alicejcw

I'm on Sprint and had no trouble with service while I was there a few weeks ago

I waited until I had made my decision to send cards, and I got little presents for my letter writers while I was at the open house for my future program. I got them fancy tea from a little local tea shop and wrote them personal notes thanking them for everything they've done for me. They all emailed me to thank me for the gift, so I think they definitely appreciated that I showed my appreciation!

I missed your earlier post, but I'm definitely going to Boulder too! The open house was great, I couldn't believe how friendly and awesome all the faculty and current students were, and the campus was way more beautiful than I expected. Congrats on getting a summer job and good luck with your housing search! I posted a bunch of websites for property management companies in this thread if you want to take a look:

I've been doing lots of research on housing, and thought I'd share some of what I've found. The graduate housing does look very reasonable, but I'd like to live somewhere with a little bit more character. Also, some of the apartments I'm looking at when I visit this weekend are closer to my program's building than the grad housing! I'm hesitant to look outside of Boulder proper because I'd like to avoid driving as much as possible. I'm used to being able to walk and bike everywhere I go, so I don't want to give that up. I've found some studios & 1-bedrooms in the $700-900 price range, so I think I'm going to try for one of those. I know it's more practical and cheaper to share, but I think I'll be a lot less stressed if I can come home to a place of my own every night. I may still change my mind though as I work out my budget for next year -- we should all be in touch in the next few months, maybe we can match up as roommates! Aside from craigslist and padmapper, I've found a few rental companies with online property listings. Here are links to some websites for them (no idea what kind of reputation they have, though). I'd really like to use the "Ralphie's List" search (http://ralphieslist.colorado.edu/), but it won't let me log in yet. http://www.bpmco.com/ http://www.accentrentals.com/index.htm http://www.matrixrentals.com/fallavailablelist.htm http://www.curent.com/ http://www.sunnysiderental.com/ One thing I've found with all of the realtors or property managers I've talked to so far is that they don't like to schedule showings for apartments more than a few days ahead of time. When I called a week in advance, multiple people have told me "call back the day before because it might be gone!" That makes it hard to plan ahead or make any decisions from out of state, so I'm really hoping my visit this weekend and being in Colorado for the summer will make my search easier.

I'll be heading to Boulder in the fall for speech pathology, I'm pretty stoked on moving to Colorado! Looking at housing options is a bit daunting though, especially coming from the land of super cheap rent.

Anyone considering attending CU Boulder this fall or planning to attend the open house on the 6th? I'd love to talk about the city, housing options, the program, etc!

Mine came to my temporary(mailing) address, not my permanent address.

Yeah, that letter thing is so weird - I read that others had received it on here and I didn't get one, so I just assumed that I had been rejected, or wait-listed at best. They really should have sent it to everyone and left out the "top applicant" part if it didn't mean anything!

My last name starts with a W and I heard today, so maybe they're starting at the end of the alphabet? Or more likely there's no rhyme or reason at all and they're chuckling at our attempts to make sense of their methods.... Anyway, good luck! Sounds like you'll hear soon!

Thanks honeybee! One is even better than I was hoping for, I hate how competitive this field is! Fingers crossed for you too!

Got the letter from CU Boulder about an hour ago, I can't believe I got in! I had basically given up completely and was kicking myself for only applying to 3 (very, very competitive) programs, so I had a laughing/crying moment at work when I got the email. Now to decide if I can afford to fly out for the open house on April 6th... It's really silly, I was actually in Boulder on Friday for a few hours during a spring break road trip, and not letting myself think about the possibility that I might get to live there. So excited for Colorado!

I am potentially interested in going for a PhD eventually because I love the research side of things, but I'd like to complete my masters and practice for at least a couple years before starting a PhD. I think having real work experience would be very very helpful in informing my research interests and giving whatever I end up working on a broader context.

That's for sure! I'm packing right now for a self-imposed intervention, hopefully it doesn't backfire and make me even more neurotic... My friends are going to get reeeally sick of hearing about my grad school woes around the campfire. I thought I would have heard from at least one school by now!

Penny Welch responded to my email just half an hour after I sent it, and it was a really friendly response! I get such a good vibe from the Vanderbilt department Anyway, she basically said that they have a new DGS directing the office (Dr. Ricketts), so decisions haven't been made yet. She's hoping to have decisions next week but can't be certain (sounds like they might go out later than we're expecting). She said I can email again next Thursday and she'll tell me if there's a decision for me. Phew, it's a relief just to hear SOMETHING, even though it's not a decision!

Definitely! I realized that they don't have a phone number listed ANYWHERE on the department page, and although I found one by doing some digging through the Med Center directory, the fact that they don't list it makes me think they might frown upon getting phone calls. I was thinking of emailing Penny Welch directly instead, since she requested in one of her emails that we ask questions via email rather than phone. (the only downside is that then she'll know it was ME bugging her with silly questions ) Anyway, I'll let you know what I hear!

