ANDS!

God damn. What kind of sofa are you going for. Prime has (and this is all in terms of grad student functionality over form) a good selection of sofas under 1000. Now, how comfy they will be or if they will meet your personality remains to be seen. That said, there is something to be said for going the IKEA route (I'll be purchasing my bed frame from them).

Yup.

Amazon offers a TV set up service. I do doubt they'd assemble any office furniture. . .that's ok by me.

Yea you are pretty limited then; although Davis is good. I've had a chance to work with people there. It is not very diverse though - in gender or location of applicants, but I suppose that is par for the course with the discipline. That wouldn't be a pleasant commute though. Not sure why Berkeley BioStats is off the list though; BioStats has it's own graduate group and is more than likely easier to get into - especially coming from a well regarded masters program.

I try what I can at a store, and then will go right to Amazon to order tax and shipping free. I've rarely found Amazon to be "beaten" by a price, and certainly when one removes tax, they can not be beat. It almost feels criminal to buy a 700 dollar TV for sticker value. Aside perhaps from a bed, I'll be purchasing everything through Amazon.

Do people not use Amazon.com and their discounted (for students) Amazon Prime service? I think half of all my furniture (and a majority of all my new purchases) go through Amazon. Free two-day shipping, and 3.99 next day shipping. I'm not taking anything with me when I move, and I'll be using that service pretty hard for replacing things.

The problem is, his current academic profile is already largely fixed since any application he sends in for this coming application season will be based on his current grades. I agree with the plan to perhaps stretch his graduation date to fall of 2013/Spring 2014, thus giving him an opportunity to do exceptionally well and show an upward trend in his academics.

Old article. Stupid then, stupid now. Misses the entire point of a forum in order to make some "academic" point: message boards are largely a place for people to bitch and moan unrealistically.

Bio or Straight stats? And why not NC State?

I've had many conversations with my professors - they know who you are. This can be good or bad, depending on if you are good or bad. It's sad how political the process can be; when I arrived at my undergrad campus I knew exactly what I need to do/who I needed to "be" in order to succeed socially. Sometimes you gotta play the game -

100% That number is about as realistic as asking such a question without any real substantive background/expectations to go off of.

Good lord. If you're sitting at that many units you've done something horribly wrong - swapped majors, took every course under the sun, or just had really bad guidance. 120 units are required for a degree in the CSU system; I'm sure the count is commiserate at the UC's (with their quarter system). If I have little rugrats, they are absolutely going to CC first; CC transfers within my major were some of the more grounded focused students.

I don't think grad committees buy the whole "Well I was working full time. . ." bit. I'm sure they are compassionate and understanding that taxing your time can lead to sub par grades, but something tells me they might view such situations as "poor time management/prioritizing" and not "I'm sure there is 'A' potential under that 'C' student." That said, you're going for AA, which probably doesn't have that many applicants (and perhaps might be more competitive for it); I would invest in potentially taking the Masters route to be honest and then applying to a PhD program. Great LOR's that can speak to your potential would be good, but if you've just switched majors, it might be hard to count on someone within the AA field attesting to your abilities.

More than a good deal. Is it the previously released model though - there have been one or two refreshes.

This should have gone in your opening post. THIS is why he is taken aback. It's like starting a long-term job that involves a significant amount of training and man hours to get you to where your boss needs you to be, and in the middle you say "Hey can I get a letter of rec for this new job opening up?" Not sure how old you are, but you shouldn't have done this, and I suspect a bit of academic/biological maturity on your part might have prevented this from happening in the first place. In any case you have a couple of options - go to the prof. and let them know your full academic intentions so that the level of responsibility and work he is putting on you can be realigned, or simply continue working and get a LOR somewhere else.

Program. The top schools all have their "dog" programs, and at the graduate level people KNOW what those programs are. It doesn't make sense to get a low ranked degree from a top ranked school. I would go with the better ranked program any day (of course this assumes all else is equal - which it usually isn't). As the person above said, I'd rather live in MASS than CHAMP.

I doubt they are going to look at your bank account. They are going to look at what you "earned". It would be stunningly unfair to measure someones need based on how disciplined they were with their money. It is easier, and less objective (but still a bit faulty) to measure need based on what you supposedly make in a year (and I say they because Columbia depends on the FAFSA just like every other institution).

The U300s is the direct competition to the MacBook Air and - based on reviews and user satisfaction - does more than a fair job of it. Both are priced similarly. The U310 is somewhere between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro; it will never have a large SSD drive or 8GIG's of memory (basic comes in at 4gigs btw), because that's not what it was designed for. It's not meant to be a desktop replacement, so realistically drives over 100gig's are kind of pointless. The GREAT majority of people will not need the difference between SSD and HDD. If someone is looking for a portable research/work station, Lenovo (and others, though I'm not familiar with their products firsthand) are making laptops that have an impressive bang-per-buck ratio and are finally catering to the "style" requirements of the market. Of course, if it were me - as it will be in a few months - I'd just tell the OP to hold out for the Thinkpad X1 Carbon.

That perhaps used to be true. PC companies are now aware that aesthetic counts; some of the trackpads on current ultrabooks (the U310 from Lenovo for example) absolutely rival what Apple offers, at a reduced price.

As sexy as that thing looks, if one NEEDED a Mac, I'd go for an Air priced at 1000 bucks (perhaps less with education discount, and even less through the Apple Outlet). The specs of the new Macbook just aren't impressive; not for 2G. And not when ANOTHER refresh is half a year or so away. The problem is, for what most of you are going to use it for, after a month you're going to be sitting back thinking "Shit, I could've gotten a tricked out regular MacBook or Air for less. . ." Right now the best deal for the OP would be the Macbook Air. If I were getting a Mac I would go for the Macbook Pro 13inch with SSD (128GB).

BioStats has a low barrier of entry (of course the higher you go the more difficult it becomes - ie cross Johns Hopkins off). Public Health even lower especially having a good math background. I know nothing about the competitiveness of Rutgers. Is there any reason you're setting the bar so local?

For an international student; probably not. Still low as hell though. Most PhD programs have subject test requirements or highly recommend them.

What is your math background? Those are some pretty good programs; GRE might be a problem. How good are your LOR?

Oh wow. Are you folks serious? Look at the specs of the thing; unless you're in a design oriented field and need the clarity of the Retina display (if you do, you should be investing in an Apple Cinema Display instead) that laptop is not even close to worth the premium you're paying (which is saying a lot since you're paying a premium buying Apple). If one is going to get a Mac; I would stick with the current gen which can probably be had for a nice and tidy sum with this "refresh" and the upcoming 2013 refresh (which should tell you something about the bang-for-your-buck that you're getting).

MPH's are hot ticket items. Do a Google for Public Health programs; there are several in pretty sexy areas.