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chocoholic

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Everything posted by chocoholic

  1. I will be relocating for graduate school in the Fall and I'm not sure how to best go about looking for apartments. My rent will be coming strictly from student loans, so I am assuming that any propsective landlord (the careful ones, anyway!) would ask to see my financial aid letter, which I won't be recieving until the end of May. That gives me two months to look at apartments and sign a lease before I would have to move in August. I'm one who is picky and likes to take my time and find the best deal, especially, as I said, I will be living off of loans and need a cheap place to live. I will be relocating to a large college town. I currently live in a college town, and I know how it goes around here...students have to start looking into housing as early as February because the good, affordable places go fast! Needless to say, I'm kind of stumped. I like to plan ahead of time, and it annoys me that my options might be severely limited by the time I can even really begin to start looking. Has anyone else been through this before? Thanks!
  2. I'm also going from working full-time to being a master's student ( with a small assistantship). I work in the human services field and am therefore already accustomed to living off of a low salary. It will definitely come in handy when I'm living off of mostly loans and will have to severely restrict my spending. I still anticipate an adjustment, though, as I definitely will not have a lot of money for "fun" or other extras. But to me it is 100% worth it because I'm living out my dream! It's a small price to pay for meeting my life goals. I'm sure your adjustment will be fine. As someone who lives on a low income, I will say that the most important thing is to remember what your budget priorities are. Always make sure you pay the rent, necessary utilities, health insurance, and grocery bill before anything else! You can live without that trip to the mall or to a concert, but you can't live without a roof over your head or food to eat. If you're not frugal already, now is the time to learn. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but it actually can be. It forces you to be creative and have a new appreciation for what really matters in life.
  3. So far I have heard back from two programs: one for which I did an interview (will not heard back about admission until next month)an another for which I was accepted through an early decision program. I have not heard back from the other three schools I applied to yet. The deadline for one is not even until March 1st, but I should be hearing back soon from the other two. It's really hard. Every day that I don't receive an e-mail, or mail, or a phone call, I get more and more neurotic. Then again, realistically speaking (based on when they said they would have decisions) I have no reason to think I should know yet. I really understand where you're coming from, but hang in there. I'm definitely jealous of all the PhD applicants who don't have to wait much longer to find out!
  4. I'm happy I was able to inspire hope for so many people, because there IS still hope, even if you didn't do so hot on the GRE! I heard from a lot of naysayers(both online and in real life) telling me that I don't have much of a shot because of my scores, but I'm glad I didn't listen to them. One thing I did do as a means to give myself a better shot of getting into grad school, is to apply to a few schools that do not require the GRE. That way, I know my bad score is not a factor at all in at least a few of my applications. At the same time, I did not want to give up on applying to my dream school and other schools I were intersted in, in spite of them requiring the GRE. If you have everything else going for you (good essays, LOR's, grades,work experience,etc.) I wouldn't worry too much about a bad score. It's only one part of your application, and most likely not even teh most important part. One of the professors at one of the programs I am applying to said that good LOR's can easily outweigh a bad GRE score, especially if the letter writers acknowledge that your score is not representative of your abilities as a student. I had one of my letter writers do this and it seemed to work well.
  5. With that said, how do I go about politely letting them know of my situation? I don't want to come off like I'm begging for money, but at the same time, I'm not really ready to give up on this program as a possibility. I know there are scholarships and assistantships available larger than the amount being offered to me, and I'm wondering if there's a way to ask (or imply) if I could get a larger award. At this point I don't have much to lose...the worst thing they will do is say no, in which case I would be prepared to decline their offer.
  6. I will be pursuing my master's degree next Fall and am looking around for private scholarships. Does anybody know of good, legit resources for this? Thanks!
