AliceInChains

I saw your post on Berkeley... that is where I am heading while you are going to UW. Interesting on how we are switching locations. Any advice you have on Berkeley housing would be appreciated.

http://www.washington.edu/students/#STDLIFE main UW website for student life that includes off-campus housing http://housing.asuw.org/ off-campus housing website. honestly, I don't know of any great website to search for great apartments. I lived in Seattle till I was 22 but that was with my parents since I was saving $ for grad school so I have never searched any website for Seattle apts. But seattle has plenty of options, just go through google. If you are looking for more of a quiet, nice neighborhood, definitely wallingford. If you have a wild side and like night life & more diversity in things to do, people, go for capitol hill. capitol hill probably has more bus route options and better access to UW though. There won't be a big different for the main part of the day but there are more later buses that go through Capitol hill because they connect up with Downtown. For rent, that is hard to say. Capitol Hill definitely has some problem areas so those areas should definitely be cheaper than Wallingford but then there are a few nice places that can be expensive too, especially since it is right next to downtown. Overall, I would say capitol hill is cheaper. Capitol Hill has a lot of homeless teens, that is where Seattle has a strong Gay population, strong liberal area of Seattle where protests occur, gothic stores, etc. If this is who you are, then you will very much enjoy it. Though, not all of capitol hill is like this. If this isn't who you are, then if you want to live in Capitol Hill, I suggest you inspect where your apt is first. There are still plenty of nice areas to live in Capitol Hill and these areas are closer to the north side, closer to the UW campus and further from downtown but then the $$ increases.

oh, just so you know, AliceInChains is a grunge rock band from Seattle in the 90s so Alice isn't my name & I am a guy. I typically don't mention the actual towns where my mother's family is from cause they are relatively small but since you are familiar with the areas I mentioned, my mother grew up on a farm close to Fosston, MN, which is in between crookston and Bemidji. and then I have some other family in Dassel, MN (not really that close to St. Cloud). But my father is from seattle, and that is where I grew up and then went to UDUB for undergrad, then ISU for masters. I really looked forward to going to Minnesota for the PhD considering I see it as a second home...I am a TC sports fan though Seattle sports come first except for the vikings & the seahawks are about equal since the seahawks sucked the most of my younger years. Definitely, I am not a Packers fan! From my mother & relatives, I know of the hatred between Wisc & Minnesota similar to Washington & Oregon. I applied to Wisconsin 2 years back for the masters & that upset my mother, especially when I said I preferred Wisconsin over Minnesota. About Iowa, being a big college sports fan and coming from the Pac10 and having to deal with some nasty fans, I have never come across such lame fans as the UIowa fans I have met here in IA. Their lives revolve around their football program and think i compares to ones like Michigan. I just always have fun reminding them that my Huskies have given them 2 big Ls in the Rose Bowl, including a shutout! And since part of me is essentially from Minnesota, I remind them of their 0 NCs compared to UMN's 6. sure, I will send you a private message.

i did my undergrad at UW and grew up in seattle so feel free to ask any questions or view some of the other seattle threads cause I have posted in there. GO HUSKIES! BOW DOWN TO WASHINGTON!

come on people... this will be your procrastination tool for many years to come! bump

ames, ia sucks the economy in the area is not strong so I would say finding a job will be harder than most places. she might have to commute to des moines, i don't know. I am an RA masters student here. I came here for research interests and it paid off for me because connections from my current advisor got me accepted to Berkeley for the PhD. so there are reasons to come out here but really, you won't enjoy the life here... most iowans I know want to leave asap. I am not trying to convince you to not come here because I don't regret making the decision to come here even when I had more $ from a better school because I enjoy the research I am doing here and that has opened up many options for me. but all you will probably do here is be a student & work. oh, and the weather sucks. This winter, one night we had -18 F with wind chills reaching -30. The summer is warm but also very humid. Yesterday, 80mph winds, chance of tornado, and the tree outside my window thankfully fell the opposite way and hit the building next to my apt. about bars & such, if that is for you, I can't believe there isn't more of a night life since most small college towns have a large party night, especially when the options are limited. I thought this would be more of a party campus before coming here but it isn't, even the Greek system is dry!!!!! All that I end up doing in ames is going to the cheap movie theater once in a while. if interested, I am from Seattle.

history nerd, so did you go to UMN? You are from Minnesota, where? I am not from Minnesota but my mother's family is and I have been there a lot of times. I am from Seattle. My mother is from a small town northwest of Bemidji. I have family in Bemidji & outside of St. Cloud. I essentially thought for sure that I was going to UMN for ECE PhD but then I got a big surprise with my admission to Berkeley. I was accepted to UMN for the masters in Electrical Engineering 2 years ago for partial TA/Fellowship but declined the offer and actually went a bit south to Iowa State.... some people wonder why I took a school that isn't as good as Minnesota but I did it for research interests since there is a professor at ISU that is really good at what he does and the area interested me and that is essentially what got my acceptance to Berkeley cause my advisor and the Prof at Berkeley that I will work with are friends and work on the same thing. In fact, I met my future advisor from Berkeley last year when he came to meet my current advisor at ISU. Anyway, I just was wondering. My home is Seattle, WA but Minnesota is kinda second for me with the family I have there and connections. Oh, one last question, do you have the same opinion of Iowans as my Uncle from Minnesota... Idiots Out Wandering Around. I really have enjoyed my research at ISU here (it is what got me into Berkeley) but I hate the area and I can see why my uncle says that.

