Babbling Dweeb

Congrats to the NYC people! I'm moving too (New School, MA International Affairs) My fiancée and I are looking into Brooklyn and we should be headed to NY June 10-13th looking at/for places. One of my closest friends is from NYC and has a cousin that is an apartment broker there. If anyone is looking for someone, I'll pass his info via PM. Additionally, if anyone wants to exchange info, meet up or form a "poor NYC kids" support group, PM me

I'm going to just say "ditto" to everything that MusicForFun wrote. I bought a 32GB WiFi iPad for grad school. I specifically bought it for reading research papers and news. Sounds insane right? Not for me...I have no issues reading/working on a laptop or at a desk, but I cannot stand reading a 40-page research paper (PDF) on the computer. I can never get comfortable so I always end up giving up after 5 pages and print out the PDF. I spend a lot of time reading news, and I usually read the news on my phone...but it would be nice to have a larger screen. These two items (for me) are where any tablet shines. Personally, I like the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad interface...but any $200-500 tablet with a decent design will do the trick. In my opinion, if money were no object, I would get a Windows 7 tablet with Microsoft OneNote. I am a huge fan of Microsoft OneNote, it is probably one of the best pieces of software for a tablet (for students) and truly is the best for note taking. The Apple products (regardless of the applications) cannot compete with a stylus based tablet because the touch interface does not let you use a stylus with a fine tip. You can buy or make a stylus for an iPad, and in all honesty they work great...but not for extended note taking unless you want to write larger than you are used to. The stylus (or your finger) is fine for most artists, but a Wacom tablet, Windows tablet OR a hacked Macbook tablet will still beat it hands down for fine point writing/drawing. This is a technological limitation of capacitive multitouch displays...but I won't rule out that someone might develop a conductive material to put into a "nicer" more note-taking-friendly stylus. I wouldn't buy one with the expectation that you'll replace your laptop or desktop -you need something to back up to- but for the tech-savy, it is a damn nice complement to your tool set. FYI - Microsoft announced they were canceling the Courier project (boo! This was awesome) and HP is halting developing on the HP Slate after their purchase of Palm. You can expect HP to release a WebOS (Palm) based tablet to compete with the iPad between 6-9 months from now.

Side note: sometimes when I click on the link in an email to a reply, I view it and then I get logged out when I try to respond...maybe that's what I get for hopping on the forums at work Does that ever happen to anyone else? LotusEater: Fletcher...NICE school. I would say that your application must have been impressive my friend! I don't think mine was anything super spectacular, but they [NSGS] did tell me (in the chat) that my work experience would help huge. I haven't worked in the sector, but I have been working in business, computers and business analysis for 17 years this summer. That being said, I did NOT get a merit scholarship and I am really bummed. I'm not sure if they thought I was Mr. Moneybags so they didn't award me anything or what. My fiancée plans to work while I am in school and I only plan to take a BS job...so I was really hoping for something. We'll see what financial aid says when they review my forms. List of things to do: - complete my immunization forms - badger the financial aid office (haha) - contact advising for my registration code (I can't register for classes!) - sell my car - sell my fiancée's car - fly to NYC apartment shopping - finish planning the wedding - And finally, find a cheap storage unit or sell 80% of my stuff

Did you hear back yet? I can't remember...did you apply to any other schools? From the looks of a couple other posts (another thread on NSSR) it seems like they are doing a lot of late notifications. I feel like rather than go to grad school I should invent a better process for communicating with applicants and developing a better application process overall. anxiousapplicant: You're all lined up at another school right now though aren't you? How are your plans for relocating going? So far, mine are in limbo...I'm hoping I can fly out to NY next month and start looking for apartments. I'm just waiting to find out if my fiancée will get to transfer her job. I don't feel like I'll ever get to fully relax!

Thanks for the congrats and the support, I appreciate it. I had a chance to celebrate with a few of my close undergrad friends (we are all about 10 years older than most of our fellow students; with similar 3-4 year academic breaks in our life) and relax...finally. Lots of changes and things to plan, so I suppose there is no rest in store going forward! I agree about the delay and the lack of a response to emails from NSSR...I'm curious if you'll ever end up hearing from them. I read somewhere on this board, but I don't recall the topic, that they typically send some sort of a response to everyone that applies. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Monkeefugg post online in a bit. I'm still hoping for the best

I can't believe it...March was it for me. Admissions called me while I was at work to let me know I was in...I'm still in shock!!

