Super Bowl pick

Steelers 28, Cardinals 17.

I don’t want to give any further analysis, because that would require me to think about the Steelers and Cardinals further. I can’t stand these teams, and when the final second ticks off the clock, I sure won’t stick with it to watch one of them celebrate. What a hideous Super Bowl.

Upcoming

I should hear back from Illinois in a week…two at the most. As long as I hear by mid-February, it makes no real difference (aside from curing my curiosity); I just want to know in time to firm up hotel plans and get the best room rate for my mid-March midwest trip. Honestly, I think that one is going to be a rejection, but an acceptance wouldn’t shock me.

Arizona and Notre Dame…who the heck knows. I don’t expect decisions any earlier than late February from those two. If ND got back to me sometime before my midwest trip and surprisingly accepted me, I’d rearrange things to go visit them. Not expecting that to happen, though.

I’ll be on the lookout for the possibility of scholarship money from Wake Forest (people getting money will be notified by the end of February), and overall student aid reports from Indiana and Wake. WF has the cheaper annual tuition by a few thousand, but not after IU’s $10K per year scholarship offer…so whether it be by scholarship or grant, they’re going to have to pony up some money to keep the price tag close. I filed my FAFSA right away, so hopefully I’ll know exactly what price tags I’m looking at by the April 1st decision deadline.

Otherwise, just keeping a lookout for decisions from schools I’ve decided to probably not attend; I’m still interested in how those end up, even though they’re unlikely to change my destination at this point. And I’m interested to know what kind of scholarship offer I’m looking at from Chapman; that piece of mail should arrive on Saturday, I think.

Lots of waiting left to do.

In at Chapman.

My online status-checker for Chapman University changed to “Admitted”. An official admissions letter has been mailed in my direction. That’s a nice compliment from what looks like a fine school, but it’s seriously doubtful that I’m headed their direction. I’ll wait to see what kind of money they offer me before officially withdrawing, however. Orange County is beautiful, I wish there was a justification to move there.

My official record on the cycle is 4-1-1. Pretty darn solid. Surprisingly, I think there’s a chance that I’ll land 10 acceptances out of 18 applications. I have officially withdrawn from the waitlist at Cincinnati, so that one will remain in the third column permanently.

Trip to Indiana is booked.

The vacation days from work have been requested and granted, the flight is booked…I’m headed to Indiana in March, a couple of weeks before my Wake Forest trip. I fly in to Indianapolis on March 11th (a Wednesday), am scheduling a visit at the school to sit in on a class the next day, get the guided tour, and meet with people from admissions/career services/financial aid at the school. March 13th is a flexible date, depending on what decision I get from the University of Illinois. I talked to their Dean of Admissions, he said I should get a decision during the next couple of weeks. If I get in there, I’ll drive to Champaign, IL after my day in Bloomington, and get a visit in with Illinois as well. If they reject me, so be it, I’ll spend another day enjoying Bloomington. Either way, I’ll return home on the 14th.

The order of the trips might work against Wake Forest. I’m already becoming quite enamored with IU-B, and if I go there and love it, it might jump out to a noticeable lead in my decision-making process. Then again, Wake will get the last word, as I’m definitely going on both trips regardless…so you never know. It’s kind of amazing how the texture of this whole process has changed so dramatically again.

Compared to Arizona, the geographics give Illinois an in here if they take me, since they can be tacked onto my midwest trip with the only cost being some extra gas money. Same for Notre Dame, if they somehow accepted me. I’d hate to get accepted to U of A and then not even pay them a visit, but that’s probably the reality (if they accept me), financially and logistically.

By the way…

These acceptances do largely take the sting off of the disappointing LSAT results. Sure, if my results had been better I’d likely be getting bigger scholarship offers, so that’s a real consequence that I get to live with…but honestly, if I had just scored a 167 or so to begin with (which I would’ve been entirely happy with), I don’t know that I could expect this cycle to have gone too much better. Assuming finances line up properly, and they should, I’ll be at a great school in 6-7 months.

Got the admissions package in the mail from Indiana.

Came with a decent scholarship offer of $10,000 a year, contingent on maintaining a 3.2 or better. I appreciate the hand-written note from the Assistant Dean as well, they seem to run a classy show there.

We’ll see if any scholarship offer is forthcoming from Wake. I kind of doubt I’ll get anything from them in that regard, but it’s the overall package offered that matters; IU statistically gives about 3/4 of their incoming class scholarships, but a minority of the students get grants. Wake gives grants generously but doesn’t give scholarships as generously as IU does. So, I’ll just have to wait on a total price tag to be able to assess that part of things.

