Usmivka

I'd check out the many similar threads on this. Also, if you want useful feedback, please provide the percentages, the raw numbers mean different things from test to test, and many of us took the old GRE with a different scoring system. What is a "top" program for you? If you already have an idea, the school website likely lists the average GRE scores of recent applicants. Otherwise, let us know where you are looking so we can provide specific feedback. Finally, GRE scores are a minor part of the admissions process for many programs, especially in the humanities. If you want to know whether you can get in, you will need to provide details about academics, research, etc.

Sounds to me like you've approached him too early in your stint and without a specific goal for the letter. A recommendation letter isn't very convincing if it isn't specific in what it is recommending you for (X university, Y program, Z job, whatever) anyway, so it could just be he thinks this is a frivolous request. Or worse, since you gave him no background, it may seem to him as though you are trying to jump ship and abandon your project. In fact, since it sounds like you haven't written up your work yet or published anything, I'm not sure how he could speak to your merits as a researcher yet. A side note, just for the convenience of the other forum users: it would be easier to read your post if you left it in size 12 and the default font, no bold, and no giant gaps between paragraphs. Not that there is anything wrong with personalization, I just found it really difficult to read and follow.

I'd avoid many landlords and all rental companies in the U-District, many are slumlords. Check the place out first, or get a friend to, and check the Seattle DPD website (http://www.seattle.g...andlord_Tenant/) to make sure there aren't outstanding complaints against the landlord. Rental companies in general are unusual in Seattle, and are usually building specific. Rental "finder's fees" are always a scam in Seattle (personally I think they are a scam out East too, but renters here seem to accept them...). Don't sign onto a sublet without checking into whether it is allowed in the lease, otherwise you could find yourself evicted by the landlord with little notice--you have few rights if you aren't on the lease. If you are going to the UW, send an e-mail to your department's student listserv seeking a room, this will likely net you better accommodations and roommates. Also, unlike most parts of the country, mold is more or less expected in Seattle because of the climate, but pests are a big warning sign (As opposed to Boston, where every building has mice, but mold sticks out like a sore thumb). Keep this in mind when asking the landlord about potential issues. Fremont public transit can still be good at the bottom of the hill (better than Wallingford, actually), there are many buses going all over the city, including an express to the U-District and back (#46). But the top of the hill near 46th Ave is only served by the #44, which can get really jammed. And Ballard is fine into downtown. It is just E-W transit that suffers, N-S is usually good. So I say Ballard is spotty from the perspective of going to the UW by bus, but it is great to get to city center. And still totally bikeable in all weather regardless--to be clear, you will likely need a bike if you don't have a car. Also, if you want walking distance, consider Eastlake. You have to cross the bridge, but it is is very close to the Medical Center and South campus.

I hate temperature extremes too. "Washington [DC] is not a place to live in. The rents are high, the food is bad, the dust is disgusting and the morals are deplorable. Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country." -Horace Greeley

I'd like to point out that Seattle and Boston are essentially the same size, and the extended Seattle urban area is larger than that of Boston in terms of population. Minneapolis is not much smaller, and DC is only a little larger than Boston or Seattle. So your city size list says more about your perceptions of the the cities than it does about what size they are and what resources they might host. The only truly small city on your list is Davis, and it is close to Sacramento and San Francisco. If you don't mind biking and busing, every city on your list is livable without a car, based on either my experience or those of colleagues. Also, your list basically implies anywhere without multiple subway lines is unlivable without a car (is "small"), but in my experience busing is often much faster than the T in Boston, and buses in Seattle were very convenient when I lived there despite the light rail being limited. Not having a car might be a shame in a place like Seattle though, it will be a lot harder to get to the mountains, ocean, or rainforest if you are an outdoorsy sort. All that said, I think what environment you'd like to be in and the other amenities may matter more than what public transit is like in each city, though it is important. Check out the city guide threads.

