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Northwestern University 2016


carlsaganism

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Hello! I'm planning to accept my offer at Northwestern as well. Extremely excited and a bit nervous. I'll be moving back to the US after two years in Japan and then moving from my parent's house in SoCal over to Chicago! I've never lived outside of California except for Japan so it will be a whole new experience in many ways which I am definitely looking forward to. Quite worried about the cold though! I'll survive I suppose though haha. I'm not planning on driving at all at first so I won't have to worry about all the cold weather car issues.

Are you going to the visit weekend? I'm not able to make it unfortunately. 

When do you think you'll go apartment hunting? I'm actually going to apply for the graduate housing even though its rather expensive because I'm not sure how much time I'll have to find an apartment when I get back (plus I don't really want to move furniture for SoCal to Chicago so would prefer a furnished place at least at first).

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Sounds cool! I am originally from Taiwan so the East Coast was a new experience me as well.

I already found a place (with a roommate) in Evanston Place (http://www.evanstonplaceapts.com/). They are a bit on the expensive side but I've heard nothing except great things about it. And the location is great, right next to campus.

I actually visited campus 2 weeks ago. My visit was what ultimately resulted in my decision to go to Northwestern ^^

What date are you planning on moving to Evanston/Chicago?

 

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That's great you found a place already! I looked at Evanston Place but it seemed expensive. More manageable if you are sharing though.

I'm glad your visit went well! I regret not being able to visit but all the professors and students have been really welcoming.

My contract in Japan ends in early August, then I'd like to travel for a couple weeks before I come home... so I think late August if I don't have an apartment picked out yet but maybe early September if I'm able to make arrangements from here.

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Yep, we are sharing a cheaper place there, (2 bedroom for around 900$ each). What I've is most 1st years do the on-campus graduate apartments and then move out to off-campus ones the following years. I have a friend who even commutes from Chicago starting 2nd year.

 

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Hi all--I haven't accepted the offer of admission just yet, but I intend on doing so after I visit this weekend. I'm hoping to find some guidance on the housing search, since I've heard it can be quite the hurdle. I'd take the graduate student housing on-campus if the payments weren't bundled by quarter.

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The students I talked to said it was a good idea to come sometime in August and that you should be able to get a lease to start in September. I don't know how the options/prices will be though. Popular places like Evanston Place might be full I guess? You can ask when you visit! (And report back please haha). Or you can try to find someone who already has an apartment but needs someone to share rent I guess.

Yeah I wondered how the graduate housing payments would work timing-wise with the stipends and everything. We get our stipends monthly right? I (should) have some savings from working when I start so I think I'll be alright for the first year in graduate housing... (Any chance you'll get a look at them when you visit?) 

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Here's some of the housing information I gathered from my correspondence with current graduate students:
 

  • Half of the grad student population lives in Chicago; most of these students are in northern Edgewater or Rogers Park. Lakeview and Lincoln Park are also saturated with graduate students, but less so, since these areas are further from campus and more expensive.
  • Housing near the Belmont stop in Lakeview should not be difficult to find as September approaches.
  • If you opt to live in Rogers Park, it is best to live between the Loyola and Morse Red Line stops. This area is not part of the seedier locations of Rogers Park, and it grants access to both the Loyola library and the Sheridan NU shuttle stop.

I'll inquire about financing student housing today via email, and I'll make sure to update this thread with more housing information when I get back from the campus visit.


 

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Hey all,

I received a response from NU Residential Services about graduate housing rent payments. There is a way to divide up the quarterly housing cost (from fall to spring) into a nine-month payment plan (link). Depending on your housing needs, you may wish to inquire if a monthly payment plan is available for the summer. I'll spend some time investigating if the rates for graduate housing are higher than nearby, off-campus housing. Ultimately, if I were on-campus, I would have to obtain a roommate to cover costs; if that's the case, off-campus housing may be a wiser bet for me.

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Hey all I've just accepted my Northwestern offer to start this Fall. Good to know there's a thread going already.

 

On 2/28/2016 at 5:48 PM, carlsaganism said:

Sounds cool! I am originally from Taiwan so the East Coast was a new experience me as well.

I already found a place (with a roommate) in Evanston Place (http://www.evanstonplaceapts.com/). They are a bit on the expensive side but I've heard nothing except great things about it. And the location is great, right next to campus.

I actually visited campus 2 weeks ago. My visit was what ultimately resulted in my decision to go to Northwestern ^^

What date are you planning on moving to Evanston/Chicago?

 

 

Wow, you got a place already? I just had a look at the site and it does seem quite pricey, but you mentioned getting a roommate and splitting the cost - did you know the roommate beforehand or did you just blindly find him/her?

