Apps.

[elwen]

Finally ready to start applying to places, I think. (I know, I am so incredibly behind. Leave me alone.) Met with Seinfeld to talk about grad schools. The man is amazing. He knows, like, everyone. I guess it helps that a lot of the people we talked about used to work in his group. But he even deduced from the fact that I worked with Max Coleman over the summer that my project had to do with isotopes. (Or maybe I told him that at some point a long time ago, but that's still badass networking.) So yeah, I named the schools, and he named the profs, which I also knew already, since I have all their pages bookmarked, and then he told me the advantages and disadvantages about each school. The schools were basically all the ones I'd whittled my list down to, which isn't surprising: there aren't an overwhelming number of ChE departments that do atmospheric stuff. (There are lots of places that do fake "environmental engineering" stuff, though. As in, "Look, one of the goals of my process engineering/membranes/polymers/nanotech group is to minimize pollution. That makes it ENVIRONMENTAL.") But he was able to put the schools into tiers for me. I knew that CMU was the best, but he made Georgia Tech sound pretty sweet, too. (Mainly because the guy there, Nenes, has a joint appointment in ChE and Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, which makes him kind of a gateway for access. The problem with a lot of places, like UC Riverside, is that there are some people in ChE, and then a lot of good people in other departments, and very little communication between them all. So GA Tech would be a good place to avoid that.) It also turns out that the guy from WashU is coming here on Wednesday, and Seinfeld is letting me steal his time to talk with him. When I was making up my list, I ended up tossing out WashU for UT Austin, but Seinfeld didn't have a very positive response to Riverside, whereas he put WashU and UT Austin on the same level. So my final list is:

1. Carnegie-Mellon
1. Georgia Tech
3. UT Austin
4. Washington University

(What is with all these Washinton Universities and Universities of Washington anyway? I kept getting them mixed up. Especially since I am UNAMERICAN and don't recognize the Gateway Arch when I see it.)

In addition to grad schools, I'm also applying to law schools, since I went through all the trouble of taking the LSAT -- which was a huge pain in the ass, I'd like you to know -- and actually managed a decent score in spite of the fact that I failed to finish the games section, which is my strongest section in which I usually got zero wrong. So yeah. No need to consult anyone about schools for that. Since it's already in the "fulfill Asian parents' expectations and become a doctor/lawyer/EE and make piles of money" category, I pretty much picked the list out of my head (meaning the super-famous schools) and the U.S. News and World Report rankings:

1. UC Berkeley
2. Stanford
3. Yale
4. Harvard
5. William and Mary

(William and Mary is on there because it's a pseudo-safety school -- not really, since it's still ranked 27th, but it's not quite as selective as the others -- it's pretty cheap compared to all the other schools on the list, and hey, they gave me an application fee waiver so why the hell not. ^^;;)

I'd rather go to Berkeley or Stanford than Harvard and Yale because if I'm going to be drowning in debt for the next 6 years, I'd rather be drowning close to home. Plus they're cheaper, I think. Berkeley definitely is, which is why it's number one.

Yes, I have very, very mixed up values and priorities. Leave me alone.

Comments

[erichowens.livejournal.com]

Apply to Columbia or Michigan... we could be there together from '07-'09.

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

The entire ChE department at Columbia is polymers with a bit of bio for good measure (since DNA and proteins are still technically polymers). I was actually considering UMich for a while, but they one of those fake "environmental" focuses that's really nothing more than energy science. Also, I resent them because apparently they created a mailing list called caltech@umich.edu, and that is now the single source of spam in my Gmail account. XP

[erichowens.livejournal.com]

Drat!

Yale for law then, that's close to NYC.

(I'm writing these childish demands pretty tongue in cheek, if you were wondering)

[blackrock.livejournal.com]

Hey, at least your criteria for grad school isn't 'someplace without crappy weather'. Which is basically how I decided on schools. Well, that and whether they had profs doing interesting research, but I want to stay in California. I'm such a wimp.

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Well, that would have been by criterion, except they tend to do atmospheric chemistry in large cities with craptastic air quality, for obvious reasons. But yeah, with UC Riverside, Seinfeld had this really pained expression on his face and was basically like, "Well, if for some reason, you really want to stay in California, you could apply there." So I kind of gave up on trying to go to grad school in California. ^^;;

If I decide on law school, though, and I get into either California school, I'll almost definitely go there.

I'm still a wimp, just with limited options.

[ling84.livejournal.com]

Man, at least you're making clear plans with "safety" backups and all. I'm only applying to two places, Stanford's coterm program (which is horribly messed up right now thanks to the Registrar switching deadlines on us mid-quarter) and Berkeley. And I know I'm not going to get into Berkeley.

My backup plan runs something like "Try desperately to get a job and not worry about further education for a year or two."

Sorry to hear about the LSAT. My parents were trying to make me take it earlier this summer... ugh.

Good luck with all this. I actually came up with my grad school plans about four days ago, and so did a few pals of mine (even a guy in TBP, hah), so you're not as relatively behind as you think you are.

Dec. 15 is going to be coming way too soon...

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I have the advantage that ChE isn't due until Jan. 15 and law schools aren't due until Feb. 1 or after. But that doesn't mean I don't need to get my Statements of Purpose written and to my recommendation-writers before I go home. Also kind of need to find a third recommender, since my SURF mentor isn't responding. -_-