Carolina vs. Indiana…this one’s a lot closer.

Let’s face it, we can mostly cross California off the list at this point. The possibility at least existed that I would be entirely unimpressed with Wake Forest and decide to stay closer, but I can’t possibly imagine that both Wake Forest and Indiana-Bloomington could fail to impress me in person. If San Diego or Santa Clara offered me some ridiculous scholarship money, then I’m listening, but that is very unlikely to happen.

My reaction when I got this acceptance from Indiana was a positive one, but also had an element of “uh oh, now I’ve got a really tough decision on my hands.” I had already started falling in love with this Carolina idea, but I knew that Indiana-Bloomington was a great school and that I certainly needed to give them due attention. I’ll be paying a visit to both, but here’s how I currently see it…

Academics

Wake Forest just picked up some competition from the midwest.

Obviously on a Sunday I wasn’t expecting any news, but I got an e-mail just now that congratulated me on admission to Indiana-Bloomington (ranked 36th nationally). That Denver rejection sure seems like ancient history now.

My decision just got tougher. I’m more drawn to heading to North Carolina than to Indiana as far as location goes, but Bloomington, IN always gets talked up as a fantastic college town. On top of that, Bloomington on average costs slightly less and has slightly higher starting salaries coming out. I think both are excellent options.

The e-mail I got from Indiana said that “a formal admission and scholarship letter is in the mail,” so it would appear that they’re going to offer me some money as well. Wake might too, they said scholarship decisions would be made by March 1st, so we’ll just have to see how it all shakes out. If one was significantly cheaper than the other over the course of three years, that would obviously carry a good bit of weight.

My leaning is still in the direction of Wake Forest, but Indiana is a good enough option that I’d definitely like to get a visit in with them as well.

Odds and ends.

So at this point I’m waiting on eight decisions that really matter to me.

I’m in review at Indiana-Bloomington, Notre Dame, Santa Clara and San Diego. Since I still consider myself to have very little chance at Notre Dame, Indiana is the one I care most about here, and I expect to hear back from them within the next couple of weeks. Santa Clara and San Diego should also come during that time frame I think, but both of them are going to have to throw good scholarship money at me to get my attention at this point, and I don’t really see that happening.

Carolina vs. California

Jo Dee Messina once did a song about decisions like this.

The more I think about it, though, this really isn’t a “heads Carolina, tails California” coin flip. The choice is relatively clear.

Factors in favor of Wake Forest

Well, I’ll have a Carolina trip report for you come early April at least.

Can you tell I’m excited?

I’ve already booked my flight, hotel room and rental car for the last weekend of March to check out Wake Forest and its surrounding area in North Carolina. I’ll fly out on Friday the 27th of March, attend the open house for admitted students on Saturday the 28th, and do whatever I want to explore the area on Sunday the 29th before returning home on Monday the 30th. Should be a really enjoyable weekend whether I ultimately go with Wake as my choice or not.

As this will come right before the seat deposit deadline, it’ll obviously give me the opportunity to confirm or change my decision on Wake, whatever the decision seems to be at that point…there are still eight schools that I haven’t heard back from who could at least still get a voice in this argument (though I’ll say that the more this sets in, the less I see myself in Cali now).

Wow. Nice turn of events.

Well…this sentence from a previous entry is going to need to be amended.

Notre Dame, Arizona, Arizona State, Pepperdine, Wake Forest…I’m sure they’re currently printing out a rejection form letter for me as I speak.

I don’t know about the first four, but I was happily caught off-guard by an acceptance from Wake Forest after writing that last blog. Statistically, I was a significant underdog to get in here; only Notre Dame is a bigger longshot, Arizona State and Pepperdine are pretty much of the same probability as Wake was. This is a really good school, ranked #42 in the country, and looks like a really good fit for me too. Well…aside from the pesky little part about having to move all the way across the nation to North Carolina.

Narrowing things down further.

No decisions today, but I’ve spent plenty of time over the last several days researching, and these would be some conclusions I’ve come to…

*I can’t see Idaho being the choice. Idaho, if they accept me, would offer only one chief advantage: a cheaper education. To be clear, price tag will play a significant part in my decision…but not at the expense of terrible job prospects. The average salary coming out of the last graduating class at Idaho is staggeringly bad considering that you have to take on a debt to get there, easily a number I could attain or exceed just working my current job over the next few years. Sure, it would be a gig I would like more than my current job, so I could probably warm up to it if U of I was my only option…but with my acceptance to McGeorge, we’ve already established that it isn’t.

