TulipOHare

Not at all. My first job out of college was at a bullshit factory disguised as a "research lab." It had me convinced that all academics were charlatans, and I hated myself for being part of the scam. But I got very lucky and was able to switch to my current job at a less prolific but much better quality lab. Good scholarship is out there... but sadly, you often do have to look for it.

Maybe not. Why would he? (I get the point you were trying to make with the lease example, but U.S. law provides some hedges against that particular situation; PM if you want details.) Yup. Call me ignorant and overprivileged (and pay off my heap of loans from undergrad while you're at it), but I am really not getting what the fight is about. Far as I can tell, rising_star said "sometimes schools really just don't have money" and "I think it's worth sacrificing money for a career boost," and people heard "I'm rich and I have it easy, so I say you're all idiots for not putting yourselves a zillion bucks in debt to go to the best school you got into."

Aww, thanks, yivorichecho. I'm a lot less nervous about the waitlist now that I'm in at other places, though -- my worst case scenario is now "selling my organs to afford grad school," not "not going to grad school." Have you got a front-runner in mind?

I have nothing to add, except that I'm amused that the two threads currently topping The Bank are "Negotiating Funds" and "Begging for Money."

This.

Waiting on $ from the two schools I'm in at. Losing interest rapidly in the school I'm waitlisted at. Still one more school I haven't heard from at all... and I'm nervous as hell because people started getting accepts in the mail yesterday (Saturday)!! :shock:

No, and no. I have never seen any "ranking" scheme for grad schools that provides any useful information whatsoever.

If you're not interested in being closeted, I'm afraid you are just looking at a hard row to hoe no matter what. Many people who are relatively tolerant (or even very tolerant) of other alternative lifestyles are totally freaked out by polyamory. There are also no legal protections around it (i.e., your workplace can't fire you because of your age, gender, race, religion, or medical condition -- but they're still within their rights to fire you for being a polyamorist; ditto for landlords refusing to rent to you, etc.). I really cannot think of any place that is widely accepting of polyamory, so I agree with riss287 that it would probably be most prudent to live in a big blue city. People in cities tend to be more tolerant. People in less religious places tend to be more tolerant. The more people there are, the less everyone sticks their faces in everyone else's business. And if your or your husbands' professional or personal relationships suffer because you're polyamorists, it will be easier to get new jobs or new friends without having to totally relocate if you live in a city.

Oh hell yes. Being in college forever seemed totally awesome when I was in undergrad (and not because of drinking and partying, either -- I was a total goody-goody, I loved homework and class). For most of my sophomore and junior years of college, I was 100% convinced that I was gonna go get a PhD in linguistics or psych, study second language acquisition, and live happily ever after. Then, early senior year, I got burnt out hard. I quit my thesis (optional in my major), dropped my second major, and took only classes I wanted to take for the rest of the year. I started to get my stuff together to apply to grad schools, but found that I just didn't care anymore. Now here I am, four years later (meant to go back after two, oops), applying in a different field (related, but much better for me), 100% sure I want to go back to school, and excited to go. I still had to think hard about what I really wanted, but my head was a lot clearer after I'd been out of school for a while. One thing to know: grad school will always be there. There's no time limit from undergrad, and no age cap. If you're really unsure, it is much better to take a year or two off than to go and quit early, or go and hate every minute of it. And keep in mind, most college graduates have been going to school for 17 years in a row. 17 years is a long time to do anything. You are not weird for being sick of it and needing a break!

Hi Mormegil! Be happy to. Villanova is a suburb located on what's called the "Main Line." This is a string of small, very old, upper-middle-class to upper-class suburban towns jammed very close together in a straight line going northwest out of Philly. (Pop open Google Maps and search for Villanova, PA, USA, and you'll see 'Nova, Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, and several others all along Lancaster Avenue, the road marked by the number 30 inside a shield.) Every town on the Main Line (including Villanova, Bryn Mawr, and Ardmore) is EXTREMELY safe. There are some thefts from campuses at the beginning and end of each school year (when lots of people are moving around and leaving doors unlocked), but this is preventable by just locking your doors. That's really all as far as crime. Transportation is mostly designed around cars, but you could do without one. 'Nova's campus is kind of big, but a lot of people do walk it; you can also bike around it or ride the on-campus shuttle bus. SEPTA (public transit) runs buses up and down Lancaster Avenue and through most of the "downtown" areas of the Main Line, so even if you live kind of far from campus, you'd be able to ride the bus there easily. If you lived close by, you could easily bike. As for getting around to other places... the buses are decent for getting around the Main Line. The university does have a few shuttle routes. If you ever want to ride into Philadelphia, there's a train stop on the Villanova campus and the train takes you right to the middle of Philly. (However, because a lot of people commute to campus by car, you are almost certain to make friends with someone who has a car. ) I have to confess I don't really know much about rents, but there are a lot of different types of units in the area. I am sure Villanova's international student office or Office for Residence Life would be able to help. Hope this helps a little!

Well, waitlisted at Maryland. Still biting my nails for NYU.

rising_star, what do you mean by "other units" ? Other departments?

