fruitcat

I've had bad luck with most succulents, my apartments generally don't get enough light, with the exception of my nearly unkillable snake plant sitting in the sunniest spot in my current house. My other idiot-proof/low light tolerant plants are the good old spider plants and pothos vines. Super nerdy, but you should follow Houseplant Journal if you're into plant pictures and care tips.

Not pretty. GRE twice: $410 (thanks, spontaneous 4 am drunk housemate birthday that happened the night before attempt one) GRE scores: $108 App fees for 6 schools, one $200 fee waived: $430 Transcripts: $30 Test prep (Magoosh, two books): $100 Rounding up to about $1100 to include all of the late night CVS junk food I stress ate while studying and writing essays after work at the office.

Around a 7. The coordinator of my very close 2nd choice program keeps emailing me for an answer, and I keep dragging it out because I'm fundamentally afraid of commitment, enough so that I'm even nervous to formally turn down the schools I know I'm not going to. (edit: nerve-induced typos)

Thanks @limonchello! That makes a lot of sense, I was looking over class prices again yesterday, and even though they are pretty affordable, it's still a few hundred bucks that I could be saving for grad school itself. I'll probably still go through Khan Academy's videos on these topics.

No creative solutions in my case, I just spent a while trawling through as many Craigslist ads as possible. Maybe also ask around both your grad and undergrad networks if they have any leads too. There's also this massive FB group that I've personally never used but know others who have, along with smaller affinity group (i.e. LGBTQ friendly, hobby centric) housing pages floating around. What school are you heading to?

My impression of the networks, having gone to none of these schools, but working with and around their alums: Agree that UCSB's network is largely west coast, but again there is a network in DC; Duke also has a (slightly stronger?) DC network. I would say GW's network is most valuable in and around DC. (edit: clarifying that I don't mean that GW's network is the most valuable of the three schools, just that GW doesn't have as much of a national network and its network is largely within the DMV) Unless interning or working part time is a major priority for you, I don't think being slightly isolated will be a big deal.

Yay I'm also a midwest transplant to D.C.! Do you know yet what neighborhood you'll be in? There are actually all of those stores you mentioned around the city, but the most prevalent and accessible are probably Safeways.

echoing @3dender, what do you want to do and where do you want to end up? Honestly, being in the federal energy sector in DC, you run into alums of all those programs frequently so you're off to a good start either way. I've also been admitted to Bren but am pretty sure I'm not going to go, what other questions do you have?

I'm not familiar with Columbia, but my friend lives in the Greenbelt area and loves it. Also yes, finding studios in D.C. under $1400ish will be very hard, if they're around $1100 or below, they will usually have income limits, which might not be an issue on a grad stipend. A group house room around $1000 is much more do-able, but location dependent. I always plug biking in D.C. to get around the city and immediate suburbs! The infrastructure is always getting better, and the biking community is super awesome and active. Lastly, I know this is potentially creepy, but my group house has rooms opening up late spring! And my room will be open starting August! We're in Petworth (residential, a little far out from downtown, but great community), a 10 minute walk from the Green/Yellow line, rents around $800, 6 people in total but spread across three floors and three bathrooms. One roommate has done grad school and UMD and Georgetown, another did undergrad at GW. Feel free to PM me if you're interested or have D.C. questions in general.

I'm trying to decide which supplementary math class to take community college before my grad program starts. I've already taken Stats 1 & 2, and Calc 2, I'm trying to decide between differential equations and linear algebra. I only have time to take one of these in the spring, as I'm still working full time, and the summer semester dips into when grad classes would start. I've been accepted into most of my top choices for environment/energy management, (I haven't picked yet! D: ) talking to professors and looking through course catalogs, it seems like it would between these two, leaning toward linear. Applications would be for economic and financial modeling, as well other general types of quantitative analysis skills that I'm looking to learn in grad school. Asking my mathy econ friends, they have varied horror stories about both subjects, so I'm anticipating it to be a challenge either way. I'm not the most naturally gifted at math, but managed to get As in all of my previous community college math classes because I was able to focus on one subject at a time, so I'd rather knock this out in a safer, and frankly, less challenging environment. Thoughts?