well, it depends on the dept, but really I dont' think the factors are funding related. Top schools like Berkeley I think are all for letting you in if you will pay for yourself if you are qualified but they just don't have funding right at this instance. For me, they don't have funding right now for me but the special circumstances was whether I should be accepted. They ended up accepting me and will support me once I pass their entrance exam. so at least my dept is willing to accept you if there is a potential for funding later but maybe not right now. I know other top schools that refuse to support you the first semester unless you really really are the top student. I believe for my department, all of the support for first year PhDs are coming by fellowships and no assistantship unless you are a CAL resident cause they don't want to pay out of state tuition for anyone but after you are there for one year, you can qualify as a resident and then they will support you. but it varies from dept to dept

this is the link to the grad school application website. at the bottom of the list, it says, check the status of your applicaiton. http://www.grad.umn.edu/Prospective_Stu ... nline.html https://app.applyyourself.com/?id=UMTC-GRAD if you are looking for the CS dept website to check status, I can't help you, I am in ECE, which still hasn't made their decision yet. Even if you are looking for the dept website, once they forward the decision to the Grad college, you will have the decision posted on this grad school website as well. I applied 2 years ago for Masters & they didn't send out their offers till about the first/second week of april. I don't know what the problem is.

it depends on your dept. But considering that it is almost April 1st, I would be surprised if they haven't made all of their offers yet because typically you have to reply by April 15th, sometimes April 1st for fellowships. My opinion would be that your only chance at getting a fellowship offer this late is if someone rejects the offer and then you receive it.

I don't think I caught your area. Though typically PhDs in engineering make good money. But it isn't so much the money potential that is a bit disturbing. it is the fact that I will have 2 masters and have been in school for 7 years come this spring and my Dept will not accept any transfer credits so I will have to start all over again if I go to Berkeley and I feel that this is taking a few more years of my valuable young life when that shouldn't be necessary.

I feel much the same way... never thought I would get in and then after going to the visitation day I got this real humbling feeling based on hearing the backgrounds from the others entering in the dept with me. So now I wonder if I really even deserve to go there and if I can pass the exams and get through it. But I think that this is all just a part of being nervous since we definitely know that this is a great school and great opportunity and we don't want to blow it. Best of luck to you.

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_TopAmer.htm http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005TOP500list.htm http://www.webometrics.info/top3000.asp.htm http://thecenter.ufl.edu/research2005.pdf http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate/T ... ings04.pdf for any of you going to the University of Washington, just take a look at these 4 different rankings of universities. This should help convince you that you are making the right choice.

http://transit.metrokc.gov/ bus system for King County (Seattle is within King County) click on trip planner if you want to see whether a bus will take you from your area to the campus. if you are interested in getting a good view of where you will be going, visit: http://local.live.com/ and find the UW campus and click on bird's eye or take a look at the downtown area. to find the campus, it is on the west side of Lake Washington and just north of Lake Union, just north of the 520 bridge. http://www.washington.edu/home/maps/northeast.html?NHS E1 is the main commuter parking lot where you pay by the day. I know the raised the price after I left. It is probably under $3 a day if you use your student card, which you just add money to as you wish it doesn't require a plan. But if you want to park for free, look at the road: Mary Gates Memorial Drive, which is at the boarder of the campus and this road turns into NE 41st St. This is where the Horticulture bldg is that is circled on the link above. Along this road there is free parking anytime. And there is a trail that takes you straight from there to that E1 parking lot that you have to pay for. The walking time is less than 10 minutes to E1. You get a good walk in the morning and save $. Oh, the campus is on a hill from E1 so you will have to climb some stairs or take the escalator.

The monorail is only for tourists, you won't ever use it except for that reason. Seattle has a pretty good bus system and there are lots of neighborhoods you can live in that will give you good access to the university. Some places you can access the U at any hour. The buses I had to take to get to campus were the ones that went through more of the poorer, bad neighborhoods so you might not like that. However, I would still recommend a car if you plan on doing more than just be a student while you are there. Unless maybe you find a good friend and then you share. There is just too much to do in the surrounding areas for any person from going skiing at any one of the many passes to enjoying a bonfire at alki beach to the nightlife and it will be a lot more convenient to have a car. It also gives you the option of commuting to campus in order to avoid higher rent. Parking on campus was $2.35 for me a couple years ago by using my husky card. You can also find places to park for free if you know where to look that are still close to campus (I know one good spot if you arrive before 10am). The distance I had to walk to the campus from some of these free areas was just a bit longer than parking in their main lot or walking to the bus that I needed to get to the campus so I found this as my best option. If you live close to campus though you won't need a car. There are plenty of grocery stores within walking distance and the U-District has plenty of activities, places to go to, variety of food options. Then, you also have the buses to get you to many different places as well. Downsides of having a car are traffic if you will drive to campus (you can still take the bus if you have a car) and insurance. It is high in Seattle, at least for single males under 25 it is. Parking is not an issue for most areas, it is an issue if you live close to campus. I lived about 10 miles south of the campus. On a typical day it took about 40 minutes to drive to the campus & then 15 minutes to walk from where I could park for free to my building on campus. The pay lot was only about 5minutes closer. I don't know of any specific pet friendly apartments but there should be ample choices for cats. Typically, you will need to put a deposit down on the cat, some also charge higher rent as well. If you are already commuting to campus from 25 miles away then I would say you definitely should just have a car since that is probably what you like.