******UT-Houston Class of 2011*******

[alisunny]

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I was looking around utlink and checking out the bill, which comes out to something just under $12000, and I was just wondering if this is for the entire year or just the fall semester? Stupid question, perhaps, but I wanted to check how much of my unsubsidized loans I can decline...

 

[aggiesarah2007]

I was looking around utlink and checking out the bill, which comes out to something just under $12000, and I was just wondering if this is for the entire year or just the fall semester? Stupid question, perhaps, but I wanted to check how much of my unsubsidized loans I can decline...

I believe it is for the whole year. i actually need to call to make sure they automatically have you pay in two installments since the loans come in two installments.

 

[relema]

I believe it is for the whole year. i actually need to call to make sure they automatically have you pay in two installments since the loans come in two installments.

You need to tell them to split your tution bill in half, otherwise they will use your first installment to pay your whole bill and that is just not fun. Also make sure to stay on top of financial aid they can be slow and most of the time everything goes well but this year my money came in well after my tuition was due so i had pay my tuition with my credit card until my money is fully in.

 

[NCF145]

You need to tell them to split your tution bill in half, otherwise they will use your first installment to pay your whole bill and that is just not fun. Also make sure to stay on top of financial aid they can be slow and most of the time everything goes well but this year my money came in well after my tuition was due so i had pay my tuition with my credit card until my money is fully in.

Wait, so you don't get the full loan amount disbursed to you in August?

 

[Mardi-Bob]

Wait, so you don't get the full loan amount disbursed to you in August?

Nope.

Why would a bank give you a year's supply of money if you might not make it past Christmas. 😀

 

[Vander]

yikes, I just got a call from university housing and they have an apartment for me at the cambridge place. The problem is I was planning on moving to the lanesborough in four days, so changing would be a very last minute thing (I already have power set up and I put that as my temporary address for my loans and everything). Anybody have any advice?

 

[tkatchev]

yikes, I just got a call from university housing and they have an apartment for me at the cambridge place. The problem is I was planning on moving to the lanesborough in four days, so changing would be a very last minute thing (I already have power set up and I put that as my temporary address for my loans and everything). Anybody have any advice?

I suggest sticking with Lanesborough. I don't really see any huge advantage to going with university housing. If there is a huge advantage, of course, like a large difference in price, then it might be worth it, but otherwise I wouldn't rock the boat.

 

[Vander]

I suggest sticking with Lanesborough. I don't really see any huge advantage to going with university housing. If there is a huge advantage, of course, like a large difference in price, then it might be worth it, but otherwise I wouldn't rock the boat.

The difference is 300 a month, pretty huge right?

 

[tkatchev]

The difference is 300 a month, pretty huge right?

Huge indeed. Hmmm... I'd try switching if I could in that case.

 

[FrankShui]

Are old exams made available to students? I remember asking this question during some interviews but I'm getting all of the TX med schools jumbled in my head. 😕

Also am I going to be the only rebel with a Macbook? 😀 Mine is a year old and there is no way I'm going to go buy another laptop. I'll just load Windows on mine.

 

[UT_mikie]

Are old exams made available to students? I remember asking this question during some interviews but I'm getting all of the TX med schools jumbled in my head. 😕

Also am I going to be the only rebel with a Macbook? 😀 Mine is a year old and there is no way I'm going to go buy another laptop. I'll just load Windows on mine.

Exam CD's are made available to you guys but some of the course directors have stopped handing them out so some classes like devo are only up till '96 '97.

Concerning computers, they will try to tell you that you MUST have a PC laptop, but thats complete nonsense. Do not go out and buy a brand spankin new laptop because they told you to (if you want to go ahead), wait on it... you'll be happy you did.

Lots of people use macs, you can use Parallels desktop or bootcamp to load up Windows so even if you do need one it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[UT_mikie]

Oh, and congratulations to all of you. Your career in medicine is about to start. I'm sure someone else has said this already but enjoy the rest of your summer. Don't you dare touch anything medically related they will teach you what you need to know.

And you'll come to realize that getting into med school was the easy part. From here on out, it never gets easier but it always gets better.

 

[drchekhov]

yikes, I just got a call from university housing and they have an apartment for me at the cambridge place. The problem is I was planning on moving to the lanesborough in four days, so changing would be a very last minute thing (I already have power set up and I put that as my temporary address for my loans and everything). Anybody have any advice?

