The Decision

I realize I've been lax and haven't posted anything in a while. Welll I've made my decision! I will be attending Johns Hopkins in the fall!!

Lots of other things have happened too. I visited University of Michigan, while they have me lots of swag it just wasn't the right fit for me. The campus was too large, the department was too large and no one I met seemed happy. That is not the type of environment that I want to be spending the next five ish years of my life in. So I declined their offer of admission and accepted Hopkins'.

I was also rejected from Stanford, which puts me at having heard from all of my schools, which is very relieving.

One last exciting thing... I got a new car! A brand new 2012 Honda Fit! I'm really excited about it! So outside of having a miserable few weeks in school, everything seems to be going remarkably well which is very pleasing.

Unofficial

So I'm still not going to post where I'm going, but I sent them an unofficial yes. After my visit to the University of Michigan I will submit an official yes, and then start looking for places to live and making phone calls and all that good stuff. In the mean time I'm enjoying the warm weather shift and the lull in classwork, but not the amping up of all of my extra curricular stuff. One of these days I'd really like to be done before 9PM...

That said spring break is next week (!!!) and I have very little to do, maybe some grant applications or fellowship applications, but mostly relaxing and getting ready for the end of the semester. Not going any where exciting, except a wedding for one of my friends.

I did it!

So I said no to Drexel.

I waited a week to do it and goodness it was hard. Drexel seemed like the right fit, but sometimes first impressions can't be the only thing that you take into consideration. So I weighed my options and I think that as much as I would like Drexel, and as much as I would have a wonderful time there, it just isn't the best option for me.

My final decision wont be made until March 26th, which is a long way away so I will have to at least pretend to patient and make sure that I make the best choice I can.

On a different note I am now all ready to graduate more or less. I have my cap, gown, tassel, and hood. I have all of the information for senior week, and I won a free mug! All things considered, it was a very expensive trip to the book store, but I guess it needed to happen so on May 26th I will spend a very long time sitting down and a very short time walking up and across the stage to shake Shirley's hand and get my diploma. Pretty exciting if you ask me.

In the mean time it's nose to the grindstone, research, classwork, trying to make it into the gym, keeping the boy happy, and maybe I'll even take some time for me in there somewhere too...

Rejection

So a lot has happened in the past couple days. I have received an out of this world offer from JHU, and my rejection from University of Illinois. I've been waiting for that rejection letter, I made some bad typos in my personal statement, to the point that I called them Stanford, so I wasn't upset.

I think the hardest part of this whole experience for me now is saying no. I'd be happy at any of the schools that I have been accepted to, though I do know which direction I am leaning, but I can only say yes to one of them. That means that two of the schools I have to say no to. I feel really bad trying to write my own rejection letters to schools. I wish there was some fail proof template that works for everybody, but alas, every situation is different.

But I still haven't heard from Stanford, I'm trying to decide if I should hold out and wait to hear from them, or just send my letters now.

I know that wherever I do decide to do I will be happy. I have a position in three different graduate schools currently, I cannot believe that I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to choose! Yes they tried me on for size, but now I get to make the final decision. I have to make it soon though, as to let some of the wait listed students in.

Drexel

So I thought I wrote this post already, but I guess I forgot. My Skype interview went well. His English wasn't perfect, but it wasn't too bad. He seemed like a nice enough guy. I have been offered a position in his lab, though it's not official yet.

I was also told that I am one of three people that the department is putting up for the Provost Fellowship. This is a University wide fellowship, and if I am selected it would be a huge honor, in addition to the $10,000 stipend spread over 2 years that I would be awarded on top of my existing stipend of an unknown amount.

So to help me decide he gave me the name of one of the graduate students he has worked with in the past. I'm pretty excited, and glad that he has given me the chance to learn a little about of him from someone he has worked with in the past, both the positive and the negative.

Skype

A few days ago I was emailed by a new professor at Drexel, he is currently finishing up his post doc at MIT. He sent me a link to a draft of his website, so I checked it out. His research seems pretty interesting, but his English was not that great. Granted my English is far from perfect, but he makes me look like an English major. This is rather concerning; I'm rather worried that I won't be able to understand him, or that he might not make the best possible advisor.

So I have a Skype interview with him tonight. So tonight I will decide if he is a worthwhile advisor or not. If he makes a good impression on me then great, if not hopefully I will at least make a good impression on him.

JHU Visit

For those of you who missed the first post, I just finished visiting Johns Hopkins University.

 Let me just start out by saying I had four interviews! Four! That's four times as many as I was expecting.

That said I think they all went fine. I had three interviews that I expected: Yu, Mao, and Searson. Then I had one that I had never expected, or really even knew who I was that I was interviewing with. I interviewed with Herrera. The two most positive that I felt were Yu and Herrera, not only was I very interested in their research they seemed very interested in mine, which was exciting. One of them even offered to let me read their manuscript that they are working on, which I will have to request in the coming week.

I think I am the most interested in working for Searson's group, their research is the most applicable to what I am interested in, and I meshed better with his grad students than any others. So hopefully in the coming weeks I will hear back from them in a positive manner as they offer a $30,200 stipend!! That's huge! and will definitely let me live well, especially in Baltimore

So over all I had a nice time. The campus is beautiful, while my pictures certainly don't do it justice maybe I can give you a general idea. All of the sidewalks are brick with marble, and all of the buildings are brick with marble as well. If you think of your stereotypical university, that's what JHU looks like. It was very pretty. What I wasn't a huge fan of was related to safety, Baltimore isn't the safest place in the world, but it has splotches of safe neighborhoods, and splotches of not so safe neighborhoods. Now you would think that means that uptown is relatively safe, and then downtown isn't, but it doesn't. Baltimore is divided up into neighborhoods, and they can be as small as a single block. That means that one block can be safe, and the next can be one that you don't really want to walk through, especially at night.

I think the part that I found funny, and not really applicable to me, was that their only D1 sport is lacrosse, to the point that their football team plays on their lacrosse field. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Overall I think that I would be happy here, depending on whose group I get accepted into, as that's how you get in. I really like that that you don't get a general admission to the department, you get admitted to a specific research group, or multiple. If you don't get an advisor you don't want, you don't go. So you know more or less exactly what you will be doing when you are admitted.