mlle

I'm not in architecture--I'm in the social sciences and public health--but I had similar GRE V and Q as you, and I didn't have any problem getting into the schools I applied to (granted, I didn't apply to any of the ivies or anything--but I did apply and get into a number solid schools in my field). I did come across one school that had a quant cutoff of 600, but in my experience schools seem to be more concerned about whether your combined score is 1200 or over. If you put a lot of effort into the other parts of your application like your SOP, and finding good recs, I wouldn't think a low Q score would hurt you outside of the science fields, or econ or something. It wasn't an issue for me, at least. I never understood myself why everyone says the math section of the GRE is easy. I tried studying to raise my Q score and gave up bc I kept doing even worse on the practice tests than on the real test :roll:

So does anyone have advice for renting sight unseen in Boston? I looked in other threads on this forum re: moving concerns and house hunting, and the general consensus seems to be to AVOID renting sight unseen, and if you do, try to get a short term lease. Nice. Any other words of wisdom? Making a trip to Boston to go apt hunting over the summer just isn't reasonable for me, and I don't want to simply wander into the city in August with no place to live and rack up a huge hotel bill while I scout for housing at the same time that I adjust to my program and worry about classes and orientation, etc. Mind you, I don't already have family/friends/contacts in the Boston area, and I'm embarking on this with just myself and a GPS given to me as a gift (which I've never even used yet...). My main concern at this point is that I don't end up in a vermin- or bedbug-infested building (so I guess that means living in Allston is out?). I've lived in a sketchy neighborhood for my first master's degree and am used to being vigilant in my surroundings. I'm not even that worried about potential roommates as long as a get to have my own bedroom (maybe this is naive). So, anyone think I'm a total idiot for trying to go into this sight unseen? Any recommendations for potential (affordable) places to rent sight unseen for someone attending school in the South End?

How low are your grades? I've gotten my fair share of B+'s and A-'s in my master's program. I had thought you get kicked out of grad school if you can't maintain a 3.0 average.

Hmmm, not sure what the whole deal is in your case, but I did an exchange during UG, and also took several classes at different universities than my home school throughout college. It added up to A LOT of credits. All the credits were transferred in to count toward my degree, but I could only transfer the credits, and not the grades; the grades were not added into my UG GPA. However, with some of the master's programs that I applied to, I could not submit my UG transcript as is; I had obtain all transcripts from every school where I took classes and recalculate my final UG GPA with the grades from the transfer credits added in. Different programs look at your GPA differently in that respect. I had always thought that your UG GPA is still your UG GPA regardless of how many years you wait to apply to grad school (I also waited a few years), but that having experience adds to the overall package, especially if it's a professional program. Don't know what kind of program to which you're applying, though. There are probably people on this forum who know much more than me about these things.

*Sigh* Still no feedback. I haven't run into my classmates lately so I couldn't complain to them about it. ....We shall see.

So, I decided to come on here and vent because I had a disturbing realization this evening and ever since then I have not been able to study-- Last week I submitted a paper for one of my classes. It was not a traditional term paper. We were supposed to write a five-page essay giving our opinion on some topic relevant to the class, using 5-10 references. We were supposed to challenge ideas and be "provocative." (Uh oh...) The prof said that we should send in the draft of our essay by Friday, and he'd email feedback/suggestions on Saturday. Well, I sent in my essay and it's now (or, was....) Wednesday evening and I never got feedback on my essay. I didn't think much of this because this professor is generally terribly elusive and completely unresponsive, never lets us know how we scored on our exams, does not even provide any kind of clue throughout the semester as to how we are doing in the courses we take with him, etc etc. You know, the standard distracted professor... Anyway, as I'm sitting and studying tonight, it hits me like lead---I wrote an "opinion piece" on a topic of direct relevance to the professor's research, and yet I didn't make even ONE reference to this professor's research or publications in the essay. At all. No reference to the prof's work whatsoever. And this topic is my professor's big schtick. I don't know how I managed to overlook something so huge. I'm overcome with panic about how this prof is going to receive this essay now. I've started to wonder, what if he hasn't sent feedback for the essay not because of his usual aloofness, but because he is struck completely speechless and offended that I could be such an ignorant punk; he's just beyond words and is too disgusted to even grade my essay; doesn't even know how to address my sheer idiocy with me. I really hate to post another characteristically long, rambling, ridiculous freak-out post, but yeah, I'm freaking out about this one. Anyone manage to commit these completely asinine and disgraceful anti-intellectual acts even when they're 2 years into grad school?

I wonder if you'd have better luck with this question in one of the other subforums, like The Bank, or maybe IHOG or Officially Grads or something.

