TITX

@mseapplicant I did my undergrad at Columbia. What professor are you looking at? The department is quite small and even as an undergrad I really got to know most of the faculty quite well. I took some classes at the graduate level and about 93-95% of the master students are international. I would honestly say their masters program is just a source of income... Did not really have much interaction with the PhD students so I can't speak much on their camaraderie. NYC is way better than SD in terms of urban escapades.. no question there. I love the small size of Columbia's campus. It's 1 avenue by 6 city blocks and you can probably walk across the whole campus in 6-8 minutes. UCSD is an enormous campus in comparison, but you have the beach, I guess. It is a bubble if you stay within the area but that honestly never bothered me since the subway is literally across the street. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

@becs_granola Send a follow up email. I'm sure these administrators get a ton of emails and were getting pretty close to the deadlines. 'Hi, I just wanted to follow up on my previous email about GEM. I would love to matriculate at X and was interested in being a GEM recipient at your institution. Please let me know if there are any documents or other requisites that I can provide you. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon. '

this is great to know! thanks! i will probably be using this. was also stressing about having to sacrifice the library i've built up T___T

Does anyone have any info on life in Bolton Hill? Like day to day grocery shopping, bike friendliness, and safety are particularly my concerns. I am matriculating at JHU this fall. Thanks!

I was wondering if any current graduate students could tell me if stipends are taxed and, if so, how much is it taxed? Any info is much appreciated!

For those of you that have already gone through the process: after we sign the offer link and it disappears, is there anything else we have to do? I was holding off on accepting an offer from the department until the GEM side of things went through. Also a little disappointed that the 16K is not in addition to the base stipend lol.

Could the delay in some admissions decisions be due in part to some kind of lag in funding from the NSF due to the government shutdown in Dec/Jan? Like are they waiting to secure funding before they send out the final round of admits and rejects? Just speculating... this wait is entirely exhausting and anxiety inducing...

I am in a somewhat weird situation? I had a round of interviews last Friday and reached out to professors to thank them and echo my interest in joining their groups. A week has passed and only one professor responded to me to tell me that he gave the spot to someone else and the other two did not respond at all.. I also had another round of interviews in mid/late Feb and had not heard from the department in over a month following them. I emailed the academic coordinator and she responded that faculty are still making decisions??? I had heard from other people that also attended that they received offers so that kinda stung. At this point, I've already mentally settled on another school but am holding out until April 15th with hopes of hearing back... In both of these cases, I also have not been told I am on the waitlist.. Does the fact that professors don't respond to post-interview emails means they considered you but not as first choice? I legit have not been able to sleep for the past two months now because I just wake up in the middle of the night hoping to have received a golden ticket... I mean I have a backup plan but these two options would be great

Just wanna say that BME thread has kept me sane throughout this whole process... ❤️ lol

Just want to echo what was said here. I am an LA native and spent a decent amount of time in SD. LA is definitely where you want to be at if you want to be in a diverse, urban area and SD is more of a suburban, very spread out city where you really need a car. SD feels more like enclaves spread out through an area with lots of nature in between, if that makes sense. If you are more into spending time outdoors, SD if definitely where you want to be. LA definitely has a lot more going on though, so if spending time in the city is what you're looking for definitely go to UCLA. In my opinion, SD just has bubbles and is lacking in the types of cultural & nightlife events that LA constantly has--and while both cities are racially segregated, it is MUCH more apparent in SD.

@WaliaIbex I just had an interview at Georgia Tech this past Friday and am hoping for good news soon. I also had another interview at JHU a month ago but I heard they started sending acceptances out to some of the other people that were there.. I haven't heard back for JHU but I also haven't been rejected so I'm kinda in limbo.. Other schools I've heard absolutely nothing from are USC and Rice. Also waiting to hear back from Berkeley's MEng program, but probably won't be accepting if offered admission since I have a couple PhD options now.. I want to have all my options finalized so that I can reach out appropriately instead of sending emails to everyone. Don't know if this is a sub-optimal approach.. All the programs I applied to other than Berkeley were for PhDs in Materials Science.

@WaliaIbex Same. I'm not sure how to proceed with contacting GEM reps though as I still haven't heard back from a number of schools..

Does anyone have any insights into graduate life at Rutgers New Brunswick? I am currently considering an offer for graduate study at the Engineering School but would like more information/insight regarding life there. I have lived my whole life in urban areas (NYC & LA) and am a little worried that I will feel out of place in what seems to be a suburban/rural environment. Also, would anyone have insight into Latino and/or queer/LGBT life in the area and on campus? Any info would be much appreciated!

@QuantumFroggy250 I didn't.

Same. I've been matched since day 1 and nothing ever happened. At this point, I'm just waiting for details around the associate fellow process to be released.