epsilon

I think "funding" ended up a bit too vague:
I wouldn't care if say one school gives 29k and another gives 31k. 10k over 5 years, just not enough money to be relevant for something like this. In this sense, funding is unimportant to me. If I get an admit with no funding, that's basically a rejection. I'm broke, I can't afford it. In this sense, funding is make or break. All the programs I am actually applying to guarantee funding with admission. So, it's irrelevant. Also, because lists are nice, here's my priority order:
Program/Department Rank Pretty Good Resarch fit with several PIs Great Research fit with 1 PI Welcoming and happy seeming department Placement rates for postdocs/Industry Course Work Requirements TA/RA Requirements Location Funding/stipend Overall Institution Rank/Reputation I would only pay attention to 10 if I couldn't get data on 1, and even then I'd pay very little attention to it. There's a huuuuge gap between 4 and 6, and 5 is right in the middle of it. 1-4 are tied, though I know I consider 2 more important than 3.
 
Any suggestions on ranking 1-4? 4 seems really important, but then what a department seems like and what it is like aren't necessarily the same. With 1, I know rankings are terrible, but I find it hard to abandon the notion that employers won't care about rankings. They are peer reputation rankings, after all.
 
On the one hand, when you look for a job, the important aspect would be your research and connections, and your actual school is a very small factor. On the other, the fact that a school is regarded as good by peers can be interpreted as a higher chance that you'll develop yourself better there.
 
That's as far as I could get.

I'd recommend Ocean Beach for good dive bars. Pacific Beach is not really clubby compared to Downtown buuuut it's definitely college-centered / party vibes. Not divey (though it *looks* divey). You can get great live music at 710 from time to time though.
 
I'm not too familiar with the other neighborhoods but have heard great things! Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, and La Jolla was where I spent most of my time due to living in La Jolla as an undergrad at UCSD.

Gotcha, I missed the absence of money from the OP.

What are the 2 or 3 most important factors for you in making this decision? I have a feeling they differ pretty widely from person to person, so let's find out!

Overall name recognition matters very little when talking about a specific field.
Keep that in mind and look for research match/an area/ cohort you would be happy in.

Ugh, affirmative action

Same thing with me! Its basically a choice between program with young, well educated PIs, or the established program that educated them!

Just got UCSD acceptance email!  I've now heard from all the programs I applied to so I guess its time to start actually making the final decision...

Congrats!
I got Columbia's as well! Officially heard back from everywhere that I needed to!! Decision time.. 

Congrats!

peace homie, thanks for keeping it G. 's-been real.
 
 
XXXX

You don't have to accept the offer until April 15th. I would just sit tight, tell them you are waiting to make a decision until you have all of your options.

I don't care about your father, I don't care about your choreography, I don't care that your lab always creates PhD student or your lack of moral support.You're acting immature.

I glad you've found a place to vent. A lot of people (me included) might be turned off by your post- don't let us get in your way. This anger is a natural reaction; let it pass, observe it. No matter how hard you've worked there is always room for improvement.

Don't be so quick to insult the masters degree; maybe it isn't for you, just don't imply it is a failure and insult the professionals that have the masters.
 
Neil Armstrong walked on the moon but when he got home he still had to take out the trash.

Oh goodness thank you. Yes, my previous post was quite negative. We all have our moments. Ahh but a new morning does a lot when I have realized that life never goes the way we "want." I am a little frustrated with 4 consecutive rejects via email. Seriously, what an odd phenomenon (or maybe not). Either way now that it's a new morning, I have slept and dealt with realty...'tis ok. 
 
Sometimes we get in...sometimes we don't. I'm just glad I applied to various programs so now re-focusing on achieving a well funded masters program.
 
At times we fall, but the point is getting up...not dwelling on why....so here I am, slapping the dirt of me and facing the embarrassment. Life goes on (thank goodness).....eh bitterness never lasts in my heart (there are better things to waste energy on).

So true...thank you for the insight. Although I am very negative, I may be bias because I received 4 rejections in one day so I am quite spiteful. However you have made some great points

I am completely in shock. I just got my first acceptance and it is to Emory! After getting rejection after rejection I never thought this would happen. It goes to show that just because some schools may not give you a chance, that doesn't mean it won't happen.

Yea, haha get why it could be considered depressing...
On another note I love phd comics!

wow！！！I am so happy!!!I will go there,too! Wow, I cannot help thinking of life in duke.

You all make me laugh. I took the time to register this account, because I thought that I was looking at a thread of disasters. In-fact, almost all of you have decent GPA's. I dont think I saw anyone with below a 2.6....That's pretty good.
 
This isn't a here's my story, it's better than yours. Rather it's a true disaster which cannot be fixed in any way.
 
I finished my undergrad with a 2.41 in business. I was studying accounting, but if your GPA falls below 2.5 at the University of Colorado then you lose your emphasis. Mine was accounting. I read everywhere that with a 2.4 I can eliminate 98% of grad schools in the U.S.
 
In my entire college tenure, my best semester was a 3.29 and my worst was a 1.6
 
Between those two extremes I fit everywhere probably averaging around a constant 2.5 the entire time. But my backstory is what helped (which I don't encourage you to do). I was in Iraq where I was severely injured to the point where I now have seizures on a weekly basis. I'm a disabled veteran, and I found out that this doesn't play into anything when applying to grad school. Since I had saved money, I decided to take my 2.4 gpa and apply to every top school that I could think of. I don't have good grades, my professors won't write me letters of recommendations because of my grades and my work experience is non-relevant to accounting. Basically I have no help getting into grad school.
 
