Grad Schools near good windsurfing

[pacspeed]

[alohannie]

Unless you are a trustfunder, maintaining a 4.0 in grad school and working will take up all of your time. Go to school and take your holidays in some warm, tropical spot. Your day to day life is not your own when you want to be serious about grad school. If you're brilliant, you would go would be going to Wharton, and wouldn't be asking this stupid question.

[bates]

alohannie, you sound like no fun. I know I can manage grad school job and windsurfing. But I appreciate the advice nonetheless. Where did you go to grad school? O and for reference, i have about a 3.7 at Bates College in Maine, higher average in Econ and havn't taken the GRE yet.

[pacspeed]

Impressive grades! I'm sure you'll do fine on the GRE. Alohannie might be right if it's med school, law school, or a science degree but my impression of business school (from my brother, Cornell '9 is it's really quite easy. You're really there to make connections with your classmates, and score a sweet internship. Slavish hours and brutal studying isn't really part of the program.

But lets not forget the more pertinent question:

Are you a straight guy into hot chicks?

[bates]

yes and yes

[lutehowland]

Dude,

Here's a reality check as far as grad school in econ:

http://kuznets.fas.harvard.edu/~athey/gradadv.html

Forget your gpa, what'd you get in real analysis? Linear algebra? What's the hardest math class you've taken and what did you get?
Grad school in econ is completely different than undergrad. Especially the first year - it's all mathematical push-ups and hazing.
MBA is not relevant because you don't have job experience.
If you want to cruise for a couple years, do a masters in public policy or something like that.
Be careful with non-elite grad schools. They'll be happy to take your money and waste your time.
Do not go into student loan debt for a worthless degree.
If you want to sail a lot for a couple years, you're better off working in a surf shop or some other part time work.

[Barnett]

Another reality check:

There are no good consistent windsurfing spots in the US with decent weather from Sept-May. SF area may be the best you can do.

IMHO, better you pick a school with what you want on other levels in a place you want to live and can afford, with a really long winter break. Then go to Margarita for two months in the winter, stay in some rat-infested hovel for ten bucks a day (assuming you are a starving student), windsurf your butt off daily, go back to school refreshed, repeat for spring break, and spend your summers at the gorge working at a boardshop for slave wage. Add it all up and your year amounts to at least 5 months of nonstop sailing in really cool places with great weather (much better than you will do Sept-May anywhere in the US), and the rest of the year you can concentrate on your studies and/or extracurricular activites (see posts above for examples of latter).

Great you can go on the net and have strangers micromanage your life, huh, Nate? Good luck.

[lutehowland]

Barnett has a good point. A lot of schools are on the quarter system - 10 weeks of class + finals week. You can travel and sail guilt free during the breaks.
During the time you're actually in school it's good to spend time with your classmates. It's blasphemy on a windsurf forum, but consider taking a snowboard trip with a bunch of your classmates rather than going off windsurfing by yourself...
Grad school can be very isolating and it's important to form study groups/etc. early on before everybody gets into their cliques.
If right after orientation you run off by yourself to go sailing, it'll be hard to be in the flow of things.
Especially when you're not studying a technical field, those kinds of connections can be more valuable than the degree itself.
During undergrad and grad school I spent a lot of time chasing the wind that could have been better spent making lasting friendships AND hooking up.

[bates]

thanks for all the suggestions. Looks like i will be applying lots of places anyhow, so I will have some choices hopefully. Any of you at grad school now?

[isobars]