crossedfingers

Turns out the original letter was a mistake. It was meant to be a waitlist letter. It is pretty f**ing messed up. Apparently there is no financial aid with the offer. I dunno if this will change. and I have no idea what I will do now either.

turns out they had made a mistake. Their 'student assistant' was in charge of printing and posting wait list/rejection letters. THE DGS was pretty shocked when I mentioned the rejection letter. I dunno what I will do now anyway. I have already accepted an offer at a different school. Although they are not as top notch as BU, they atleast had the courtesy to see that I received the right letters! I'm after all more than just an applicant number! Its easy to say that. I dunno what I am gonna do though.

Ok this has got to be the worst joke ever played. Mid march i got a very rude rejection letter from BU, stating that they could not consider my application for admission. Today, April the 15th, I get an email ( with an official letter) congratulating me on my acceptance. I swear this is the sickest joke ever. Esp since I had been waiting for their response. After their rejection letter I accepted the offer from the 3rd school on my list. COuld they have made a mistake earlier and sent me a rejection letter when they actually meant to send me a waiting list letter? I wish I could strangle someone right now. That is how mad I am. And its 4.30 pm. I cant even call and yell at ppl on the east coast. has this happened to anyone?

is this even possible? I first get a rude short letter from BU stating that my application was rejected and then I get a mail today, April the 15th saying my application was accepted. WHat kind of rude sick joke is this?

i wish I had read the part about CALLS no EMAILS a month eariler.It would have made things more easier and probably could have bumped up my chances! but oh welll - we can't win em all:) ps:i loved the strategy of playing schools against each other. does that really work?

Pitt MS BME. I'm into the MSRC, orthopedic science center. I think cuz I was an MS applicant, I have not received any word on funding yet. If one of the professors or the department lets me know by April 15, I have decided I want to go to PItt. But if not, I'm still very very happy going to Purdue (PhD). The only thing though, is that every time I think about giving in 4 years for PhD, i sorta get cold feet. It sounds so werid, but its true. I'm ChE and I do believe I will like Biomechanics, but what if I am wrong? Sometimes I get strange amateur undergraduate thoughts like that. Are you going to Pitt for sure? I don't know much about their cog science center. I don't know if Pitt is different, but i have a similair offer from Purdue and they said that the fellowship was from the university and the stipend was from the professor who voted for my application. Both of them are essentially fellowships ( meaning I do not have to work in his lab for the first year), but since I am an internatioanl student, the felllowship will be administed as regular bi weekly pay (@20 hr/week). The second yr they will give me a RA position. I wonder if that is what they meant in your case.

I got my ChE degree from Univ of MN. ha! I wish I had that figured out. I'm in the midst of wanting to reapply next year, go to UPitt or Purdue or just pull my hair after having gone through too many of these nerve-wrecking weeks. What about you? have you made your choices yet?

hmmm..hard to say if he was impressed. It could be that he had had similiar conversations with other students. Is it just Northwestern you want to attend or is there a very specific research field present at that school that interests you? If it is the latter, I would hunt down the professor that works in that area and bug him till he begins to say your name in his sleep! lol.. ok i dont encourage getting a restraining order, but if there is someone whom your background and interests seem to match, I am sure presenting your case to them would prove worthy bothways. I couldbe wrong, but laying all your eggs in one basket is a huge risk. Meet as many people as you can. NETWORK NETWORK NETWORK

I went to DPSRKP for high school and hung out with a lot of IIT wanna-bes! We landed up outside your college a couple of times just to eat those parathas. I'm in chemical engineering right now.

IIT Delhi eh? hmm the one thing i remember about that place are those awesome parathas! what did u specialize in?

Is a 24K stipend 'liveable' for West Lafayette? I am not a spendthrift, nor am I married or have kids. But just wondering how decent the offer is. The university still wants me to pay $1300/semeter for fees and health insurance. After that and taxes (14% I think), will i be able to lead a decent laid back-need to visit the bars over the weekend-eat out once in a while-pay off my car-kinda lifestyle?

Nope. I was never told that I was nominated. I received the notification first my email and then Fed-Ex. The fellowship is apparently from the college of engineering and probably has nothing to do with my department. Good look fidning out about yours

After narrowing down all my choices (6/9) I think I have come to three conclusions. A) Go to Purdue BME. It was amongst my top three and is fully funded. The only real concern is the guy I will be working for. Although his field his biomehanics, he described a potential research project to me while we were visiting. The work sounded very tissue engineering related and I'm not too sure I would fully enjoy that. I have worked in tissue engineering before and although the field has a lot of potential, it does not have that appeal. But having never had any BME classes its kind of hard for me to judge what I will and wont like. B)That gets me to this option. Go get my masters at Pitt and get a feel for the field. Apply for Ph.D later. Run around the next month and figure out where the hell this money will come from. C) Or simply, laze around this year, try getting hired by a 'science related field', earn the bartender tips at night, and reapply to Duke/Stanford again next year. any thoughts?

i received the ross fellowship from purdue. it came in the mail last week. I don't know if that is because my dept is different (i'm bme). you could try contacting your dept and see what the status is .