*Chapman will have a hard time making a case against the higher-ranked private schools of California.

Alright, so President Obama is in office now.

Allow me to say that I will support President Obama as much as he allows me to. I’m an American before anything else politically, and unlike many liberals of the last eight years, I’m not going to wish bad things for our country just out of spite and vindictiveness toward the man in the Oval Office and my political disagreements with him.

Alright, well the Super Bowl is ruined.

Although I’m cheering for the Ravens by default in this next game, I’m mentally preparing myself to root for the frigging Steelers in the Super Bowl.

That alone says all you need to know about how horrific this football season has been.

Okay, the landscape as it sits now.

McGeorge (that’s the name of the school of law at Pacific) wasn’t at the very top of my list, but is certainly a school I’m happy to have an acceptance from. Naturally, that means that some schools I was less interested in are going to have a hard time gaining my enrollment come fall.

Namely, these schools are really going to need to do some convincing to get me to make them my top choice when all is said and done…

Decision deadline is earlier than I realized.

The scholarship offer from Pacific comes with a deadline of April 1st. If I don’t commit to them by then, the scholarship money has to be freed up to offer to other prospective students. Actually, as I look closer, my first non-refundable seat deposit to secure my place in the entering class has that same deadline. So, if I’m going to go there, I’ll need to let them know by that date.

I didn’t realize I’d have to firm up a decision so early. UNLV, for instance, said that I probably won’t even have a decision from them until sometime in April (that, in and of itself, isn’t a huge deal…I’m pretty sure I’d pick Pacific between the two anyway…the schools are rated similarly and I’ll take Sacramento as a new home over Vegas in a heartbeat).

Anyway, probably not a big deal, I think most of the schools will get back to me by that time, so I’ll know who I’m choosing amongst (and if a school I like better comes along, the deadline at Pacific could become moot, but maybe this is the kind of deadline I’m looking at everywhere). I just didn’t realize I was possibly less than three months from having to finalize a decision.

The shutout is over.

At 2:00 today, I went and found my mailbox to be empty. My thought, naturally, was, “Are you serious? No mail today either?” Thankfully, an hour later, I checked again and was very happy to see a big fat envelope from the University of the Pacific sitting inside. I knew that the thick package couldn’t possibly be a rejection, so unlike the thin envelope from Denver, which I ripped open, browsed and threw into the closest garbage can, I carried this one inside before opening it.

I laughed as I opened it up, thinking, “Now this would just be incredibly cruel if they sent a rejection in this big of a package.” Thankfully that wasn’t the case, inside was a big folder with one letter giving me an acceptance, another offering me a modest scholarship, and another with the academic calendar for the coming year.

The acceptance letter was a form letter, but the Assistant Dean of Admissions did write at the bottom, “I enjoyed reading about working at the refinery. I know you will work hard at McGeorge. Prove me right!!” So, maybe my personal statement and my “please forgive my bad undergrad GPA” addendum helped sway them in my favor. I appreciate the personal note, since I always felt like I cranked out a very generic personal statement for my application package.

Anyway, this is a good first option to be offered. The school ranks in the top 100 nationally, and is located in Sacramento, a very nice city and one of my favorite parts of California. The price tag there is on the high side, which is a deterrent, but regardless this is an attractive offer from a place that I’d be happy to go to.

Nice to get that first acceptance out of the way, a load has been lifted. Now I can relax and just wait to see who Pacific’s competitors are for my enrollment in the fall.

The won-lost-tied record is at 1-1-1. Hopefully some more decisions will reach me next week.

Nothing today, either.

The mail came, but nothing from any school. If that decision was sent by Pacific on Tuesday, it really should’ve shown up today, but hopefully tomorrow is the day for at least that one.

The Office: “The Duel”

After what felt like a really long layoff, I was happy that The Office came back full force, with one of the best episodes of the season. Tons of stuff made me laugh tonight…Kevin was hilarious and got some of his best lines of the season, the sudden high five between Andy and Dwight amidst their yelling match cracked me up, Meredith’s “I call loser” was one of the better lines you’ll ever hear out of her. The way Michael told Andy about the affair was great. When Andy asked if he was serious, Steve Carell’s delivery on “yep” as his car sped away was priceless.