UnlikelyGrad

August 24--Monday. *gulp*

Been there, doing that!! We also have a friend of a friend looking for us. He also refuses payment. (I would rather pay him because then he'd be motivated to get stuff done quickly...oh well.) We've found a couple of places that we really liked, but because it takes him so long to get out to look for them, someone else gets them before we can put our application in. It sucks. Well, I'll be there in a week for the start of school. Hopefully I'll have time to look then...

Ummmm.... House here still not ready to sell. Husband refuses to pack quickly so only half the stuff is packed. I'm going to have to leave my family behind (may be a month or two before we're reunited). Still have some wrap-up work to do on my research project here. Plus I still have no place to live though I have a good friend near school who's offered me a temporary place to crash. School starts in one week. Overwhelmed? I guess you could say that, yeah.

I had a 1.9 after my sophomore year of college. Turned around and got a 3.6 for the last two years, but overall GPA still sucked. My GRE scores were higher...but I had other problems with my app. During the app process, I was reluctant to even apply to any good schools. my current PI told me: "You never know until you try. Why not give it a shot?" I did, and I got into a top-10 school in my field. Didn't end up going there, but that's a different story...

I'm speaking from another perspective--that of a former tutor. (Never coached people for GRE, but def. have done SAT). It certainly helped me look at things differently when it was time to study for the GRE myself!! I thought the Barron's book had the best layout for people trying to "start from scratch" so to speak. BUT--I would also recommend that you get the Princeton Review book for the little math tricks they teach. You may not have time to learn the algebra that you'll need to ace the quant section--but you can use little tricks like number substitution to get the right answer. (I could do most of the math in my head and I *still* used the tricks because they were so much faster.) Really--get up to snuff on the tricks.

At first I used practice tests in books (Barron's and Princeton Review) which were spectacularly bad indicators of how I was going to score. (I think I consistently scored about 650 V and 730 Q on the Barron's tests). PowerPrep was a better predictor--I got about 750V and 800 Q on that. (Actual score was 790V, 800Q).

Believe it or not, I also seriously considered this as a career...I have spent hundreds, maybe thousands of hours volunteering with my city's Office of Emergency Services and other organizations dealing with disaster prep, so I thought maybe I'd be happy as an emergency manager. I did all the research...but that was 2 years ago, before I decided on a different career path, so I've forgotten the schools I located. I'll rack my brain and try to remember them, but don't keep your fingers crossed! One thing you can do to get a headstart is to take classes through FEMA's emergency management institute: http://training.fema.gov/index.asp They have on-campus courses, of course, but they also have (FREE!!!) independent study classes available online. They have a course which introduces you to the position of emergency manager, but I think the most critical course for starting is IS-100.a, Introduction to the Incident Command System. ICS permeates all levels of emergency management in the US; until you understand it, your career isn't going to go anywhere! It's pretty simple, though, so you'll probably pick it up quickly.

Even though I had the top grade in the class, I used to go into office hours when I had questions on the homework. My professor was a chatty type who would often talk to me after he'd helped me with the problem. Soon he realized that not only did I understand enough to help him in his work, I had a personality he could work with. So he asked me to join his team.

I just got my last rejection a couple of weeks ago...not sure why it took them so long...

I got accepted to 4 schools this year and I'm 37. As far as I'm concerned, you're a young'un!

I did study vocab for the Verbal section, but nowhere near as intensively as you plan to. I think the reason that my Verbal score was so high (790) was that I read a LOT (10+ books a week for the 15 years between undergrad and grad app time...you do the math). I think your plan for looking up unknown words is the best thing you can do.

But keep in mind that even schools you think would be thrilled to have you--backwater no-name places with no reputation at all--may turn you down. I got into a really competitive school yet was turned down by several of my "safeties"...

I still haven't heard a peep from Idaho, which was one of my safety schools...

I took zillions of practice tests, so to make things easier for the OP I'll compare with the PowerPrep test I took the day before the real thing: Q: same score V: +50 Reading comprehension was my bugaboo too. What I ended up doing was looking at the question first and then skimming the passage for the answer to that question--instead of trying to understand the whole selection right off the bat. I only read the whole selection if the question asked "The main idea of this passage was..." or something like that.

The Barron's book was my favorite, too, but I think that only Princeton Review teaches the test-taking tricks; those can be real time savers! FWIW, I got 790V & 800 Q...

Thank heavens!! I've been worried for you...

I would only answer no because I don't like white cats.

Colorado School of Mines. It's the geochemistry program (which is where all the environmental stuff is done) rather than straight chemistry. After several months of working for a theoretical chemist (who is a great guy with interesting research--it's just not for me), I am looking forward to doing LAB WORK!! and FIELD WORK!!!! I am excited.

Wow!! EXCELLENT!!

For at least one school I applied to, the decision came directly from the department and was never actually posted on the school website.

LOL! You just made my day!!

I think the only area I didn't feel safe in after dark was the section north of the freeway and west of Lake Avenue. SCARY!!!! I didn't even drive through there at night. The area between Lake and Fair Oaks, between California and Del Mar, was pretty safe, though I would say I felt safer closer to Lake than Fair Oaks. I walked after dark A LOT; one day a week I took the bus from LA to Lake & California and walked home from there ~10:30 pm on a regular basis. I also worked at the Plaza Pasadena one summer and frequently walked/biked home at ~9:30. Never had any trouble (other than the guy who tried to pick me up because he thought I was a prostitute, but he backed off pretty quickly). Of course this was 10+ years ago, so things may have changed a bit, but I doubt it's significantly different.

Oh, definitely. We managed without a car for half of the eight years we were there. For the three years after that, we managed with "half a car" (meaning: we owned one but it wasn't always running). The bus system is okay; transit may be better now that light rail runs to town. Biking is definitely an option, once you get to know the streets with bike lanes. Plus, if you live near Caltech, you should be within walking distance of a lot of stuff.

Never??? I don't like that word. You think you're old? I'm 37. I got accepted into 4 Ph.D. programs this spring. Chill, dude. 30 is not the end of the world. Work for a year or two if you don't get accepted this year, but don't assume it's the end of your academic career.

Don't despair! Most adcomms look primarily at the second two years of your transcript. So try to get better grades in the future, and you should be fine. Get the best grades possible from here on out...study hard for the GRE...and above all, make connections during your time in the Peace Corps. For what you want to do, that will be the BEST thing you can do. Really.