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Hey all! I'm not an incoming student, but as a current first-year graduate student who used these forums last year, I just wanted to welcome those of you who've settled on Northwestern.

I also wanted to alert those of you concerned about finding a place to live to the fact that there's a very active places4students page for the Northwestern community. I found roommates on the site early on (maybe April/May?) and we did some apartment hunting online. Fortunately, one roommate was in Chicago one weekend a month, so he was able to tour our prospects and give reviews via email. I can't remember if you need your @u.northwestern.edu email for the site or not, but you should get it shortly after you accept electronically. For a little perspective on the moving timeline, we were able to sign a lease in July for September 1 move-in.

Good luck! It sucks to have to uproot and move cross-country, but Evanston's not a bad place to have to go.

Edited by Portmanteaujam
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6 hours ago, MrMomo said:

Hey all I've just accepted my Northwestern offer to start this Fall. Good to know there's a thread going already.

 

 

Wow, you got a place already? I just had a look at the site and it does seem quite pricey, but you mentioned getting a roommate and splitting the cost - did you know the roommate beforehand or did you just blindly find him/her?

Hey! We found each other online because we are in the same department. Each of us will end up paying 900 per month which is really good compared to where I live now.

 

5 hours ago, Portmanteaujam said:

 

I also wanted to alert those of you concerned about finding a place to live to the fact that there's a very active places4students page for the Northwestern community. I found roommates on the site early on (maybe April/May?) and we did some apartment hunting online. Fortunately, one roommate was in Chicago one weekend a month, so he was able to tour our prospects and give reviews via email. I can't remember if you need your @u.northwestern.edu email for the site or not, but you should get it shortly after you accept electronically. For a little perspective on the moving timeline, we were able to sign a lease in July for September 1 move-in.

 

It's been about a week since I accepted the offer. Do you think I will get the northwestern email from the graduate school or the department? Thanks

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Hey @carlsaganism I accepted my offer a few days ago and haven't gotten my email yet. I hope we will get it soon as I do want to look into the graduate housing at Northwestern and join the facebook groups and such :)

@MrMomo, I'm glad you ended up accepting! That's exciting. I'm sure we'll be taking classes together! 

@Portmanteaujam, That's a really good tip for us out of country/out of state people. Thanks very much!

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On 3/4/2016 at 11:18 PM, fencergirl said:

Hey @carlsaganism I accepted my offer a few days ago and haven't gotten my email yet. I hope we will get it soon as I do want to look into the graduate housing at Northwestern and join the facebook groups and such :)

@MrMomo, I'm glad you ended up accepting! That's exciting. I'm sure we'll be taking classes together! 

@Portmanteaujam, That's a really good tip for us out of country/out of state people. Thanks very much!

Hi fencergirl,

If you were accepted for the History graduate program, you may want to email the DGS. He asked us to forward him our admissions acceptance confirmation email from the application portal when we received it. Also, we've got a Facebook group going, so I can PM you the link if you're interested!

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Hi Buzz, yeah I was accepted for the History program. Hm okay I thought we were just supposed to email that we had filled out the online form, not forward the actual confirmation. Did you get your email address then? Yes, definitely PM me about the Facebook group please! Thanks a bunch!

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Hi @roshaniitd88. Did you try the search bar? I looked and didn't see anything on this forum which is not surprising since it just one degree with presumably a fairly small cohort and most people are probably not a part of gradcafe. You can always start your own thread though! Otherwise, maybe look for a facebook group?

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Hi @roshaniitd88, I also applied to the Northwestern MSiA program. I don't think there's another thread on here yet. I emailed the program admin to follow up yesterday and received an automated reply that said that all decisions would be released on 3/16.

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Hey @scrivere! I'll be in history too! What area are you doing if you don't mind me asking? I'll be doing modern Japan. There are at least a couple other of us history peeps on this board (Buzz and Momo above).

You can PM me or Buzz if you wanna be added to the Facebook group :) It's kind of quiet now but we can probably use it to find roommates and such when more peeps join.

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10 hours ago, fencergirl said:

Hey @scrivere! I'll be in history too! What area are you doing if you don't mind me asking? I'll be doing modern Japan. There are at least a couple other of us history peeps on this board (Buzz and Momo above).

You can PM me or Buzz if you wanna be added to the Facebook group :) It's kind of quiet now but we can probably use it to find roommates and such when more peeps join.

I probably met you guys last weekend. :) I'm in 20th century U.S. Visiting days were great. I deactivated my fb awhile ago but I'm going to try to reactivate or start a new one so I can join the group!

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