Well, depending on what you've signed already, you may get hit with reletting fee if you try to switch from Lanesborough (often 85% of monthly rent). Granted, over nine months you'd pay that off in savings at UT Housing, but it could still be painful...

 

[Vander]

Luckily I didn't sign anything, I just put down a $135 deposit that I will lose, hopefully only that. I'll find out tomorrow I suppose.

 

[tkatchev]

I'm really speechless about the following e-mail. I'm starting medical school in a month but I guess Southwestern wants to give me another look this season?

Dear X,

Your application to the medical school entering class of 2008 was received from the Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service on July 11, 2007. Thank you for your interest in UT Southwestern Medical School.

The application review process has begun. It is difficult to anticipate when you might hear from us regarding the status of your application. If you are selected for an interview, we will contact you via email at the same email address to which this message was sent. Any changes to your email address should be forwarded to TMDSAS and UT Southwestern as soon as possible.

You should periodically check the TMDSAS website for information regarding the completion status of your application (such as receipt of transcripts, letters of recommendation, MCAT score, etc.).

Sincerely,

Admissions Office
UT Southwestern Medical School
[email protected]
214-648-5617 / 214-648-3289 (fax)

 

[aggiesarah2007]

I just got that email too! Don't they know I'm not applying again! I'm in!! Plus, UTSW just had to take me off their waitlist. Perhaps I'll email them to let them know they've messed up.

 

[FrankShui]

I spoke to them on the phone and they said that the email was an accident and to just disregard it.

 

[SitraAchra]

yayyyy this week we started filming for retreat. All systems are go! I won't tell you which SNL skits we're parodying, but it's a safe bet that several from Best of Will Ferrell will make an appearance. At least if I have anything to say about it [which I do 😀 ]

Anyhoo, get excited people. Don't make me shake you.

-zach!

 

[NCF145]

yayyyy this week we started filming for retreat. All systems are go! I won't tell you which SNL skits we're parodying, but it's a safe bet that several from Best of Will Ferrell will make an appearance. At least if I have anything to say about it [which I do 😀 ]

Anyhoo, get excited people. Don't make me shake you.

-zach!

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=potRJfgb87o[/YOUTUBE]

 

[LnghrdDIT]

Are old exams made available to students? I remember asking this question during some interviews but I'm getting all of the TX med schools jumbled in my head. 😕

Also am I going to be the only rebel with a Macbook? 😀 Mine is a year old and there is no way I'm going to go buy another laptop. I'll just load Windows on mine.

You won't be the only one because I will be joining you. I talked to the people at IT and cleared it with them that it's OK. I absolutely love my mac and was not about to replace it.

 

[dancer75088]

You won't be the only one because I will be joining you. I talked to the people at IT and cleared it with them that it's OK. I absolutely love my mac and was not about to replace it.

Count me in as well! I absolutely love my macbook!

 

[FrankShui]

I'm back with yet another question...

Does anyone know who their assigned MS2 is? When do we find out?

 

[Vander]

I'm back with yet another question...

Does anyone know who their assigned MS2 is? When do we find out?

Mine sent me an e-mail around mid April, so I think you should have found out my now.

 

[Vander]

Does anyone know when the student health insurance kicks in? I need to know when to cancel my other very expensive health insurance.

 

[relema]

Does anyone know when the student health insurance kicks in? I need to know when to cancel my other very expensive health insurance.

Your insurance kicks in the first day of classes.

 

[tkatchev]

I'm back with yet another question...

Does anyone know who their assigned MS2 is? When do we find out?

Mine hasn't contacted me either. Do you feel unloved? I do.

 

[OddNath]

Mine hasn't contacted me either. Do you feel unloved? I do.

When I contacted my 1st year, I wrote to her college email address which expired and then she couldn't write me back. So I was thinking that she didn't actually *want* to talk to me, when in reality she lost my email address and was hoping that I'd write back again!

So who knows, there could be some crazy reason that you haven't heard from this person. Or, you can PM me with his/her name and I can bug this slacker for you 🙂

 

[FrankShui]

I feel unloved too. 🙁 Maybe I didn't get one or I sounded too distant on that one form we had to fill out a few months ago.

 

[dwigt]

Does anyone have a guess as to how many kilowatt hours a 650 sq ft apartment would use on average per month?

