run through campus that go to the mall where there're a couple of grocery stores nearby. There's also a campus bus that goes to target, walmart, and a large grocery store (pathmark) on the weekend (called "the mall bus", because it used to go to the mall, but not any more). Also, there's a stop'n'shop up the road about 1-2 miles, but there's no sidewalk for most of that. Also, it's a commuter school -- most of the students live with their parents in the city, or go home to their parents' every weekend. The campus is dead on the weekends. And the food is horribly overpriced. And in general greasy and unhealthy. (the best deal I found was chili for $2, which came with crackers.. but let me tell you, you DONT want to be around me when I'm eating chili more than once or twice every couple of days) the campus: parts of it are run down, parts of it are new. The chemistry tower is in the somewhat run down category. And it's got some pretty quirky buildings, including the library (which is a building in a building, and you have to go upstairs and then downstairs to get to the stacks on the first floor) and the math & physics tower (same buildings, one has floors that are lettered, and one has floors that are numbered, and there are HALF floors -- that's where the grad student offices are). The bureaucracy: When I arrived, I was so glad that my sister was there with her car to help me.. because when I went to check in, no one was at the E commons (where I was told to go) to meet me. the place was DESERTED. I had to search around for another check-in place, where they told me to go back to the E commons. They had to call an off-duty residence hall director to come and check me in. Then I found out they'd lost my ID. So, if my sister wasn't there, I would have had to take all of my earthly possessions across campus THREE TIMES because SB had their heads up their asses. Also, dealing with the financial aid dept, registrar, and bursar, you have to call the same phone number.. and sit through a recording.. and if you press ANY BUTTON during the recording (which tells you you can go online to get many of your questions answered), it starts over. This is maddening when you are being told you owe thousands of dollars and are incurring late fees, and *can't* get to campus to talk to someone in person (they'd make you stand in line there anyway, but at least they'll listen to you) To sum up: SB is departmentalized to the extreme. the head doesn't know (or care) what the ass is doing.

Hi, so I've been accepted elsewhere (sans funding :-() but REALLY want to go to UCLA.. I told them so, and they told me I wasn't in the first round of funding offers, but I haven't been rejected.. So my greedy question (as listed in the topic description) is: Anyone know how long they're going to wait before they let us know? pins and needles!