phunky

revago, thanks for the reassurance! I'm gonna send out my official responses tomorrow! It feels great to be done with this process.

I think I may have made a decision. Here are my results from this application process: CU Boulder - accepted - no funding Vanderbilt - accepted - TA ($25k/year) + Fellowship ($5k/year) Lehigh - accepted - Fellowship ($25k/year) GA Tech - accepted - I'm assuming no funding because I haven't heard anything Princeton - rejected Rutgers - ???!?! I'm sure I'll be accepted but I doubt they have any money I was torn between Boulder and Lehigh. Boulder e-mailed me yesterday and told me that I would not be receiving ANY funding, so that's definitely out of the running. It was my dream school and I feel like I was sort of led on, but I guess their financial situation is just not good right now (the economy, state school, etc.). I'm 95% sure I'm going to Lehigh. I feel like they actually want me to attend--multiple e-mails from several department heads, notifying me in early Feb, and a great research fit. Vanderbilt offered me a banging funding package but the research there isn't that strong (mostly computer modeling/simulation and little experimental work). Additionally, I went to undergrad there, so the question of being "inbred" comes into play. I'd rather have another University on my resume, to be honest. Lehigh has everything I want (minus maybe the location). The town kinda sucks, but it's way better than the sleepy, southern town where I currently reside. However, it is only an hour away from my parents' home and having lived over a 1000 miles away from my hometown for over 6 years, it would be nice to be close to family. Am I making the right decision?

Yay! Congrats on making a final decision--it must feel good!

Waiting for funding decisions is killing me! Anyone get any $$$ from GA Tech or Boulder yet? I realize other departments may have sent out letters, but I haven't received anything for structures yet. I also haven't heard ANYTHING from Rutgers, yet. They are the lowest ranked school on my list--weird that they are taking so long!

Yup, if I'm not fully supported, I can't go. All my profs know this.

Everyone I talked to in structures had not heard anything about funding. Congrats on getting an official letter!!

GA Tech was so awesome this weekend! No mention of $$--I'm assuming that they wanted to meet us in person before deciding on the funding situation. I hope I made a good impression!!!

I went to CU Boulder's and Lehigh's visitation days the last two weekends and loved both of them. This Friday is GA Tech. I'm definitely tired of traveling. I've heard back from all my schools except Rutgers. 4/5 so far with acceptances:). I have an awesome Fellowship at Lehigh ($25k stipend) and great funding at Vandy ($25k TA +$5k Fellowship). No word on $$$ anywhere else. CU Boulder said I'll know in the next few weeks and I'm hoping GA Tech says something this weekend.

Well that makes perfect sense! I just sent you a PM as I have a specific question about Lehigh. If you could take 2 minutes and respond, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks:)

Congrats on the Lehigh admit! Will you be attending the open house this weekend? I received an e-mail today from Boulder!!! I got in! Wooohoooo! No word on $$$.

I just received a call from the grad director at Lehigh and I got the fellowship I was nominated for! Anyone hear from Boulder yet? I'm ready to e-mail the grad coordinator and ask when decisions will be out b/c I need to book a flight for visitation day that's 2 weeks away!

Thank you! You are really calming my nerves. I received an e-mail from GA Tech a few hours ago inviting me to the admitted students days (March 11th and 12th). They are reimbursing travel expenses--hooray! Will I see anyone else there?

Thank you for posting this! Did he apply to the structures program? That's a little ambitious calling CUBoulder his safety school--it's ranked #22 in the nation for CE (although the engineering acceptance rate is 56%). Sorry to your friend:(. \

Has anyone heard from the Univ. of Colorado @ Boulder today?! The grad coordinator sent an e-mail out last week stating that decisions will be going out starting today. I haven't received any word yet.

I'm just going for open house type events but have professors I'd like to meet when I get there. So I guess maybe like an informal interviews? Like I mentioned earlier, I think visiting these schools will really help me decide where I want to go and more importantly, let me gauge the people I could potentially be working with (advisor and his/her students). In my mind, I figure it won't hurt to ask by sending a quick e-mail to the grad coordinators since the worst they can say is "no". I fly a lot and usually set up price alerts on my flights (sidestep.com) and book directly through the airline (usually; sometimes those 3rd party sites have better deals last minute). I started looking for flights on Thursday and just in the last few days the fares increased $200 for two entirely different round trips! One of the flights is to the airport I fly into when I visit my hometown/family and usually can get a roundtrip/nonstop for $300. I have never seen prices this high except around the holidays. I mean, it's still about 2-3 weeks out--fares are abnormally high.