christina, i got my BU rejection in the mail too. It was a blow to me. The four short sentences that they had managed to scramble together stung a lot. oh well. Have u made your decisions yet?

hopingforfunding: i'm curious how you came to your decision for RPI? What made you kick out Case and Dartmouth? I'm having such a hard time deciding myself. Did you just flip a coin? Maybe that random variable generator on MS Excel will work..

haha.. i thought the same. TINY...!!! I dont know if you got this, but every ' Purduian' I met, just kept on going on and on about how great the place was and how much they loved it. Some of my high school friends went there for undegrad and they have the same raving attitude. But seriously, none of them could point the finger on what was so great about the place. I mean its FLAT??? did you get that when you visited? No hills whatsoever. No hills = no skiing Dont get me wrong, I liked the school and the people in my department a lot. But the place, well it will just have to be something I will have to grow into! or I could take up Golf.. did u see that huge a@@ golf field they had?Evidently covered in snow!!!!

Hey Whitelily, I dont know if this is any help, but while I was visiting Purdue, grad students advised me to avoid graduate on campus housing. They described it as a heinous experience. I am not too sure why. There was not much of a price difference in the apartments on and off campus. While I was touring the place, I saw a lot of nice apartment style housing that graduate students could afford. You should try http://www.boilerapartments.comfor more information. It works like apartments.com, except its exclusively for Purdue students. I would start there. Or you could ask your graduate coordinator to pair you with a current grad student there who could help you with things like this. I am sure with you being international, they will be more than willing to provide some assistance. Also there is a very descriptive post in the City section of this forum on West Lafayette that might be helpful. Hope that helped. I'm still leaning towards the boiler makers. Havent made up my mind yet, but every time I flip those coins, Purdue seems to be heads up:)

Duke.. rejected

There are a lot of hills for skiing and snowboarding in MN, esp where I live. I'm not sure if they are much of a resort though. Being able to ski at Utah ( if I go there at all) is definetely an attraction. Your're visiting UMN at a good time. The weather is getting really lovely. ( You know you are minnesotan when anything above 35 deg F begins to qualify as lovely!) Hope you have a good time there

I don't know what specific field you are in, but if this professor is doing the same sort of research you are, I would def go and talk to him after the conference. A friend I know did that last year at the national ACS conference. He described it as 'meeting brad pitt on the red carpet'. This professor was a well renowned guy at stanford, and my friend, well he came from a small town school in MN. He approached the guy and told him that he had emailed him and was interested in working in his lab. The guy was very polite and all, but he did ask him some pretty intense questions. Luckily my friend was working on the same line of research as him and could respond with half arsed brain answers. He said he would look out for his application. This happened in Oct 07 and guess who got him into stanford this yr? Apparently the professor remembered him from the conference and took a longer look at his application. I'm pretty sure if you did the same, if not anything, he will definetely remember your name when application times come around. I would absolutely go for it. There is nothing you can lose by doing so and so much you can gain.

Thanks . The description was certainly helpful. The place sounds very pleasant. I was a little hesitant knowing about the Mormon factor ( no offense whatsoever), but since it is only a masters program, I might consider it. They offered a huge a@@ stipend, so obi they aren't kidding when they say they have the money. Maybe I will visit them over spring break. Nothing beats a ski resort 8) excel: i did my undergrad from U Minnesota ( hence the immediate attraction to a ski resort!) oh one more thing 1234.. did u manage to squeeze a visit from Pitt? I played it dum and the professor said he could only sponsor one later in summer ( which proly meant after I accepted their offer). I haven't really done anything after. Didn't they want word by April 1?

no, i asked graduate school coordinators for a ballpark on the numbers. They mentioned the top reasons were funding and getting the students into the United States. Apparently if you're already in the country ( doing ure undergrad) its viewed as a plus factor, cuz then they dont have to worry about getting you through immigration. Sounds pretty lame to me. I was actually shocked to find out that aero engineering has stopped accepting intl students (???) Being an intl myself, i seriously hope someone can contradict me and give better stats.

LMAO!!!!! no kidding. I wish the admission staff would honor the fact that we paid $$$ for something and are not hungry undegrads in search of a free lunch! one of the programs I applied to sent me an email two weeks ago telling me that my decision could be viewed online. well apparently, "MY" web application log on doesnt let me get past the prelim questions and onto the decision page. I have been trying for the past two weeks. The admission staff always directs my question to stupid 'support@embark' . i'm pretty sure its a rejection by now, but I feel frustrated by the fact that even though I meekly agreed to pay $75 for their application fee, they do not have the decency to tell me the decision or address a serious question. (especially when its already out there). has any one thought of suing these people? :? !!!!!! i'm on the verge

That is definetely above the norm. The schools I have looked at accept only 1-3 international students in each year's entering class. This wasn't so apparent to me when I was applying, but became obvious as I went on the interview weekends. The low acceptance rate holds true not only for BME, but almost every science related PhD field. Its amazing that BU claims to have an international student body (in BME phD alone) of 44. The undergraduate population has a huge intl crowd, but if those numbers are true.. *crosses fingers*..lady luck could be smiling