UCSB and iPhones

I got my acceptance email/letter from UCSB on Friday!! :) Since it's my new topic pick (poor Columbia...), I will be accepting their offer and rejecting all the other schools. I'll start this fall quarter! I still haven't heard from URI, but no matter what they say, I'll be rejecting them anyway. On the other hand, if I got accepted, I'll be 5/5! So...we'll see. On the 1st of April, I'll find out if I get school financial assistance or not. Let's hope I get some assistance! It's usually pretty small, but I'll take anything. LoL It's time to start looking at loans, grants, and scholarships now. :)

In other news, Chris and I got iPhones this past week and because of the data plan, we've turned off our SMS texting on our phones so we don't get charged $0.20 for receiving/sending texts. You can contact me through my yahoo e-mail address, AIM, and good ol' fashion phone calls. With the data plan on the iPhone, I check AIM and my yahoo e-mail just as much as my texts. Of course, phone calls always work no matter what. :P

University of Washington

I got my acceptance letter today for University of Washington! I'm 3/3 and I still have two more schools to hear from  now. I'm thinking University of RI will be next with UCSB last. At least my 2nd choice school is a go. LoL Course, I don't hear back on assistantships or fellowships till a later date (for all schools except Columbia).

I'm actually excited about this acceptance since Washington has a really good marine program and I had to do an extra little questionnaire for them (in addition to my statement of purpose and resume).

American University

I got accepted to American University. It's kind of funny because, though I'm glad I got accepted, I'm simply not excited about it. It's at the bottom of my list of attending. I really only applied because I have two friends who want/thinking of going there and if I go to American University, it's right there near NOAA. It'd be an easy access point to start working for NOAA. The program is okay, but U of WA, U of RI, and UCSB all have better programs that are more what I want than American.

So...Anyway, two replies, two acceptances. I have 3 more universities to hear back from. I suspect I should be hearing back from U of RI and U of WA pretty soon since they received most of my materials electronically. Course, U of RI couldn't find my GRE scores and transcripts and had to e-mail me about it (doesn't instill great confidence in me...), but I haven't heard back from them so I'm hoping they found them. U of WA had all that stuff by the deadline so they should have started reviewing right away. UCSB I suspect will take the longest because my letters of rec, statement of purpose/resume, all came separately. They had to wait till all the materials arrived and almost everything was mailed out the week of the deadline. LoL

With that...I'm off to bed because I am really tired and spent the entire day cleaning my room.

Now it's time to wait...

I sent off the last of my grad school app stuff today! I had two letters of recommendation I needed to send off to American University (in Washington DC) today. With that sent off...I have nothing left to do except wait for my letters of acceptance/rejection! I should know about UCSB and U of Washington at the beginning of March. American and Rhode Island might be mid-end of March since their apps were both due by the 30th of Jan and the others were due by the 10th and 15th of Jan.

I've been looking at scholarships while I wait. I can't actually apply to anything till I know what school I am going to because, if I win, I have to let them know which school to send the check to. I'm going to apply to the Borders Scholarship one for employees. That's one of the reasons why I've stayed at Borders this year. I want that scholarship! There are two different prize amounts - $2,500 and $10,000. I'll accept either, but the $10,000 one would pay for about a third of the estimated costs for a grad student at UCSB for an entire year. It's kind of funny because I've applied to this scholarship through Borders 2 times now. Everytime I apply, it changes slightly. Thankfully, this year it is only ONE essay and it's just your career/educational objectives and so forth. The last time I applied there was also that "what unusual circumstances have shaped you/educational goals" one. I really dislike answering one of those. So...I'll apply for it as soon as I figure out where I'm going. Deadline is April 20th. We'll see if I get it or not!

I found out UCSB for the Fall 2008 Quarter opened some new grad student apartments on the outskirts of the campus. They're VERY similiar to the North Quad housing that CSUMB has. They have 2-room apartments and 4-room apartments. Their set-ups even look the same as CSUMB's. They also have single-occuptant apartments (only 10 of them, I think), but they have no information about those at all. If I got into UCSB and I went for those apartments, it's almost the farthest away from Bren School (the department my Masters program is in) as I can be. LoL As a grad student, though, I REALLY don't want to be in a dorm...I simply don't need that experience to make myself feel like my life is complete. LoL

I think this semester I'm going to brush up on my calculus and statistics. UCSB does a two-week no credit refresher workshop before the quarter starts and a 5-week no credit workshop for statistics during the quarter. I might take both (for sure, statistics), but I might as well refresh now!

