(no subject)

[tanaise]

I want to go to grad school. Which I've wanted to do for a while, but I've started really specifically wanting to back. So taking my GREs is on my list for the next month, month and a half. And I'll probably stop and buy a copy of the US News and World Reports (the office of which is right by my old office site) Grad School Programs thingie, and start really deciding what I want to be doing and where. Cause I know it's not this or here.

It's pathetic really, but when I'm else where, the very thought of returning to DC is usually enough to make me start crying. The time before last that I was home, I essentially threw a temper tantrum about going back to DC that day(in part due to the fact that the bus gets back into DC at night, and I am panicky about the bus station late at night.).


Additionally, for those of you who love me and want me to go to school by you, I'm making snow a requirement for my grad school. And cold weather. And summers that don't remind me of one of the outer levels of hell.

Comments

[tikimama.livejournal.com]

I think you'll find the Bay Area has some lovely schools. :P

What are you pondering doing your thesis on?

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

The bay area is probably way down on my list of places to apply to. I really want cold weather again. And even a place I can afford.

I'm not sure what exactly my masters thesis would be on, but I want to go for history, specifically Late Antiquity/Early Medieval time period, probably focusing on the very very early growth of the Christian Church (like I was lecturing on last week), and the role of women, specifically in the church, at the time.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

You only have to drive a little to get to snowy mountains inthe winter! And there are lots of cool-to-chilly days. =)

USN&WR has most of the grad listings online as well. Word of mouth is sometimes better, though. YOu might check out academics_anon as well.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

They actually have none of their rankings free online. bastards. Or at least not easily accessible and free. I'll have to check again tomorrow, but I'll probably just get the paper copy anyways.

Re:

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Am I on crack? ^^

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex.htm (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex.htm)

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Oh, it lists them, it just doesn't do any more than just give me the names, and I think the paper copy has more. May not after all, but I'll take a look at it.

[podling]

She's going to go along with my plan. Oh yeah! ;)

[podling]

I think you should go to Boston. And then astrophysicat and I will move there and we can all have a happy little commune. Yeah!

[m0usegrrl.livejournal.com]

heck, i just wanna get my Bachelors... =) [ooh, that's what i should do -- go back to college!]

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

My aunt's advice is, when the economy is bad, go back to school. It's not like you're losing money, cause there isn't any money to make. :)

[ariadnesthread.livejournal.com]

US News only updates the liberal arts MA and PhD program ratings every other time, I believe. The previous edition should be on the web site, which was free/no registration required last time I used it. I used to have it bookmarked, but it's probably easy to find.

[toratigris.livejournal.com]

If you hate DC that much, you need to get out of there, regardless of where you go or what you do!

As to the GRE, I hear they're changing the requirement to include a written section, and eliminating one of the three existing sections, so you might want to look into that and decide if you want to take it before or after they change it. My single biggest piece of advice regarding the GRE is: study vocabulary. The more esoteric words you know, the better your chances of scoring high on the verbal section. Reviewing math helped some, but the biggest gain for me came from learning a whole lot of polysyllabic words which I will probably never use again. (Though I also learned some really useful ones, like "schadenfreude", which I love.)

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I've never had a problem with the vocab section. :) I may not be able to spell the word, but damnit, I know what it means. I hadn't heard they were going to make part of the GRE written--I wouldn't think they could do that, as it's all computer-based now.

[toratigris.livejournal.com]

From the gre.org website:

"Beginning on October 1, 2002, the Writing Assessment will become part of the General Test as the analytical writing section. The analytical writing section will be identical to the Writing Assessment."

As I thought, they're doing away with the multiple-choice based Analytical section, and replacing it with the written.

And I still recommend brushing up on the vocab. Of course, I took the paper-and-pencil version, in which they give you one section twice--one was the "real" test, and the other was the test they were checking for validity. I got the verbal section doubled (for which I was extrememly grateful, had it been the quantitative I might have fled in terror), so I saw twice as many vocab words as most test takers would. So I don't know how the computer-based would compare, exactly. But I can say that I'd always scored very high on vocab tests, and worked really hard at studying vocab before the test, and there were STILL a couple of words I'd never even heard of, and a few I knew vaguely but wasn't sure about the meaning of.

But I scored in the 99th percentile on the verbal section, so all the studying really paid off.

Of course, then I decided not to go to grad school, so the whole test was a waste as anything other than an ego boost. ;)

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's already been done.
You should definitely take a couple of the simulated GREs. The adaptive bit means that if you flake out during the first few questions, you won't be able to get a high score regardless. I don't like that method at all. (obviously, my score was pretty good anyway, FWIW. :p I don't remember what it was though.)

[crowyhead.livejournal.com]

Dave and I suggest Philadelphia. Well, actually, Dave's exact words were, "Mew mew mew mew, Philamewphia?" but that's because he's a silly beast.

Just think, you'd have me, and Shelle, and Dave, and Laura... and Dave and I could help you find a cheap apartment! And we have Temple, and Penn, and Drexel, and ever so many other schools...

Crow

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Did you read the part about snow?