  7. I live in a small city in the midwest and since I have become vegetarian, have not noticed a significant difference in how much money I spend on food. It has been about the same amount, give or take. In my experience eating out has actually been a lot cheaper because meat-based dishes are usually more expensive. I have not had trouble finding vegetarian friendly restaurants or meat replacements here, but the area where I live is very liberal and thus, vegetarian/vegan friendly. This may be something to keep in mind when you think about graduate school because not every city is veg friendly. You could try doing so research online to see how many, what types, the costs, etc. of veg friendly restaurants near the schools you are thinking of attending. I would also do some research on the local grocery stores and how much of a selection they have for meat and dairy replacement products. These items can often be more expensive than meat or dairy but in the long run, it is better for your health and thus, actually less expensive (you are avoiding diabetes, obesity, heart disease,cancer, etc. But I'm sure you already realize this!) I did notice that almond, rice, soy,etc milk is more expensive than cow's milk but I would never switch back, even as a future poor grad student.
  8. I did very poorly on the GRE (twice!) and I was absolutely terrified about how it would affect my applications, especially to the three big shot schools that I applied to. I decided to go for it anyway because they all stated that the GRE score is merely one factor in the decision-making process. Low and behold I got into my top-choice program, even though my scores were much lower than that of their average students. Don't worry so much about your weaknesses-instead focus on strengths and make sure those adcomms know why you're awesome! I gave up on the GRE and instead put my energy into writing good essays. I'm a talented writer, and I knew that writing a kick-ass SOP would help me immensly. Apparently, my hard work has paid off and I have no regrets about the silly GRE. I have not heard back from those other two schools but this has definitely given me a big confidence boost.
  9. Cute! I love this topic. I "inherited" a bottle of leftover, unopened champagne from New Year's Eve. I have been holding onto it, telling myself that I can open it upon hearing back from at least one grad school. Well the first school I heard back from was my dream school, and I got in! Champagne has never tasted so good before. Coincidentally, I also got a new tattoo the day I found this out. Even more coincidentally, it was a very-belated (two years) graduation gift to myself for completing my B.S. All in all, it was a pretty good day.
  10. I see absolutely no reason why you can't be honest about this. I had a grad school interview in which I was asked what other schools I applied to (they even took the time to write them down!). From what I could sense, they wanted to know who they were up against. The person interviewing told me that I am a very strong candidate and felt that I would probably get interviews from these other schools, as well, adding that "You're going to have to make some decisions here." I don't doubt that schools talk to each other about the status of their applicants, as well. The world of academia is small. The interviewer happened to know the professor who wrote my ROI; this professor happens to be the director of the master's program at my alma mater. He asked me why I did not apply to this program ( the reason being that it wasnt a good fit for my interests), probably more as a test, but I imagine he wanted to gossip a bit with the guy who wrote my ROI, and this is the other reason he asked. I think the lesson here is that you need to be honest when asked this question, because you never know who knows who in your field. i
  11. I'm really torn right now. I applied ED to my dream program, knowing that that is where I wanted to go, 100%. I was aware that the tuition is very steep, but I also was aware that there are many scholarships and assistantships available. At the same time that I submitted my application I submitted my applications for financial aid, assuming (wrongly I know, now) that they would only admit me if they were willing to give me the financial aid I desperately need. I recently found out that I was admitted, with a whopping assistantship amounting to...hold your breathe here....$2000 a year. This is a drop in the bucket compared to their tuition and would barely help me, as I have been barely getting by on 20K a year and have very little savings to speak of. Theoretically I could attend this program if I wanted to, but I would be looking at over 100K in student loans. When I applied I had no idea that the award amount was so low. If I had I would have never applied, and certainly not ED. Now, I could see getting into this kind of debt as a future doctor, or lawyer, or MBA, but I plan to become a psychotherapist. There's no conceivable way that I will get a job as a therapist in which I would make enough money to pay this back. I am wondering just how binding ED is. They state that if you are admitted, you agree to enroll and withdraw all other applications to other schools. At the same time, I am being given the option of whether I want to matriculate or not, by March 1st, so I am confused. Now, I do take the blame for most of this. I should have done my research. I have never heard of the ED process before and didn't really understand what I was getting into by applying under ED. If I had done my research I would have applied regular decision, but it's too late now, and I can't even stomach the thought of going 100K into debt for a career that obviously will not enable me to realistically be able to pay this amount back. I have applied to several other schools (mostly public, in-state) that I know I have a good shot of gettiing into, where I would pay half of this price or less. I am also pretty crushed about not being able to go to my dream school. I've wanted it for the longest time but I just can't see any conceivable way of making this dream come true.
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