Oddly enough, Montlake use to be a student neighborhood because of the houseboats, which back in the day nobody but students would rent. But that was the 70s, nowadays any rentals in Montlake are luxury units. Ravenna and Sand Point have the same sort of feeling as Montlake, but have some affordable rentals. I'd consider broadening your search. Fremont and Ballard are fun and friendly neighborhoods with lots of ameneties and plenty of very reasonable rentals, but quieter sub-neighborhoods too (they used to be independent towns) and are super accessible to the UW by bike: 15 minutes on the bike trail from Fremont, 20-30 from various parts of Ballard. Bus service is awful going E-W though, and parking is at a premium in the UDistrict, so this only makes sense if you are serious about self-propelled commuting. I've lived in every neighborhood along the ship canal, and I will never live in the U-District or the part of Wallingford immediately adjacent to the freeway again. Way too expensive ($300-500/month more than you would pay for an equivalent property in Ballard) and noisey for what I think are some of the crummiest housing north of the cut. If you are going to pay that much or can't deal with the poor public transit to Fremont/Ballard, live somewhere interesting like Cap Hill or lower Queen Anne, both of which have very good bus service to the UW. Most UW grad students I know live in houses together or with their significant others in the nicer parts of Wallingford, Fremont, or Ravenna, and pay $400-500 per person. Expect to pay more if you want your own place, one-bedrooms of good quality are $750-1200. More than that you are being gouged or paying for the convenience of your location.

I may or may not have gotten new clothes since high school (other than freebies from events), and am in grad school after a multi-year work break...but my fellow grad students look just as dated as I do, so I don't feel too out of place!

We need your percentile rank to interpret the scores. The score varies in its meaning from exam to exam, since the quartiles can change for each test, and many of us took the GRE back when each section was out of 800, so we don't necessarily have a reference point for what a "good" score is without those percentiles. Also, most theater programs don't list scores of incoming applicants, so I'm not sure anyone cares how good you are at algebra and geometry even math majors haven't seen since high school. Actually I'm not sure they care much about verbal either. I suspect writing is much more important, which is not a score you posted, if they care about GREs at all. It seems like your portfolio, audition, and letters of reccomendation are orders of magnitude more important than test scores to drama programs regardless, so I'm not sure we can give you constructive feedback based on GREs. I'd suggest writing the programs to find out what their average incoming class stats are and what they value in the admissions process.

See " the applications thread. About 60 responses, almost all useful regardless of program. Do you have anything more specific you want to ask? Or about a specific university?

Not everytwhere has a Sept to Sept lease, but anything less than one year is most likely an "at will" tenancy, which are rare enough that I wouldn't hold out any hope of finding one. This is why there are so many summer sublets in Boston.

The whole point of the writing section is for you to demonstrate that you can identify and counter logical fallacies, inconsistencies, confusion of correlation with causation, that sort of thing. If the question was truly stupid, then you pointed out exactly why in a logical and thoughtful manner, yes? Also, I think a 4 is a fine score, but someone in your field may have more pertinent thoughts.

If anything, your lack of first author papers after doing a masters and all that research time seems like more of a problem than your undergrad GPA--you have time before the next app season, see if you can pump out a paper and get it submitted. I can ask some of the current program students next week, if it will really, really make you feel better. I don't know if that will be helpful or not though, it sounds like you already have an in. If the prof is willing to advise you and has the money, I don't see how admission is more than a formality.

I can't speak to CS, but I can say that as a PhD student in the physical sciences, the prospect of graduation before 30 is mind-blowing I wouldn't worry about 1 yr vs 2, it makes no difference in the scheme of your life in terms of time spent. But that extra year could teach you a lot more, and provide the extra problems solving strategies and networking needed to not only get into grad school, but perhaps to get you a fellowship or even a great job without grad school, saving you even more time and money. I don't know the field or programs well enough to say if this is the case. But worrying about +/-1 year seems trivial compared to the other considerations you need to go through.