Heh, Tulip, I was in a very similar situation as you, except I chose school B. Now I'm worried everyone who hears about my choice will think I'm a completely irresponsible and reckless fool. I'm also worried I've made a huge mistake and the gamble I'm taking will blow up in my face. I don't think there's any right way to go about it in these situations. Different people would tell either of us we're idiots for our respective decisions depending on their views on the role school should play in how one lives their life. Sorry, I realize we're starting to take the thread away from the original "what if I'm an inadequate scholar!!!?" theme--at least in my case that's kind of irrelevant since my experience in my traditional academic MA program sent me running and screaming from academia into a professional program, never to look back. The rest of you guys can just ignore the last couple of diversions and carry on with your scholarly self-doubt.

I'm glad someone started this thread. I'll admit that ever since I decided on a school and sent in my deposit, I've started to enter a flaming freak-out of a completely different nature than the application process freak-out. I think the list of non-school stuff is even longer than the school-related stuff: I'm starting a master's program at an expensive private school in an expensive city that doesn't offer funding to masters students as part of their admissions package; I have some money in the bank but I'm terrified I'll still go waaaayy into debt if I don't chance upon an assistantship during my time there; I've never taken out loans before and I have to do that and have absolutely no idea what the hell taking out loans is all about. I'll be picking up with only the belongings that I can stuff into my car and wandering into a city 7 hrs away that I've never been to before and know absolutely nothing about; still haven't even started looking for housing and have no idea which neighborhood to be looking in for housing. And then there's the summer work issue. Still haven't secured any kind of job or anything to carry me over the summer after I graduate. And I won't have health insurance over the summer since my current student insurance runs out in June and my new student insurance doesnt kick in until August (I just can't help envisioning all these horrific swine flu scenarios happening to me during the period when I'm uninsured. I know it's silly but I mean, I'm already in alarmist mode to begin with about school :roll: ). And that's only the non-school stuff, and I can go on and on and on. I'm just trying to take it one day and one week at a time, blah blah. I'm trying to not even think about what I can avoid thinking about for the time being until I get through finals, bc it's completely distracting me from studying and getting through the last stretch of the semester (but as you can see, I'm still mulling over everything.....)

I'm so happy for you, frank =) Knock 'em dead.

LOL, this is exactly what I'm looking for too! I give priority to cheap rent and no bed bugs though, followed by decent public transit. The good food and shopping part would be great, but honestly, with my tuition, I won't have much wiggle room left over for the finer things in life for a while.... But can you really find a habitable place to live with no bed bugs in a *relatively* decent area for 500-600 a month in the Boston area? I thought Boston had a high cost of living. (I'm coming from a city where 600/month with a bunch of roommates is the bare minimum you can go for rent without seriously sacrificing your safety/health/overall standard of living). I'll be going to school in the area of the BU medical campus.

I am coming from an MA program where masters students work pretty closely with their advisors, including being involved in their research, and it's important that their interests match, etc. (like most graduate programs). Given that professional programs have a different emphasis than the "traditional" academic programs, does the importance of the advisor-student relationship still hold in an MPH program? How closely do MPH students work with their advisors compared to a non-professional program? I probably should know this by now, since I've gotten to the point where I've already applied to schools, gotten admitted, and am making decisions about where to go, but as usual I'm pretty clueless.

I'm glad someone started this thread. I've been completely guilt-stricken all evening bc I REALLY want to go to my first-choice school where I just found out I got admitted today, but it is a private school and the most expensive one I applied to, and it is in an expensive area of the country. I only got a token 10K merit scholarship, which won't even cover one semester of tuition. I have been *very* lucky not to go into debt from my undergrad and master's degrees (stayed in-state, worked and saved up between BA and MA, MA was partially funded), but if I go to this school for master's #2 I will be paying as much as ~65K (not including living expenses) for a second master's degree. I know my family and friends (and probably a lot of people reading this) will criticize me as being frivolous for getting a second masters at an expensive school that may or may not be worth the money for the field I'm going into, but the program seems to be SUCH a good fit for my interests. It's tough. The financial aspect of being a grad student student is definitely as stressful as the academic aspect.

These hand-written thank you notes are so embarrassing: I just finished writing a note to one of my recommenders to thank them now that the whole ordeal is over (thus far I've only sent thank you e-mails), and she is going to have to see that I am incapable of writing cursive and I print letters like a 3rd grader. This is just so absurd. I have not hand-written anything in years ever since laptops were invented, damn it. And not to mention the hassle of having to go out and find plain, appropriate stationary to use for your profs. The only stationary I had was foo-foo frilly stuff I use to write my grandmother. That wouldn't work. Just wanted to share my irritation. I'm not even sure if I'm going about the thank-you business correctly. But judging from this thread, it seems like anything goes with the thank you's, depending on the context......