However, I was wrong. I spent two days creating applications, paying fee's and writing countless essays as to why I would be a good fit. I then picked the six schools that I *knew* wouldn't accept me because of my bad grades and applied to them. I spent over $1000 in application fee's and other items. My top six schools that I applied to for a masters in accounting: Stanford, Michigan, Cornell, Wisconsin,California and Harvard. Then I completed five applications to schools that I thought I had a moderate chance of getting into: Texas A&M, Texas, Ohio State University, Nebraska, and Auburn. After finishing those applications, I tried some other one's that I thought would be sympathetic to my veteran status and applied to five more: North Dakota, Western Michigan, University of Utah, and Boise State University.
 
I didn't think anything of these. At worst, I thought that I may have just submitted 16 applications which would end up in the trash can followed by a degrading rejection email that is sent to the auto rejected students.
 
However here is my current problem:
On my desk I currently have acceptance letters to every single school except Utah because of an application error which is supposed to be resolved soon. The first thought that came to my mind was "wow, I got into Stanford". The first idea was to immediately call/email all of the admissions staff to see what kind of marijuanna they were smoking because my acceptance likely ended the dream of a better qualified student at that particular school. To keep things short, I summed up the responses from all of the universities by displaying what Michigan wrote back. I did this because it generally follows what Stanford, Cornell and just about every other school said. Texas A&M said that my veteran status improved my rankings consideribly. But anyways:

Michigan: "Your undergraduate grades were horrible, and frankly I cannot believe that you are applying knowing that the GPA floor is 3.3 for minimal consideration to the accounting program. After looking through your packet, I saw nothing which indicated that you would have the ability to complete a graduate level degree. Furthermore, after our interview it became very clear to me that you have no relevant experience in accounting outside of academia. I left the interview perplexed because nothing statistically showed my staff or myself that you belong at Michigan. However, I did enjoy reading your essay and listening to your thoughts on the Enron scandal. For having such a low GPA, I am interested in how you learned so much. While I am grateful for your service and terribly sorry for your injury I cannot simply put that in front of your academic performance. You got into Michigan because you can communicate well. It's not too often that a student will present themselves as a problem solver and a situational thinker yet not be able to test well. I think you will bring something profound to our program and that is the ability to hear and speak."

So just so all of you know, having a 2.4 doesn't help but if you can overcome with something else then you can definitely go places.

There is also the issue of cost. I assume Princeton will be fully funding you. What about MIT?
 
Check if you can transfer credit after finishing MIT's Master's to Princeton's PhD. If they accept, you could finish in the same time while getting both MIT and Princeton degrees.
 
Also, there is a difference betwenn New Jersey and Massachussetts. Check out the campus, faculty, students, amenities, housing, leisure options etc. before making a decision.
 
Princeton is Ivy League, MIT is not but considered Ivy League. Princeton has the world's tightest and best conncted alumni network, MIT less so.

Whichever one has the better advisor fit. You will be working with one primary person at either location, so how do your research interests mesh? Have you met these people? This, as always, is the most important consideration.
 
Secondarily, what would your peers be like?  I am continually blown away by the intelligence, engagement, and empathy of my peers at MIT, and they make grad school a lot more fun. Princeton also attracts great people, but it is definitely a smaller community, so the specific people in your program could make a big difference in how much you enjoy it. Visiting each program and interacting with students will give you a good fell for which is a better fit. 
 
Third, the city? One is in a major metro area, the other in a sort of sleepy university town. Do you prefer/dislike either environment?
 
Other considerations include what MITs retention rate is for MS students continuing to PhD. The reason they only accept MS students is that MIT engineering is notorious for washing people out at quals who don't meet expectations. If you are confident in your abilities, this shouldn't matter and your PhD would end up coming from MIT, which is about the most prestigious degree possible in the engineering world. I'll point out that Princeton may be accepting you into a PhD program, but exactly the same things could happen--you could fail quals and leave with an masters. This is true of any program, MIT is just being honest about it.
 
EDIT: you double posted this.

Come on, people are asking about the probability of acceptance/rejection. And everyone here wants to sugarcoat it. I believe people deserve better than that. If people have been accepted and I haven't received word, then I need to be realistic and accept the fact that I most likely (almost certainly) haven't been accepted.
I am new to Gradcafe this year and have tried to help people in an honest way, because last year I was rejected from every school that I applied to. I sat around saying, "I see people have been accepted, but I haven't heard anything. There is still hope." I would have appreciated some real honesty.
 
Regarding brand name schools, here's the problem:
People that have been accepted to the top two programs in their field don't need our help to make this decision. Nor can we help them with that decision. I find these posts insulting to everyone, especially the people who had hopes of such acceptances.

Also have heard from Berkeley-- they were my #1 of the places I got interviews, so I'm almost definitely going there.  Still will be checking out Boston U though.

Just heard back from Berkeley!

Thought I'd share this great TED talk while we all wait on decisions about how we make our own happiness and how in fact when given a lack of chose we often end up happier with our decision.
 
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
 
I actually thought back about some recent small and major decisions and honestly this talk really made lot of sense with what I ended up being happy with. Very interesting stuff!