Spring Registration

[stay_night]

I'm applying to grad school for a master's degree for the spring, since I hadn't decided on my direction yet by the fall admissions deadline. My goal is to move in November (or at the latest, in the first week of December); that will give me at least a month to find an apartment and get settled in before classes start

Comments

[brittdreams]

Have you thought of just waiting until the fall so that you could get funding? I think spring typically has fewer openings.

[anese]

If you are worried about obtaining financial aid (which is hard for the Spring semester! In fact, I waited until the next fall to apply because I knew I would not get aid for a Spring admit...most universities will not give aid at all during that time for the very reasons your professors mentioned.) it might just be better to wait and apply later

[stay_night]

Well, starting in the spring isn't out of the question for me, even without funding, but then I would absolutely need to be able to get an assistantship or something for the rest of the program (which I might even have a better chance at, since I'll have the first semester just to focus on the transition and on the classes so there's no reason I shouldn't do very well). That's why my main concern is if it's just more difficult to get in at that time of year

[anese]

"sitting around and working at a meaningless job I can't stand just isn't something I want to suffer through for another year."
There are plenty of meaningful jobs out there. Academia is not without its "meaningless" qualities, as a few academics I know would attest. Just be rigorous about your job search and even it takes a little time, a meaningful job will pop up. Consider working in the non-profit field, for example.

[stay_night]

The issue is that I did spend the last half year working and looking for something better. In both of the areas I lived in that period, finding a decent job at all is no easy task due to the quantity and quality of competition, and those rare few that interviewed me or ultimately hired me were not jobs in which I was at all interested--they were just the only decently-paying options I had. It is very important to me to finish school so that I can find work in my field of choice; to me, anything else is settling, and I'm not willing to do that. I don't want to waste an entire year on top of the last six months unless I absolutely can't get accepted anywhere

[roseofjuly]

I'm not a minority

Um, don't mean to derail your post here, but this is just a wee bit offensive. The majority of scholarship aid for graduate school for school in general) doesn't have any minority designation attached to it, and we can't get scholarships either if our GPAs and research experience are not up to snuff. That may not be what you were implying, but it certainly came off that way.