Thanks for the input, guys. I read the replies and have been brooding like a moron over the whole damn thing all this time. I ended up getting into this in the first place b/c my advisor kept badgering me over email an in person all last semester about did-you-send-in-the-abstract, and then she sent in her letter of support for the travel grant without my really asking her to; so yeah, that's where the pressure I felt to go came from. Soooo.....it looks like I'll be presenting at this stinkin conference, b/c a day after I talked myself into booking the flight and going, I freaked out and changed my mind and tried to cancel the flight. But alas, the flight is predictably non-refundable, and it isn't like the grad school is going to reimburse me for a flight to a conference at which I didn't present.......so I'll be going later this month. Sounds like a beautiful disaster waiting to happen, right? I'm actually trying to "design" the damn poster right now (er, supposed to be, rather than visiting this forum) even though I should have finished it by now. I am going to need SO much Xanax for this conference...... :!:

Good GOD --that is a grisly story, that is like a campfire horror story. But do you think it's an urban legend? It kind of has that flavor of seeming a bit urban legend-esque. I wouldn't have to worry about that kind of back-stabbing thing happening to me, at least; with the quality of my stats, I don't think anyone would have any reason to do that to me *shrug*....

I had my worst freak out moments during the week or two right after I submitted my apps and it seemed like everything was going wrong and being turned on its head due to my own oversights; and I seemed to have a way going in and making things worse than they already were. In fact, I began going berzerk and threadjacked someone else's freak-out thread right here on the gradcafe to accommodate my own mania. http://forum.thegradcafe.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14663 It is really embarrassing both to re-read that thread and also to reflect on the asinine things I do while I am freaking out. I'll probably resume freaking out again this coming week, as I'm expecting to receive decisions from a number of schools in the mail soon.

Awwww, it looks like most of the top posters from Jan stopped posting in Feb because they were too ashamed to have their cyber-junkiehood publicly acknowledged :oops: I myself have been ever-so-mindful of the fact that soon I'll be bumped up from"caffeinated" to "espresso" or whatever it is that comes next on the addict scale.

I thought I was the only person in the world applying to ANY program at USF. I just don't see people talk about that school very much. I just got an unofficial email notice of my acceptance at USF, but it is for an MPH in the Community & Family Health dept, not PhD epi. I didn't have to do any interview (so far)--thank god. *Gasp* Good luck on the interview---Sorry, I really don't have any interview advice bc I didn't have to do one at any school yet, and besides I suck at interviews, but let us know how it goes.

I address them by Ms./Mr. in my e-mails. It does kind of feel weird but if you don't know them or if you haven't been admitted yet, it seems to make sense to stick to stuffy formalities. I suppose if you literally visit the school and meet them in person and they introduce themselves by their first name, and then everyone else calls them by their first name, then I don't see where there's anything wrong with switching to their first name. But I agree that it's not a big deal and wouldn't be too concerned about it. I would think the main thing is that your e-mails are polite, which I'm sure they are.

I didn't apply to any of those schools, desireyen. I applied to a few rather odd-ball, more obscure schools and then a few better-known schools--but nothing in the to 10--b/c my GRE quant is too low to be competitive and also I don't have much of a math background, which is important even thought I'm not doing epi/biostats. I think crime is something you just have to deal with. Those who go to JHU are definitely going to be faced with crime all around them. The school where I'm finishing my MA is in a super crime-y neighborhood and I don't go out at night even to take out my trash. You just have to be cautious. I would've thought PH would draw the older, more experienced crowd, but people seem to be pretty young. I noticed on BU's stats page that the mean age of their PH student body is 25. I dunno, I thought that was pretty young. I'm 25 now, so that means I'll be lumped in among the older students if I end up going there in the fall (still haven't heard back from BU, though, and I could very well be rejected...).....eeeeek..

My online status for one of my programs says, "referred - please contact program directly for more information" and I took that just to mean that the grad school forwarded my application to the department for review. I haven't heard anything at all regarding decisions from that program. If it still says referred even though you've been unofficially admitted, I would just figure that means the grad school hasn't gotten around to updating your status to accepted yet. For the OP, I know that with my MA program, the DGS told me in person that I had been admitted in late Feb. When he told me, he said they had decided to accept me about a week prior to his telling me, but he "wasn't allowed to say anything." I didn't end up getting my official acceptance in the mail from the program until about a month later. By then I was starting to worry whether they were just taking their time in sending out the official letter, or if they were having second thoughts or something, **eeek**

Yeah, I kind of miss the good old days of writing college SOPs in hs where the rule was pretty much that you should break the rules and try to show how unique and possibly quirky you are. Grad school SOPs seem so stuffy and so much more restricted in their scope and content, the whole tedious experience of writing them felt like I was s-l-o-w-l-y drowning in molasses.

My apps didn't get sent to Committee until early this month, so I'm still waiting to hear from every school. I am definitely losing more time now, sitting around and considering every possible wonderful and terrible outcome, during the winter/spring than I lost while being preoccupied with applications and SOPs last fall. Like, I REALLY can't handle this..... :!: