kurfew007

I have one. It's pretty awesome. Also kind of expensive, in my opinion. They can also take some getting used to. The controls can be pretty sensitive. The first time I rode the board I goosed the accelerator and went from 0 to around 15 mph near instantaneously. At least the board did. I flew into the air and barely moved from my original position. Second time I rode was much better.

1. Working as a TA and tutor at my undergrad institution. 2. Probably taking one graduate class. 3. Finishing a research project I started last semester. 4. Looking for an apartment. 5. Reading a lot of books. 6. Playing a lot of video games. 7. Trying to catch up on sleep.

I understand the feeling. I'm still waiting on several schools to give me a decision. Two of which are my top choices. At this point I just want to know, regardless of what the decision is.

Just got the email from Notre Dame that I'm waitlisted.

I'm going to fund my moving with three things: my savings, my significant other's savings, and the money we make from selling our furniture. Having said that it will be more than enough. I haven't made my final decision yet, but the school I'll likely be attending is only a four hour drive from where we currently live. It won't cost that much to move what belongings we do take as we'll be able to move them ourselves. We did some figuring, got cost estimates from a few of movers, and looked at furnished units and how much more it would cost. We're not likely to be living in the city we move to for the next 20 years so we don't necessarily need to own a bunch of furniture. Yes, furnished units cost more, but the apartments we're looking at run around $50-75 extra for a furnished unit over a non-furnished unit. That's $3000-4500 over five years. We got five moving estimates and all of them were over $3000 with us packing everything. Just seems worth the extra money to us, and we'll have plenty of money to cover deposits, etc.

Being "older" with a few back problems, my plan is to keep on using my trusty The North Face backpack. It suits my needs and it's still in great shape. Also a good idea since I'll be biking/walking to campus a lot.

I'm in a similar situation. My gap between attempts was around thirteen. I originally went to school pursuing a B.Sc. in Genetics. After three semesters I dropped out. I made a lot of bad decisions in that time and had a lot of family issues going on. My performance reflected that. Fast forward to the present and I'm finishing up my B.Sc. in Computer Science with a 3.94/4.0 GPA, good GRE scores, etc. When it came time to apply to graduate schools I was worried about this as well. The advice I was given by most of my professors, especially my recommenders, was to check the requirements. If they wanted all transcripts then send them all and address that time period in my SoP. If for whatever reason they didn't specify all transcripts then don't send them. Most of the schools I was applying to wanted all past college transcripts. A couple just wanted transcripts for the school where I would be receiving my Bachelor's. I did what I was advised. In the end, I've interviewed with eight POIs from five schools. Only two of them mentioned my first attempt at college, and only one of them made any sort of big deal about it. Everyone else was more concerned with my performance in my current degree and my research experience. I have three admission offers, so I don't think it made a huge difference. That's just my experience in a single academic field though, so take it as you will.

I also applied at WSU and am still waiting to hear anything from them.

Hi @lfguzman. I too applied at Purdue and Notre Dame, but have yet to hear my decision. I can't say about Purdue, but at least at Notre Dame I don't think it necessarily means you've been waitlisted/rejected. If you emailed the actual graduate school you'll likely get just a standard email saying that they don't really know about department decisions and every department does it differently. That's what I got. I had Skype interviews with a couple of professors there several months ago, and saw those same professors during the visit weekend. I've stayed in contact with one. I asked them if they knew anything about my application, but they didn't know anything other than that there was no internal decision made yet. They aren't personally on the admissions committee, but they said the committee does admits in rounds and it might be April before they make all their decisions. So no news may be "good" news in this case. We'll just have to wait and see.

I check the application status sites at least every other day, and most often every day. I've gotten 1 rejection and 3 admissions. For the rejection I checked in the morning and it was still pending. That evening I got an email saying to check the site and it had been updated. For the 3 admissions I saw my result in the application status portal generally 2-3 days before I received an email notifying me of the change.

The most basic reason is because it's something I want to do. Beyond that I want to go into academia in some form, either to teach, do research, or both.

Fourth grade. Young and stupid. Loved climbing trees. Fell out of a tree into a barbwire fence. 100 stitches and a six inch scar across my shin. Good times.

