flm0003

Congrats on the job offer. That salary would be doable in Frederick. I'm a lifelong Maryland resident and have visited the town many times. Frederick and its county have become "exurban" which is happening to a lot of formerly rural areas that are about an hour away from a major city. There are more established / older portions of Frederick that are more affordable, and many newer developments that try to be more upmarket. In this state, apartment complexes are often much more expensive than renting an apartment in a residential dwelling. I can't speak to Ft. Detrick in particular, but in general the place to find apartments for rent by private owner is frederick.craigslist.org. If you would prefer an apartment complex, I recommend apartmentratings.com. And yes, the vast majority of people in the Frederick area will need an automobile.

There are parts of Annapolis that are just as sketchy as parts of Baltimore. Annapolis is also quite a hike from LUM. There are plenty of areas safe enough to store items in Baltimore/Towson.

So you may be able to find a reasonably priced apartment in a transitioning neighborhood of DC. Otherwise, your best bets are probably in one of these neighborhoods: College Park, Greenbelt, Adelphi, Berwyn Heights, Riverdale. None of these neighborhoods are great, but they are a fine place for a college student to crash. I would recommend a complex, but the ones I've been to aren't worth your time. I've heard that Greenbelt proper (look for Greenbelt in Google Maps, it's just east of Buddy Attick lake) is the nicest neighborhood in the area, with apartments available from owners of the historic houses there. Points of advice: Check apartmentratings.com - the reviews there are reasonably accurate. I've used them to make renting decisions before and have left reviews there. Check Craigslist for apartments in houses (this is the best value, and potentially the most enjoyable experience). Make sure you're near a ShuttleUM stop. This would be preferable to the DC Metro Bus.

I was a grad student in CS at UMD and have friends who completed their PhDs in the department. Whether you get a TA or an RA depends on whether you can talk to a professor who has funding and get them to hire you on. I was an RA during my 2 years there. Fellowships (i.e. full tuition with no work requirement) are few and far between - and may not even be offered to first-year students. If you miss visit day, you will miss the chance to talk freely with current grad students, and the chance to talk with several professors who may or may not be interested in taking on new students. If you believe you would like to go to UMD, you could ask for an alternate day where you can stop by and talk to whoever might be available at the time, or make an appointment with a particular professor.

Late May / June would probably be as good a time as any. If you're looking for an apartment complex I'd suggest reviewing apartmentratings.com. I've found that site to have reasonably representative reviews on complexes in the state. Find a few candidates and give them a call to see when they recommend visiting. Renting a house, or portion of one, may be cheaper and more enjoyable. That business is typically done via Craigslist, so you can see what time frames people are renting for by visiting that site. Re: parking, the complexes in the city typically charge monthly for parking - I believe my wife was paying around $50/mo when she was renting a few years ago. If you rent a house / part of a house, you may have free street parking or permit street parking. Off-street parking is harder to come by, but many back "yards" are being converted into parking pads. If parking on the street - expect parking to fill up by 5pm.

Charles Village has more of a yuppie feel and Hampden has more of a offbeat/hipster feel. Personally if I were going to JHU I would want to live in the Hampden area. It's a safer, probably cheaper, neighborhood. People there are very laid-back, there are good restaurants, bars (not chain / franchise) and music. Charles Villiage has more of the typical chain restaurants and stores.

I'm unfamiliar with the theory dept at UIUC. I was a PhD student at UMD and may know a little about their theory profs - who were you looking to work with there? In terms of places to live, UMD offers so much more, being close to DC, Baltimore and Northern VA. UIUC is a sterile midwestern town in the middle of nowhere. I may be biased, though, having lived in MD my whole life.

IIT looks like a good choice and I'll be applying there as well. If your undergrad was in computer science and you want to learn something while taking your master's I'd suggest against DePaul. I had taken a graduate database class there and dropped out after the first class because the first class was about how to use the Unix shell. I would've expected that out of a freshman-level undergraduate class, not a graduate CS class. I live near JHU and know people who have gotten their degree from JHU Engineering for Professionals. They had good things to say about the program, but it is very much a professional master's program. The program requirements, course selections and faculty are completely different than what is offered by the "real" Johns Hopkins at the Homewood Campus (which is ranked #28). In the Chicago area - what about U of Chicago, Northwestern or UIC? Also, there are several universities that offer the same courses online as their "real" CS masters program on campus: Colorado State, NC State, UIUC and Missouri S&T to name a few. Those online programs may give you more bang for your buck compared to Hopkins.