I'm going out of town tomorrow afternoon for ~9 days, so I won't have access to mail - do you all think it would be reasonable for me to call Vanderbilt and ask 1) when letters are supposed to go out and 2) if I can call them to ask for the decision, since I won't be home to get the letter? They're my only school that notifies by mail, and it's going to be hard to enjoy my vacation knowing a letter is sitting in my PO box waiting for me!

Exactly what I was thinking! Especially since I'll be leaving for spring break on Friday and will be traveling and camping all week, which means no mail and limited email access. I hope we hear soon! Really excited for everyone though, we are clearly an awesome group of applicants!

Oh man, steeling myself for a big week! For the first time it's actually semi-reasonable for me to check my email and mailbox constantly - we might start hearing from Northwestern and Vanderbilt this week! I'm most afraid of being one of those unlucky souls left in limbo until May by Northwestern - if I don't hear this week, I plan to pretend I never applied in the first place. And once I make it to Friday it'll be spring break! I'm driving to Moab with 9 friends, so I'll be away from my mailbox and email for a whole 8 days. Hard to imagine, but I know it'll be good for me. Anyone else have big spring break plans? I was originally going to visit Vanderbilt, but my boyfriend changed his mind about driving down with me, and who knows if I'll even get in! Might as well wait on that trip until I know for sure. In other news, I found my first grey hair! A sign that I'm under too much stress? No, surely it means that at the tender age of 21, I'm old and wise enough to handle grad school... right?

A Victoria's Secret catalog (addressed to a random previous tenant), a box of exotic spices for my chef housemate, very late W2s from my summer job in Texas..... and that's it. Booo, no mail on Sunday!

I definitely do! Even worse, because email from my personal email account gets forwarded to my school account, I check 1) my school account 2) my school spam folder 3) my personal account (in case gmail somehow failed to forward an email) and 4) my personal email spam folder. yep, that's right, even though all my schools have successfully emailed me in the past, I still check all four when I'm feeling particularly neurotic.

Both sections felt about equally easy to me even though the difficulty level went up, so I would agree with coonske, don't worry if your second sections don't feel much harder! I think I would've done better on the second quant section if I hadn't been really tired and second guessing myself. Try to stay calm - I ended up doing MUCH better than I thought I was while I was in there. Here are my ratios and results from the diagnostic. Verbal Section 1 Level 2 - 3 Level 3 - 14 Level 4 - 3 (2 wrong answers) Verbal Section 2 Level 2 - 1 Level 3 - 6 Level 4 - 8 Level 5 - 5 (5 wrong answers) Final score: 165 Quant Section 1 Level 1 - 1 Level 2 - 2 Level 3 - 9 Level 4 - 4 Level 5 - 1 (I got 1 wrong and omitted 2) Quant Section 2 Level 2 - 2 Level 3 - 3 Level 4 - 10 Level 5 - 3 (4 wrong, 1 omitted) Overall score: 156

I'm just finishing up my undergrad in the Twin Cities, and I've gone the whole four years without a car, as have most of my friends. It's definitely doable, but you have to be willing to brave some cold weather by foot or bike, at least to get to and from bus stops. I don't leave the neighborhood around my college as much during the winter because of the cold and inconvenience, but the U has a LOT of shops, bars and restaurants in close proximity, and many bus lines running through the neighborhood, so you won't feel as claustrophobic as we do over here in residential St. Paul. You might also think about looking into a car sharing program such as HourCar. My housemate is a member and it makes life much easier when we want to go grocery shopping, head to IKEA for furniture, etc. Having a bike is also a great option, at least for the warmer months of April-November. This winter has been mild enough that I've biked through the whole season and haven't even had to break out much of the winter gear. Good luck, and enjoy the Twin Cities if you end up here!

My SO and I have a similar go-with-the-flow philosophy - neither of us thinks it's reasonable to compromise our academic/career paths, but we're planning to stay together anyway for as long as we can make it work. Why throw away 3 years of a great thing over a few (thousand) miles of distance? (ha) All of the programs I'm applying to will be too far to see each other very often, but we've made long distance work in the past, and since I'll be doing a master's we'll only have to make it through 2-3 years. He'll be applying to med school next fall once he finishes up his pre-reqs, so we're both going to be so busy that there might even be upsides to being apart and focused entirely on our work. Once I'm done with my program I should be able to find a job wherever he is - hopefully we make it till then!

Hopefully I can do a lot of nothing for a week or two after graduation, maybe take a road trip with my boyfriend to Northern California to visit friends and family. Whether or not I get in anywhere I'm planning to be a live-in nanny for my sister in Colorado - take care of my awesome nieces, do some hiking and camping, go to Telluride Bluegrass Festival, help out in my sister and brother-in-law's scooter shop, etc. Maybe take an online course or two if I want to knock out some more prerequisites. This plan would be particularly awesome if I get into Boulder because then I'd already be in the state to go scope out places to live, familiarize myself with the area, etc. Unfortunately I don't hear from my programs for at least another couple of weeks, and I HATE not being able to plan waaaay ahead of time for every little detail. Six months before the beginning of the school year? Of course it's not too early for me to stalk Craigslist for apartments!