Well, let's see. I've been on four visits so far this year. They were all fine for me, and I enjoyed the time spent getting to find out if I was a fit for the program/campus/town. There was a really awkward moment at one of them though. Visited a campus where all prospective grad students were invited on the same day. None of had admission decisions yet. We all had interviews with professors, and they were mostly done as a panel interview with one professor and two to five students. For one of my interviews I was with two other students: student A and B. Student A apparently was going to have no interviews with the two faculty he specifically requested to interview with. I don't know the reason for this, but things happen. I can't give you an exact quote but we walk into the professor's office sit down and A immediately says something like "I'm not interviewing with Professor X or Professor Y. I have no idea who you are, and really I don't care. This is a waste of my time, and I don't know why I'm even here. This school is a waste of my time." Student B and myself are just kind of sitting in shocked silence. The professor responds with "Well alright then. Moving on." And then proceeds to interview student B and I, ignoring Student A. Found out later that he did that in every interview. We're all pretty sure he's not getting admitted.

I haven't decided for sure yet. It's the only school I've been admitted to where I have any information on funding, so it's looking like a good choice right now. I was told they'd be having an open house on the weekend of April 1st so I'm hoping to attend that before I make any decision. I'm not sure at the moment if they'll be paying for travel expenses and such for it. Waiting on a response to that inquiry.

I'm 35 as of this posting. So far I'm dealing with the stress appropriately: not getting enough sleep, drinking too much coffee, drinking too much bourbon, eating too much ice cream, and checking my application statuses way too much. I graduated high school in 1999 and matriculated immediately into a genetics program. I lasted a year. I made some bad decisions, and I honestly just wasn't ready for college. I spent the intervening years working as a general labor worker and then a fabricator/welder. I decided at the age of 32 to go back to school and major in computer science, so while I'm older I'm also one of those who is still in undergrad. Majoring in computer science was the best decision I've ever made. I've done a lot of things I never thought I'd do: I've done research with some great people at a DoE lab, I've made connections in industry and academia, I've worked two years as a TA and loved every minute of it. I worked in industry as a software developer for around a year. I quit last year because I knew that grad school was what I wanted to do. Right now I'm stressed, scared, hopeful, tired, and excited all at once.

You'd likely be fine. There might be an adjustment period for you moving from Chicago to a much smaller town. But plenty of people have made the switch from big cities to smaller college towns for grad school and vice versa. In the end you just need to weigh your options and decide which you think would be better for you. If Purdue has an open house/visitation weekend for you I'd definitely go to it. Even if they don't, the drive from Chicago to West Lafayette isn't too bad. It's definitely a doable thing for you to go down there for a couple days and check it out if you're able to afford it.

I applied to the CS PhD program at Purdue in December. Still waiting on a decision as well. Having lived in Indiana for most of my life and having spent a good deal of time in the Lafayette area (work, friends at Purdue, etc.) I think Lafayette in general is a good area. The cost of living is decent. Not super low, but definitely a bit below the national average. It's kind of your "traditional" college town: low population area, kind of a "sleepy" town depending on where you might be coming from. The area is pretty flat and full of agricultural land as Purdue does a lot of agricultural research. If you need some nightlife or a weekend in a more bustling area then Indianapolis is only around an hour away and Chicago is about two hours away. Both of which will provide plenty for you to do. Just my thoughts.

I don't know that I'd say that. I applied to twelve schools total. I've gotten one rejection, one admission with funding, two admissions with no info on funding yet, and I haven't heard anything from the rest. You'd think that having at least one offer with funding, even from a "backup" school would ease the stress levels. I kind of thought it would, but I was wrong. I haven't heard a peep from my top three choices and it's killing me. I honestly don't think I'll be calm and stress free until I actually make my decision sometime around the beginning of April. And then it will only last for a few days before I'm stressed about actually going off to start my Ph.D. Good luck with your admissions journey!

I applied at Boulder, but I have yet to hear anything from them as well.

I applied at 12 schools total. Mostly because several waived my application fee. I'll keep this updated as decisions come in. Profile: American with US undergrad at smaller, not well known institution. It's a satellite campus for a a state flagship institution. 1 year research experience (no pubs). 10 months industry experience in analytics group at Fortune 50 company. GPA: 3.94 GRE: 161Q 163V 4.0AW Schools and Decisions: Purdue N/A University of Colorado - Boulder N/A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Reject on 01/24/2017 Indiana University N/A University of Notre Dame N/A Vanderbilt University N/A University of Oregon N/A University of Tennessee - Knoxville Admitted on 02/06/2017 Kansas State University Admitted on 02/14/2017 University of Central Florida Admitted on 02/17/2017 University of Kentucky N/A Washington State University N/A