Today was the first day I actually didn't check the mail...and then I got a phone call. Admissions called me to let me know I was accepted and to invite me to an open house for my program April 10th (Lotus Eater, they are still making decisions for our program so don't give up hope!). They said the letter will come in a few days, but they knew I would probably need to make travel arrangements etc. After all of the waiting and stress with my paper I almost cried at work (they don't know I am leaving yet), but I held it in and right now a few hours later it just doesn't seem real. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the rest of you! Please keep us updated on your status!

Thanks for the Grad Cafe & NSSR/NSGS love. Hopefully one of us hears something soon Anxiousaplicant, you might want to email the admissions director....the director of the IA program offered their email address to those who are waiting on a letter so they can let schools know if they are/aren't attending. They mentioned that if a perspective student emails and lets them know they are waiting on a letter, they might possibly be able to give them an unofficial letter. Now who knows if they will reply to your email One additional comment for LotusEater: Just before the chat ended someone asked another question about the letters. The director mentioned that the faculty made some decisions before spring break (last week) and those were sent out...but it doesn't sound like they made any decisions over break. She said they would be making the bulk of the decisions over the next two weeks. Again the way she phrased it made me think they were not making decisions over break -or they at least took some time off for break and are getting back to business right now.

Okay, just to follow up...chat is still going on, but I think I had all of my questions answered. For the IA program, they typically receive 400 applications for the Fall. Acceptance rate is around 70%. Letters are sent via postal mail and some are sent via FedEx in the case of international students. The majority of letters are sent by the third week in April. "If you applied on time, expect to receive a letter within the next three weeks." As we know, they do review applications in the order that they were received, faculty make recommendations and the directors of the program make the final decisions. Hopefully that helps somewhat...basically more waiting!

Just for the record...I'm an idiot. NSGS MA/MS in I.A. is having an online chat tonight about the program at 6pm EDT. Since I signed up for it, I suppose I could ask them in the chat where my damn letter is!

Nah, not rude...my name is just another way to make fun of myself and it lets people rip on my rants under their breath Thanks for the support, I appreciate it. I don't want to bug them about it again, I know I applied near the deadline so either I'll be waiting a long time...or because I emailed the asst. director of the program during deadline week to let him know I was applying (and jog his memory of when we met), I might get lucky and my application reviewed sooner. At this point I think anything is possible. I might roam Facebook again and see if anyone else is talking about it on the NS page -I saw 4 students talking about the IA program on there before...maybe they heard something so far. LotusEater hasn't heard anything yet either (same program). I'll try (HA!) to hold off until April 12th before I call again...I figure that's 2 weeks, so we'll see how it goes. I'm trying to remember what movie I watched at some point in my life that reminds me of this waiting process. There is a inline where one person is trying to explain the waiting period after they made a decision to do something; it went something like this: "there was too much time to think, too much time to wonder what you should have done differently." At any rate, my point is just to say that I cannot believe how much (and how little) I have thought about since I clicked "apply". I've been thinking my SOP was stupid and my writing sample was not the best I could have sent...etc etc. I've even started wondering if I should have applied to all of the schools I wanted to apply too instead of putting it off. I don't have to rant any more, you all know what I mean about over thinking the process. I just can't imagine what some of you are going through (and others) that applied to tons of programs and for some of you this might be your second year applying. My mind is racing just thinking about it!

Guess what I got today!??!?!?! A letter from Direct TV offering a deal on satellite...okay okay, enough fooling around; I got another letter. My semiannual insurance premium. Yeay! Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get coupons in the mail tomorrow....OOooooooOOOOoooo

freaking out

I love it. I've been so worked up and normally I can be a pretty patient person. I've gone back on my word and checked the mailbox every day at lunch this week so far...I don't know why I can't just wait another couple of hours, but each day I think "Well, what if today is the day? I want to call people before dinner time and celebrate, so I'll go check now." Bah! I have to finish my research paper by tomorrow night...I'm presenting it Friday morning. I'm thinking I'll regret all of the extra trips home vs. working on my paper! ARGH

Nothing in the mail today, nothing in the mail yesterday...