Here is a journal article on the declining relevance of "impact factor" (http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.4328v1). Long story short, with digital publication, impact factor has much less correlation with how often you get cited, while free online access (which many journal's charge an extra fee for) dramatically increases how likely you are to be cited. So your paper is more likely to stand on its own merits (or failures) than on the journal's. But reputation still makes some difference. Top-tier journals are those that have a wide readership outside your specific subfield, but by a knowledgeable audience (say, chemists in general, but probably not anthropologists). In my field that would be something like Limnology and Oceanography. In yours, Chemical Reviews and Annual Reviews: Biochemistry. Science and Nature are more like over-the-top, they are read by scientists from many unrelated fields. But articles in these are extremely limited in length, and often lack the in-depth analysis and comparison to other results that are important in evaluating work, so what often happens is a science paper, with a massive appendix that is online only, plus a more detailed work that is closely related in a "normal" top-tier journal.

Haven't heard of either of these. MIT and Harvard jointly offer free online classes as part of their "edX" initiative, but those won't provide you with a certificate. I realize this isn't what you are looking for, but they may be good place to start if you want to learn the material. If all you need is a piece of paper, I'd consider open enrollment summer periods at any big state university, like the University of Washington, UMich, whatever. Or try UBC or a similar Canadian school? These may be less expensive options, but there is no gaurantee since you'd be taking courses as a post-bacc by credit hours rather than a finite, fixed-cost program. Honestly, $5000 dollars sounds like a super deal given the price of higher education in the US (a full quarter with the sam ecourse load would likely cost $10-15k)--that assumes it is on campus, by the way, for an online course that is nuts!

You really need to make a weekend trip over specifically to get a feet on the ground feel for the areas where you see a lot of postings. I'd consider just making a three day trip out of it, staying in a hostel, and visiting every OK listing with the expectation that you will sign a lease for the fall now. You are much less likely to get stuck in a crummy situation this way, and will likely save money by not having to forfeit a security deposit when you get stuck somewhere afwul witha slumlord. Most of the good places are being signed now, only the dregs will be left for the student rush in the fall. Also, New York has specifically designated affordable artist's housing. I don't know the requirements, but they will likely be along the lines of having a recent body of work, letters of reccomendation from well regarded artists in the New York area, etc. They make these very difficult to get, and it is unlikely you can get one right off the bat, but I thought I'd let you know in case you find a way to make it work. This can let you live in much nicer accomodations than you'd be able to otherwise (I'm stereotyping you as the poor starving artists type here...). Craigslist is a craps shot--most folks find housing that way, but it is also where the sleazbags and scammers conregate. One last thought--those student apartments are probably expensive relative to going rate, but they are less likely to have the standard 3-4% rent increase every year, you likely won't have to sign a full year lease and it will be easy to move out when you do find the perfect place, they will be close to where you work, may include utilities, and they will be professionally maintained and managed. Having all that in one package is probably worth a lot more than the "extra" price built into the rent. These accomodations are also often designed with international and out of area students in mind, going out of their way to make life easy for you and providing lost of community building events, which can make all the difference when you are far from home. It may be worth staying there for 6 months or a year while you get your bearings, and then you'll be ready to jump on any really good apartment offerings.

field station

This is the wrong sub-forum for this post. If you want good responses, you may wish to repost this in one of the more relevant threads, or read the existing threads going through similar scenarios and questions to yours.

Uh, no resolution for us then?