 

[sebsvenmdc]

hey dwigt,

that's hilarious...i've been wondering the same thing all day! what the heck!?! are we supposed to just guess some figure in our heads and pay some silly, flat rate? i was under the impression that utilities were called utilities because of their correspondence to utilization! my Lanesborough apartment is 614 square feet. it looks like reliant is really expensive! all of the others are like $120/month!

also, what INTERNET service would houston med students recommend? comcast wants $52.95 or something per month for high speed! yikes! i just want the internet...not too into TV. any recommendations, people?

also, the renter's insurance thingie...i just went with the minimum 10K one. apparently, this is commonplace for the Lanesborough people.

hope this helps, classmates! 🙂

 

[tkatchev]

hey dwigt,

that's hilarious...i've been wondering the same thing all day! what the heck!?! are we supposed to just guess some figure in our heads and pay some silly, flat rate? i was under the impression that utilities were called utilities because of their correspondence to utilization! my Lanesborough apartment is 614 square feet. it looks like reliant is really expensive! all of the others are like $120/month!

also, what INTERNET service would houston med students recommend? comcast wants $52.95 or something per month for high speed! yikes! i just want the internet...not too into TV. any recommendations, people?

also, the renter's insurance thingie...i just went with the minimum 10K one. apparently, this is commonplace for the Lanesborough people.

hope this helps, classmates! 🙂

There are no flat rates for electricity. It is always metered as far as I know. You don't have to guess how much you will use. Usually most companies have a per kWh charge and a monthly fee of $0-$10 which is usually waived if you use at least 500 or 1000 kWh per month. The specifics depend on the company.

The $120 you are referring to is a sample of what you would pay if you used 1000 kWh that month. But no one, and I mean no one should be using that much electricity, especially in a small apartment. You might not even break 500 kWh.

 

[relema]

hey dwigt,

that's hilarious...i've been wondering the same thing all day! what the heck!?! are we supposed to just guess some figure in our heads and pay some silly, flat rate? i was under the impression that utilities were called utilities because of their correspondence to utilization! my Lanesborough apartment is 614 square feet. it looks like reliant is really expensive! all of the others are like $120/month!

also, what INTERNET service would houston med students recommend? comcast wants $52.95 or something per month for high speed! yikes! i just want the internet...not too into TV. any recommendations, people?

also, the renter's insurance thingie...i just went with the minimum 10K one. apparently, this is commonplace for the Lanesborough people.

hope this helps, classmates! 🙂

My place is 970 sqf and my electricty bill is on average $50 a month the most i have had was close to $120 the first month i lived here because i ran the ac a ton when i was moving all my stuff in.
As for the internet the high speed internet it very much worth its weight in gold. They really do give you enough money to live on and if your not getting cable tv you really will be fine.

 

[sebsvenmdc]

Lol, ok, thanks for clarifying stuff, guys! Haha, I was way off. So they charge a flat rate, not a flat amount. That makes a lot more sense! It seemed absurd to guess how much energy one would use per month. I'm thrilled that the energy industry hasn't incorporated a version of the minutes/month plan of cell phones! 😀

I found a lot of energy plans on www.powertochoose.com. The cheapest rates are about $0.119 per kWh.

Ok, so what do med students do for the internet? Will DSL suffice? I'm assuming hardly anyone will want a landline, so it comes down to two camps: those that purchase internet and cable and those that just want internet.

 

[mychelle774]

Ok, so what do med students do for the internet? Will DSL suffice? I'm assuming hardly anyone will want a landline, so it comes down to two camps: those that purchase internet and cable and those that just want internet.

Hey I still use DSL and I only pay $30/mo with AT&T for it. Fast enough for me. I can't see myself making that 150% jump in cost to occasionally get to watch some HGTV or foodnetwork. Besides, when I do have free time, I'll be over at my friend's, and she has cable. 🙂

 

[Vander]

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/deals/10+per+month-dsl-from-att-269940.php

$10 a month dsl that AT&T has to offer because the FCC made them. They aren't lying about it being hard to find on the web site. I couldn't find it on my own. Someone did make a link in the comments section that sends you to the bellsouth page. It seems legit and worth looking into.

 

[relema]

Ok, so what do med students do for the internet? Will DSL suffice? I'm assuming hardly anyone will want a landline, so it comes down to two camps: those that purchase internet and cable and those that just want internet.

I have cable modem and tv. I use to have att for telephone service and just cancelled it because they are a crappy company. My service went down quite a bit ( because the lines to my apt complex are old)and now that att took over for sbc they got even worse. This most recent time my service went down they charged me to fix it even though the fault was in the lines leading to my complex ( mind you it is their lines and when sbc owned the company i was not charged,) They were rude when i called to get the charge removed. So im glad i didnt get dsl and i just switched to vontage.

