compiler_guy

"Follow the money".. Accept the Wisconsin admission, you get a fellowship and won't have to pay money for graduate school. Your job outlook would probably be much better with a PhD

It depends on your stage\timeframe in graduate school, course work, research deadlines and other chores.. But you should be able to have at least 1 2-3 week vacation a year. Also the summer if formally your 'free time', and you could use it for a vacation, but most go to do interships and such,

interesting post.. You can always connect your notebook to a larger monitor and go dual screen. What other portable MBA competitors are there ?

If you are planning to do research in MS, you should check out potential advisers as well

First of all, perhaps you should open a separate thread. You might get better responses. Please note that getting accepted to a prestigious PhD program in the USA in universities like Urbana-Champagne in Illinois and UC Berkeley is not easy for international applicants or even for US applicants. Therefore it is possible that if you defer your application and apply again next year you will not get accepted to these universities. So I suggest you choose one of the universities that admitted you, and not risk it.

If you are only looking at ranking, check: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/electrical-engineering-rankings?int=grad-specialty-engineering You need to specify what other parameters are important to you, like program's cost, cost of living in university area, social stuff and so on.

I don't think a CS VS a Comp Bio degree differs that much. However a Comp Bio degree will open doors in medical institutions and biomedical firms. If you are planning to do applied Bio ML, then those skills are probably transferable to "pure" CS, like internet and data ML, so you don't need to worry. However with a PhD you will probably be overqualified for many "regular" jobs, and you will be specialized for a job in your chosen field. Also, you could realign your interests with a Post-doc after you finish your degree.

Starting in the fall as well. Guess which department..

agreed.

You probably should look into schools that are strong in networking. Also networking is a very large research area and each professor focuses on different parts ( security, algorithms, new protocols, optimization, internet ... ). Start your search here: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings Browse the websites of faculties and professors, read some of their research till you see something you like. I am not sure I can recommend you any school at this point, please be more specific in your research aspirations. Because of your nickname, I would recommend you to talk with this guy: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/ he's doing security, in Linux and related to networking. Best of luck.

Joining...

What is your future career goals? Which program is the best fit for them?

If your career goal is an academic position you could dismiss the MBA degree option quite quickly, and you should ask yourself which school is better known in academia? Adviser and research-fit is also a thing to look out for.

I think it is very hard to raise a family while going thru graduate school. Graduate school is time consuming, even more than a full time job. However, if your final goal is a research or academic position, a PhD is the best option. You won't be able to work at an external job while doing your PhD. If you insist on working, completing a PhD could take you 11 years or so and most departments won't fund you. Best of luck with your decision.

You should talk to potential advisers in those schools, and check who will be a better fit.

They sent out the rejections..

School B. Better funding and better career opportunities!

I haven't heard of NCSU. I think you should go their if you aim to get a job at the industry in the USA. It is probably not that good for an academic position. Try to get into a PhD at a Canadian university.

It depends. Obviously a Computer Science PhD is much better. But if you want to focus on data mining, AI or machine learning - then some statistics programs are great as well. I would go with to program that offers the better funding.

Go to the university that offers you financial aid. It is stupid to go into debt because of graduate school

Browse thru the research papers of potential advisers and see if you their research interests you.

It took me 3 weeks from department recommendation to reeving the graduate division's official admission.

choose Princeton - Fully funded and great rating.

If you get funding from a top rated school like Berkeley - choose it!