(no subject)

[proximoception]

Had a jumpy pre-Break period, as a number of documents needed for admission kept somehow not arriving. One turned out to be in my file, actually several copies of it were as I'd been sending them at weekly intervals since January, but no one ever alerted the database that they were in there! Worse, my backup referrer apparently has cancer, and one of the forms that prevents you from responding to emails. Worse still, one of my main referrers went incommunicado for weeks--recovering from surgery. He was good early on, faxed several times, but they "were having trouble with their fax machine" that week--also the next week; and he did come through at last, couriering his letter in exactly as deliberation began.

So then during Break the acceptance letter arrived and I saw that stipend figure. These people cannot be serious. Bad enough you have to buy an undergrad degree in this country--do we really want graduate degrees to be wealth-based?

All very sanity-affecting.

Comments

[agoraphiliac.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, and sorry.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Merci et aussi merci.

[agoraphiliac.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling the weight of this, more & more. Partly because I have no idea how to decide which university to go to; I looked at one of those cost-of-living calculators, http://www.bestplaces.net/col/. University A is in a city where it is "8 percent cheaper" than Seattle; University B is in a city where it is "20.8 percent more expensive" than Seattle.

But then University A's stipend is 20 percent less than University B's, but that doesn't even out A & B as much you'd think. At University B, I am told, it is rare to find a studio or one-bedroom apartment. At all.

It starts to all feel like some parody of a math problem. And that doesn't even include anything about the academic programs at the two universities.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

.8B/.92S = c. .870B/S

B/1.208S = c. .828B/S

"A" has a several % better income to expenditure ratio. If that's any help.

My stipend is 6000 minus undisclosed fees--my fiancee kicks back 1500 so if that's analogous, I get 4500. If that's any consolation.

[agoraphiliac.livejournal.com]

Oh, now I understand better; 6,000 is not very much money. The stipends offered me are 16,000 and 12,000.

And, unsurprisingly, my math is wrong again, isn't? 12,000 is 1/4 less than 16,000.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

In that case they're close to even.