mojojojo

<br /><br /><br /> Congrats! Austin is a great school.. I'm sure you'll do fine there.

I'm guessing you're still holding out for Stanford. My advice would be to just reject them. If I'm not wrong, all funding decisions have been sent out. If you haven't heard from them regarding funding by 15 April, you aren't going to hear from them again. Since you accepted a financial aid offer from another school, you are contractually bound to attend school there. The only way you can accept another offer is for them to release you from your original acceptance.. I don't think you want to go through all that trouble, so just reject the unfunded offer.

Do any of you guys know when the housing results will be out? Also, how do we go about setting up email accounts?

I agree.. Everyone knows US news ranking are just a rough guide anyway..

Same here. I rejected the SGF. So good luck to those waiting to decide!

What other schools have you gotten into? How is your funding there? Any offers of TA or RA?

That's too bad. I thought we could have been school mates! Haha I'm leaning heavily towards Princeton. Will probably go there.

Thanks! So Slorg, where are you intending to go? I know that quadsbaby is going Stanford..

Thanks alot people! =) Glad to know that the standard of living at Champaign-Urbana isn't that high. I was worried that it would be closer to what people pay in Chicago.. Any Princeton people out there? I would love to hear from you.. Also, do any of you know how industry/academia view the reputations of the departments at each school? I'm guessing UIUC is more highly sought after in industry, while Princeton is more highly sought after in academia? Or does UIUC triumph in both aspects?

yeah, i was under the impression that uiuc was as strong as princeton in the photonics area (if not stronger). both places seem to have equally good facilities, uiuc with its mntl and princeton with its prism. its just so hard to decide. is a smaller program always better? zilch, i see that you are currently attending school at uiuc. how much would you say it costs to live there per month? would i be able to survive on my stipend (after taxes)?

Have you rejected the rest of the schools that accepted you? I'm not sure how to politely reject them. Will they feel offended?

Guys, I need a little advice here. Basically, I narrowed down my decision to either Princeton or UIUC. I'm choosing based on the faculty's research and I've gotten a professor at each university who is willing to take me on. Both are world class professors, and are very well established, so I need not worry about having my work funded. On a related point, Princeton's fellowship offer is slightly more attractive than UIUC's, as I've been offered a little more than 30k compared to UIUC's 25k. However, it seems that Princeton's reputation is not as good as UIUC's. Finally, I'm in the photonics and optoelectronics field. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I've got a similar problem. I had a professor at MIT who really wanted me in her group. She even flew me over to visit her group. But in the end, I too was not admitted. I graduated with 4 refereed papers (all first author), and 3 conference papers, plus a GPA of 3.97/4.0 from a top 5 undergrad EE university. GRE was 790 for verbal, 800 for quant and 6.0 for AW. I'm pretty sure my LORs are rather strong as well. I guess they are not just looking at statistics, but maybe other factors? I did get into my other schools, so I don't feel that bad. But still, I do feel a tinge of regret..

How about Princeton?

Most schools usually give funding for a year (except maybe Stanford, which gives out the SGF for 3 years). They expect you to make use of that one year to find an advisor, and he or she would then support you with an RA for the rest of your PhD. So you should start looking for advisors now.. Personally, I would take up the RA offer, as that's what you'll be doing anyway.