highhopes

I'm a current first-year grad at UCLA (in cognitive psych - I'll be seeing you in a few weeks, if you come!) so I know a bit of what the plans are, if you're really freaking out and want to know. I'm slightly hesitant to say too much on this public forum though. I did let the student organizer know about this thread though, so she's going to send trying sending individual emails which you're hopefully receive.

Details about the recruitment weekend were emailed at least a week ago. It is for Mar 5/6th - you should check your junk mail folder - maybe the email from the student organizing the recruitment weekend got lost?

Just so you know, Cambridge University is NOT in London - London is 40mins away by train. Cambridge is its own city, and it is absolutely beautiful! I did my undergrad there and loved every minute of it. I wrote a bit about the city on this forum thread: , in case you were interested in finding out a bit about the place. i can't really vouch for either program however, as I don't know much about it. I would recommend emailing some current grad students to hear their thoughts. As for work opportunities during study at Cambridge...I don't know whether your student visa will let you work - it definitely depends...some international students are only allowed part-time, others aren't allowed to work at all.

Haha, nope that's not me, sorry!

Thanks! I wasn't able to make the weekend, but what I've heard from various people has all been positive. We're meant to keep an open mind about advisors when we go in but I'll most likely be working in the Bjork lab (learning and memory). Congrats on Yale - it sounds like a fantastic program!

UCLA is giving me a 9-month $20k stipend. I'm an American citizen, but I haven't lived in the States for 15 years, so I've no idea how the tax system works. Does anyone have any idea how much taxes would eat into my stipend, and furthermore, whether that would be sufficient for living in LA? I took a gander at the website mentioned above (http://www.wendychao.com/science/stipends/) which freaked me out sufficiently. Science PhD students have stipends of $30k+?!?!

Now that I've accepted an offer, when should I start house hunting? I imagine now would be too early for August/September vacancies but equally, I don't want to leave it so late that all the cheap/good places have been snapped up (this is LA so expense is a pretty big deal). Another complication is that I am not currently living in America, so I can't go around visiting places long before the academic year begins. (I've submitted an application for university housing, so this is just in case). Oh, and as a reference, the quarter begins Sept 22nd.

I'm headed to UCLA for cognitive psychology! =)

I've just accepted an offer at UCLA! Anyone else going to be starting this Fall? Am now about to embark on a house hunt! Housing seems to be a bit pricey from what I can tell with university housing costing around $900! Is this what other people have been finding too?

I currently study at Cambridge, and it is an absolutely fantastic town to be in. It's small, but there is a LOT to do here. Students generally tend to live in the city centre, and you can pretty much get anywhere within a 25 minutes walk (most students use bicycles though!). I think the graduates tend to live a little bit further out than the undergraduates (i.e. 20 minutes walk from the centre as opposed to right IN the city centre). Cycling is the main form of transport and most do not have cars. There are a lot of restaurants here, and with the current economic recession, there are many meal deals which make eating out fairly reasonable (although, costs are of course all relative, depending on what you are used to. You can generally expect to pay about

I've got an invite to the recruitment weekend at Duke starting 2/27.

Ooh, I'm glad I found this thread, and it looks like I've applied to the same schools as a lot of you... Here's where I'm at: Interview: Duke (cog neuro recruitment weekend - will I be seeing anyone from here?), Northwestern (phone) Waiting: Harvard, WashU, UPenn, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, Stanford Rejected: Yale (congrats to the people who did get in though!) Doesn't look so good for most of the universities I haven't yet heard from, although I imagine applicants' research interests would be a fairly important deciding factor (my interest is memory, by the way)?