Oh yes, you read that bullshit right! I wrote to ask when I should expect to hear about funding, and what I should do if I'm interested in a TAship or RAship. Several days later, I get this reply: To force myself not to send back an e-mail full of expletives, I called the department secretary. Nope, it's not just me, nobody's going to hear anything about funding until after April 15th; and yup, I still have to respond by April 15th anyway. What the fuck?! It's one thing if they say outright they have no funding, or that they do but I'm not going to get any... but expecting everyone to enroll blindly? Makes me want to send a deposit to the other school just out of spite!! Edit: I just turned on my trusty MP3 player, told it to Play All > Random, and what's the first song that comes up? Billy Joel's "A Matter of Trust." :|

Exactly what I was gonna say, actually.

My discipline doesn't often fund MAs, so the one that throws me the most money (or, possibly, the one that throws me any money) wins automatically. Still waiting on that... If none of them understand that my awesomeness needs to be rewarded in cash, then I'm gonna have a serious chunk of debt no matter what. So the decision will then come down to several points: - how serious a chunk of debt I want, or if I should try again next year instead :cry: - stay in Philly vs. move to NYC (at this point I'm expecting a rejection from UMD so DC is probly out) - cost vs. length of program (they're inversely proportional -- weird, huh?) - how much I care about my specialty and a possible future PhD (two programs have a whole separate track for the specialty; one doesn't even have any faculty in it)

I know some people who did what Jeppe did and used the train for reading and work, and it worked out quite well for them.

I love my boyfriend. I was just looking at the results search and grousing that someone else got accepted to Maryland a week ago. And he said "[Tulip]... is it wrong, or is it bad, if I want your grad schools to get back to you now just so you don't have to spend every night worrying about it?" I don't care if he actually meant "Will your grad schools hurry up and get back to you so I don't have to put up with your bitching anymore?" I love him anyway. :mrgreen: Oh, uh, our situation, right. We agreed to take turns going to grad school, with me going first, because (1) I'm sure about what I want to study and he's not, (2) his current job pays a lot more than my current job, and (3) once I graduate I will have tons of flexibility in where I can get a job (and can make enough to support us both). My tuition and fees (and my rent if I move away) are up to me); other living expenses are up to him. Parallel thread over in Decisions, Decisions: viewtopic.php?f=67&t=15353

Job? Hell, I haven't even been accepted. Grr. In contrast, Temple's process for PA residency, over the phone: "How long have you lived in Pennsylvania?" "I came here for college in 2001 and moved here full time in 2005." "Can you give me an approximate date for when you first started living in Pennsylvania full time?" "Uh, August 5th, 2005." "OK." ... and my online profile says "Resident." I can only assume I'll have to fill out some forms at some point, but that was pretty cool.

Fuck you. No, wait. Fuck everything.

Haha, I know nothing about college basketball, but I always fill out a bracket. (Last year I was in 2nd place for the first two rounds... then my sweet 16 just went ALL wrong.) This year I think I have Pittsburgh beating Memphis 98-77.

I don't really know what to think -- Temple's spring break was last week, but I got my results on the Friday. Now the other two schools I'm still waiting on are on break this week... aggh!

I had a dream about posting on gradcafe last night, but I don't remember what about...

Presentation aside, I don't disagree entirely with where monkeefugg is coming from. If you got in somewhere with no funding, it is still POSSIBLE for you to go to grad school. You'd have to take out an assload of loans, and that would suck big time. And I'm gathering that in a lot of fields, it's sort of a vote of no confidence. (In my field, students frequently are not supported at the MA level.) So it'd be really hard, but you COULD go. But if you're not accepted anywhere, you can't go. Period. It doesn't matter if you win the lottery and money's no object, you still can't go to grad school.

I grew up in and around Nashville, and I pretty much agree with everything dgauthier said. If you live very close, you can get all your day-to-day stuff done on foot, but you really have to have a car to do anything else. I'm glad to hear that students and staff now ride free on the buses -- maybe the bus system will start to improve. Definitely avoid Gallatin, Antioch, Smyrna, and Murfreesboro, 'cause those are 45-60 minutes away when it's not rush hour. Really, there's no reason to live in the suburbs or the outskirts of town if you're a student. The savings in rent and living expenses would not outweigh the amount of time and money you'd spend driving back and forth. My brother lives in Belle Meade (inside the Nashville city limits, but functionally the burbs) because he was able to buy a nice house for cheap there. He's still got a 45-minute commute to his job in the city, and would definitely be renting closer to work if owning a house hadn't been a goal of his. Nashville's fairly cheap as cities go, the people are pretty laid back, and there's a surprising amount of inexpensive stuff to do.

FWIW... my SO's aunt is faculty in physical therapy at a decent program (not great, but pretty good), and told me yesterday that their applications doubled this year. She said they only just got done winnowing the definite rejects out, and were meeting today to start going over the rest. Granted, that's a professional program. And they probably notified their must-have people right away -- but it is just slightly possible that some of us are still buried in a pile somewhere.