With that...I better be off to sleep. I have work at the sinking ship called Borders. They keep cutting hours (I think we lost another 100 hours) and we get no merit raises this year...What a shame. I won't get my $0.25 raise this year! To say the least, I am NOT going to miss the job when I leave Borders. I will miss the people, but the company is making it really difficult for me to want to stay. I hope to never work in retail again too...LoL

Cal Academy of Sciences

Chris and I went to the Cal Academy of Sciences yesterday. We had another disappointing trip where I didn't get to see the planetarium, but at least I saw the rainforest exhibit (after about a 45 minute wait in line...)! You can find photos here. We also went to the botanical gardens for a bit.

I'm almost all finish with grad school applications. I need to mail my MPC transcripts, which I am doing tomorrow morning, send one more CSUMB transcript, and mail my American University recommendation letters and my UCSB statement of purpose and resume and I'm FINISHED.

Now...to hope my CSUMB transcripts will arrive on time...I submitted them on the 23rd of December, but, with the holidays, my transcipts may not get sent out as promptly. I'm checking Tuesday to see if they've been sent out. If they haven't, I'm 2-day rushing them and hoping they'll be sent out by the 10th still.

I got A's in both micro- and macroeconomics too. :)

First Name: Bethany

I'm so TIRED of filling out college applications.

I finished University of Rhode Island and UC Santa Barbara's today. I'm finishing up University of Washington's now. I need to finish one more question in their extra application and finish my statement of purpose and that one will be ready to pay the fee for. UCSB's I have to still write my statement of purposes, but at least the fee has been paid. Friday, after I get paid, I'll send my GRE scores off. URI's fee was $50 and UCSB's was $70. Each GRE costs me $20! I still need to send my MPC transcripts too. I can't believe I forgot about the holidays and how campuses are closes between Christmas and New Year. *sigh* That was just shortsighted of me and has really thrown me off.

UCSB's I have to mail everything too - statement of purpose, resume, and letters of rec. American University I have to mail the letters of rec together. I did my resume and statement of purpose on-line, but I might include them in hardcopy anyway.

It's gotten so complicated remembering what I've done for which college that I have a spreadsheet to keep me organized. LoL

Anyway, with that...I should get back to my applications!

College Apps...

I've been lazy about the rest of the schools and applying, but tonight I got myself into gear since I have less than a month to get all my materials submitted for all the schools! I have changed the schools I'm applying for, though. It seems like it's a never ending changing process.

I've already applied to Columbia and got in, but I'm applying now to University of Washington, University of Rhode Island, UC Santa Barbara, and American University. They all changed (except Washington) for various reasons.

I just finished my application to American University tonight. So that's all finished. I just need to get my Letters of Rec and send my college transcripts off. The application fee was $50 ($30 less than what the website says...). My GRE scores are going to kill me since they're $20 each. Oh well.

Next I'm going to do Rhode Island. All I need to do for that is my Statement of Purpose. I'm basically adapting my Statement from Columbia for each school. Hey...I figure I got into Columbia with it, it was okay for them!

After that, it's a toss up between Santa Barbara and Washington. They both have very tedious application processses. Washington's I have to do a whole separate application thing along with my resume/statement/college application. Santa Barbara I have to write an entirely new statement of purpose that goes along the lines of any difficulties/challenges I've had in my life to get to where I am today and/or whether I want to go into a career that helps the underserved. Now, really? Why would a college specifically want to know that?! I feel like my acceptance rides on how I answer that question more than all my other materials! I'm definitely applying to a California school... :P

I want to send all my college transcripts off at once next week because the campus is closed the 25-30th and Santa Barbara's transcript needs to be postmarked by the 10th of January. So I'll probably just mail Washington's and Santa Barbara's college transcripts and hope they understand a student is applying. :P

With that...I must be off!