 

[sebsvenmdc]

ok, so are there any specific recommendations for a utility company? are any known to be particularly unreliable? some of the amigo plans look good...
i'm basing this off of browsing the www.powertochoose.com plans.

 

[NCF145]

I have cable modem and tv. I use to have att for telephone service and just cancelled it because they are a crappy company. My service went down quite a bit ( because the lines to my apt complex are old)and now that att took over for sbc they got even worse. This most recent time my service went down they charged me to fix it even though the fault was in the lines leading to my complex ( mind you it is their lines and when sbc owned the company i was not charged,) They were rude when i called to get the charge removed. So im glad i didnt get dsl and i just switched to vontage.

What apartment complex do you live in?

 

[sebsvenmdc]

Are any of you buying new cars this year? I'm thinking about going budget...Toyota Yaris, baby.

Is anyone else taking out the full $32,169? 🙂

 

[aggiesarah2007]

yeah I'm taking it all! I'd rather have too much money at the end of the year than too little 🙂

 

[NCF145]

yeah I'm taking it all! I'd rather have too much money at the end of the year than too little 🙂

Same here. Especially since our budget does not account for the two months during the summer.

 

[NCF145]

I was going to post my 1,000th post in this thread, but I wasn't paying attention to how many I had. I guess I'll just have to start my next 1,000 here. 👍

 

[thebeav007]

does anyone else have "Admission document" under Holds on Utlink?

*resolved -- thanks

 

[NCF145]

does anyone else have "Admission document" under Holds on Utlink?

nope

 

[sebsvenmdc]

OK, so I don't mean to keep beating certain issues to death! 😳 BUT, I think this is a pretty important issue:

Is there a MINIMUM internet download/upload speed required to be able to watch the medical school lectures on your laptop in your apartment?

See, DSL packages vary quite a lot. For instance, the AT&T ($14.99/month) Basic Package has:
1) Up to 384 Kbps-768 Kbps download speeds
2) Up to 128 Kbps-384 Kbps upload speeds

Is this enough?

The AT&T ($34.99/month) Elite Package has:
1) Up to 3.0 Mbps-6.0 Mbps download speeds
2) Up to 512 Kbps-768 Kbps upload speeds

For those of you that are considering this, you need a landline for DSL. AT&T requires a $13.00/month unlimited local calling plan for this. Kind of annoying!

Any advice would be much appreciated! 👍

 

[NCF145]

OK, so I don't mean to keep beating certain issues to death! 😳 BUT, I think this is a pretty important issue:

Is there a MINIMUM internet download/upload speed required to be able to watch the medical school lectures on your laptop in your apartment?

See, DSL packages vary quite a lot. For instance, the AT&T ($14.99/month) Basic Package has:
1) Up to 384 Kbps-768 Kbps download speeds
2) Up to 128 Kbps-384 Kbps upload speeds

Is this enough?

The AT&T ($34.99/month) Elite Package has:
1) Up to 3.0 Mbps-6.0 Mbps download speeds
2) Up to 512 Kbps-768 Kbps upload speeds

For those of you that are considering this, you need a landline for DSL. AT&T requires a $13.00/month unlimited local calling plan for this. Kind of annoying!

Any advice would be much appreciated! 👍

Cable >>> DSL

 

[dwigt]

Anyone already in h-town up for some racquetball? PM me.

 

[aggiesarah2007]

Cable >>> DSL

if you're gonna go DSL make sure you aren't too far away from the switching station. Otherwise it will just be TOO SLOW. Though I'd go with the higher dl speeds if you do go DSL

 

[TwinkleToes]

Can any of the current first or 2nd years advise on whether it's a bad idea to take off early on a Friday and miss a Gross lab?

 

[OddNath]

Can any of the current first or 2nd years advise on whether it's a bad idea to take off early on a Friday and miss a Gross lab?

Gross lab was different back when I took it (we had to do every dissection, MWF), but I think starting last year they did something like dissect every other lab. So if you weren't dissecting Friday, you could feasibly leave town.

However, I think that the kids who aren't dissecting that day still have to show up for the beginning to explain their last dissection to the group taking over. Like "Hey other side of the team, on Wednesday we dissected the ass cheeks very nicely. Marvel in our work. Now it's your turn to keep going with this and dissect the thigh and knee." So I don't know if it's mandatory for you to be there in the beginning for that explanation time, but it might be. Hopefully one of the 2nd years will respond with actual information.