Grad School is Happening!

Danny was accepted to BYU's PHD program in Biology! Whoo hoo! Of course I'm still a Ute fan but I couldn't be happier for him and our family. The news came in great timing to and how it all came together is nothing short of a miracle in my opinion. Back in November Danny sent Dr. Jensen, a professor at BYU, an email letting her know he would be applying to the school in the next coming weeks and would like to work with her. She got back to him and they set up a meeting for the two of them to get together and talk. At that meeting she informed him that the possibility of her getting funding to take on a grad student was very bleak and not likely at all. She still spoke with him though and wanted to hear about his goals and plans. When the time came for Danny to submit his application to the school he still put her name down as a professor he'd like to work with. That was a risky move especially since we were told she wouldn't be able to take on any students. We were hoping to hear back about grad school soon but week after week would pass with no news or requests for interviews. Our hopes were constantly going up and down with each week. 

In all honesty BYU was not at the top of our list, it was actually near the bottom. We were both looking forward to taking our family and experiencing life in a different state, but one by one we started receiving the news that this likely wasn't going to happen. The closest we got to positive news was when we found out that Danny made the second round list for grad school applicants in New Mexico, meaning that if someone else chose to not accept their position for the school then they would be able to give Danny's application a deeper glance. Our top choice was Ohio and we were quite bummed when we found out Danny barely missed the cut. At this point we we started planning for what life would look like with graduate school on hold for another year. Danny enrolled himself back at UVU and had already signed up for classes and we were okay with our plans moving forward. We were going to take the year off to really improve Danny's application so we could try for Ohio again next year. Danny was communicating back and forth with the professor and was hopeful that there would be a second chance. 

We made plans to stay at UVU even though we officially hadn't heard back yet from BYU and Montana. In my mind this basically just meant Montana because the professor Danny selected for BYU had already told us months before that she wouldn't be taking students. Then Danny received an email from Professor Jensen at BYU on Monday April 2nd. She told him that she wanted to meet with him again about a possible position to work with her. She asked if Danny could meet with her that Wednesday. He already was planning on taking that morning off from work because of the baby appointment with the high risk specialist so the timing worked out perfectly. He then was reached out by Dr. Ogden from UVU who wanted to meet with him before his meeting at BYU. It turns out that Dr. Jensen had reached out to Dr. Ogden to find out more about Danny and they both felt that Danny would be the perfect fit for her research. Dr. Ogden told Danny that Dr. Jensen was going to offer him a grad student position and that it was Danny's to accept or not. We spent that evening discussing the offer as a couple. We went over in depth the pros and cons about attending BYU over trying again for Ohio. By the end of the night we felt really good about staying here for grad school and possibly pursuing a post doc degree elsewhere when this is done. As it turns out Dr. Ogden was right about the offer and Dr. Jensen did in fact want to work with Danny. She explained the research she would like Danny to be in charge with and told him that she was going to have administration send out his acceptance letter right away. 

This was such relieving news to receive before heading into our baby appointment that same morning. We were in need of good news for our family and by the end of the day we were feeling really blessed. Danny got into grad school and our baby was looking good. We told our families that all Danny had was an interview even though we already knew about the position before even heading into that morning because of Dr. Ogden. Danny took an extra day before he submitted his official acceptance because we wanted to be absolutely sure that this was the path for us. This year started out so rough for us and now we are feeling everything come together. There are still things we need to figure out but we're so happy with things right now and know that everything will turn out the way it's supposed to. BYU we're coming for you! Even though we'll be a BYU family I'm still a U of U girl at heart. :)