Could the spambots have picked a worse forum to ply? Hah. OK, I know little about CS as a field. But I do know that (especially in CS) the rankings are worthless. Not "not everything," but just plain wrong and ignorable. Forget how they change by year, becasue 1. they change methodology constantly, and 2. they are based on trivialities like incoming class GPA and such rather than more important predictors like what the publication rate and impact is. For grad schools, the only worthwhile rankings are from the NRC, but only those from pre-2010 (I think the previous was 2006, they are infrequent). The 2010 ones were so flawed that academics in several fields (including on the NRC panel!) were writing papers analyzing their failings and discrepancies. The problem? They tried to act more like the US News rankings! So the moral is, there is currently NO good ranking system. If you want to know how your school stacks up, ask people currently in the departments and look at the publication output at high impact conferences (most CS work is presented at conferences rather than in journals, correct?). In a field like this, the school is only as good as your adviser is. I'd figure out who you want to work with and if (s)he is taking students before you apply anywhere. See the post on writing letters to academics in the Applications thread. Finally, consider if you even want to live in New York City (if everything else seems good about Columbia to you)--it isn't a great fit for everybody, and Seattle, or wherever you currently live in WA is not going to be directly comparable, especially in regards to price and how far your stipend will go. Administrative issues can seriously impact you, as it is the directors office that will have your back if you have a conflict with your advisers, need help getting to/from conferences, letting you know about academic opportunities. Good luck!

True. I say this as an undergrad chem major. If you want concepts, spending a bunch of time learning the specific math to solve a partition function in the Boltzmann distribution may not be the best use of your time. If your labwork now or later will depend on your ability to manipulate and interpret physical chemistry data (spectra, calorimetry data, whatevs), this is worth your time--but then shouldn't you be taking a PChem lab rather than lecture? Otherwise, maybe not a good use of time. This decision making is part of time management too. You don't train yourself in how best to use your time by dumping your energy into something you niether want nor need. But for counterpoint, many people are better hands on learners than memorizers. A intro class may just give you some formulae and say "solve," but I learn more if I can track how they were derived and the assumptions that went in, and I get a better "tactile sense" of what it actually means. An overview classes can leave me with factoids that I quickly forget instead of problem solving skills and reference materials that I can always come back to. Good luck.

Asked the attorneys next door. These are their thoughts, I have no say on the matter: Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Taking challenging classes that hurt your GPA does not count against you as much as taking only easy classes to keep your GPA artifically high. Obviously it would be better if you did well at the challenging classes, but it sounds like you have mitigating circumstances already addressed in an admissions essay. But for a top end law school you will want better than "good" reccomendations. You are also going to need a catch in that exceptional admissions essay (why is this importnat, what are you hoping to get/give). What you do on the side in terms of community work, law related internships, all that good stuff is a very important factor, probably more so than grades. Edit: Already a masters? This can hurt or help, depending on field and whether you have had a life outside of school. Grad programs can be leary of the professional student.

For many programs, schools have to spend much more than this because of administrative overhead, health insurance, and facilities upkeep. They are losing money on every student they take. The only way this works is because out of state/international undergrads subsidize the school, they get federal grants, or pay only professional schools put in way, way more money, and some of this gets distributed to other departments. Still cheaper than full time employee though, and the federal grants often have educational goals like "we want to encourage STEM graduation."

In my opinion, schools don't look down on old scores, ETS does. The only reason they expire is because it brings ETS more money. Your scores are good as is. I won't try to dissuade you from taking the newer test, but I got into the top program in my field based on 3 year old GRE scores--it didn't seem to hurt, but I suppose I don't know what the internal deliberations were. You could contact some prospective departments and find out what the student adviser thinks too--my bet is most would tell you don't bother to retake, just send the old scores now before ETS deletes them. PS, good on you for taking time to Peace Corps.

Chiming in kind of late, it does seem like if you think studying more for another round of GREs would improve your score, that might increase your odds of funding. It is also OK to address your scores in an application letter: eg xyz about test, but look at my improvement in grades over the course of my studies, look at these great things I've worked on... But assuming you want to move forward this year, some funding is better then none, I absolutely agree that you can work hard and hope for future funding, and write fellowship proposals (these depend more on your ideas and not at all on GRE scores). Also, mathematics jobs post-graduation are relatively plentiful compared to someone studying almost any other field. In this case a masters can be a really good investment, because while an employer may look at an undergrad GPA, they tend to take graduate degrees as a statement of ability regardless of grades and other factors. I mean, other than a PhD program you apply to, who will ever look at your grades again if you can say "I have a masters in math!"?