JPeterman

33andathird: PM Sent! I've been looking for housing options within walking distance of NCSU. In general, I've just been looking around on Craigslist. It seems like things are nice and more expensive just north of campus, and cheap and a bit sketchy just west of campus. I've never seen an area where rent varies between one neighborhood and another by 100% when they're right next to each other, so I'm kinda surprised. I was able to go drive around and walk around a bit when I visited, and it seems like there are lots of housing options and neighborhoods are really... how shall I put this... pockety? As in, you'll have a couple blocks where it feels nice, and then there will be a few blocks near a convenience score that seem a bit sketchy, and then a block with a run-down-apartment complex, and then a bit later an area with some nicely maintained cute houses. Not so easy to just say "live in this area!" Apparently I'm near the end of a large waitlist for the brand new housing they're building on centennial campus (which has a graduate-exclusive area) so I'm pretty much giving up on that.

As an associate professor, can you take or audit courses in engineering at your current school?

I don't think I've ever seen someone looking so far ahead! Impressive! Are you in high school now? UT Austin could absolutely get you into the "top four" you mentioned. They are a very highly respected research university (I did my undergrad there in civil engineering) and I'm not entirely sure what the difference in quality would be between UT and the schools you aspire to attend. I know a number of people who did well in the program and did good research, and with the combination of a strong application, they were able to get into any school they wanted to, including the ones you mention. As someone who's just been visiting graduate schools, I might suggest you not to place so much weight in the rankings as well. You have a lot of time to figure out where you want to go, but in general I've found that my personal preferences and which professors are actually doing what I want to do far outweighed a few differences in rankings. There's going to be a difference between a Top 20 program and a Top 10 program, and a difference between a Top 50 program and a Top 20 program, but it's not as much as you might think. When you're applying to grad schools, you'll end up realizing that what you really want is a ranking of "programs in semiconductor/nanotech research with advisors who are well suited to what I want to do." There is no ranking for that, except your own. If you're just getting started though, I'd keep an open mind about your career plans. I'd go to UT, and while there I'd speak with an advisor, to see if it might be better for you to switch to Electrical Engineering, or see just how close you can get to a dual degree (you cannot double major in two engineering majors, it isn't allowed, but with flexible advising and plenty of electives, you could get a lot of both of them in.) Also, just keep an open mind in general! I know a lot of people who started out in engineering and then found out they'd rather be doing something else (sometimes just a different engineering), or people who took one class in the specialty they thought they loved, and ended up finding it horribly boring. Good luck, and I hope this helps!

Hi, I don't know anything about MS in Math for those two schools, but in general coming from engineering programs in Texas, my take on things is that University of Houston is definitely a tier or two up from Texas State, and if you're looking for jobs it's hard to beat Houston. I lived a number of years in Houston and that's likely biasing my take on things, but I'd seriously consider seeing if UH could match your offer, or trying to negotiate something with them. Is there any chance they can help you out with funding? If I could afford it, I'd go to UH over TSU though. "If I could afford it" being probably the biggest qualifier anyone ever puts on something in this forum. ;-)

I haven't heard back from them yet, actually. I'm guessing I'm possibly on a secret waitlist? Or that's just my imagination? Just trying to get a feel for what people think of their program.

Did anyone here end up accepting at Columbia? If so, why or why not?

I did my undergraduate at UT. The first thing to know is that as far as I know, they are both fantastic programs, and seem to be highly respected in the field. Congratulations on getting accepted! From what I can tell, they are really pretty similar in prestige within the profession (UIUC might honestly be a bit higher when you look at things nationally, but I can't tell a clear-cut difference). I'd ignore rankings as a way to compare them (they're both "Top Tier") and look at the specifics of the programs and locations. If warm weather is important to you, do NOT go to Illinois. If you want to stay in the United States and work in industry, then location might be more relevant. UT Austin obviously has strong ties to companies in the region, and I'd assume Illinois is similar. I'm currently living in Austin, and I'll just say that it's a fantastic city. Friendly, not too gigantic but still very much a city, young and growing, and fun. I have a lot of nice things to say about UT Austin, but I'm very biased. The program is huge, structural engineering is very practical, with good facilities and great professors. The volume and quality of the research is good. Transportation engineering has a lot of really interesting work with network modeling and complicated cost analyses. Materials does a lot of interesting work with concrete, and a bunch of work with asphalt that I know nothing about. What part of Civil Engineering are you focusing on? Any particular professors in mind? Is funding similar at each location?

I haven't heard from them yet, but I'm hoping to hear very very soon! (Fingers crossed...) I have other schools that want answers by the 15th. Congratulations on getting accepted, are you planning to attend?

Pradeep, I heard from NCSU (MS) officially just this morning, though I noticed I'd been admitted on their website this past weekend. I heard from UCSD a bit more than a month ago. And Pradeep, Civil, ctv511, etc., I've been posting my results to the thegradcafe results page. If you ever want to find out what people have heard from specific schools and you aren't already going there, it's what I'd recommend. The link (with my general search for "civil" in order to narrow things down) is here: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=civil&t=a&o=&pp=25. If you hear back from anyone, please post there yourself (and say whether you're doing structural or whatnot... "civil" itself is sometimes a bit broad.) Thanks!

"civil," for what program?

I'm probably the one you're thinking of then. Tallish-purple-shirt-talking-a-lot guy. Texas (my undergrad school) rejected me last week. Still haven't heard from anyone else. I was speaking to a friend of mine who is at UCSD in structures right now. He seems happy, but mentioned that the program is really theoretical, and said I should "only come there if I know I want to do earthquake stuff," or something to that effect. I'm still waiting on Georgia Tech, NCSU, and Columbia. Current plan is to bug them for status updates on Friday if I haven't heard by then. Everything I saw of campus and San Diego was really really beautiful, by the way. I forget that things can be so... green.

Evolution - I visited UCSD a couple weeks back, and I'm seriously considering going there. They were a good reminder that US News Rankings aren't perfect, in that their facilities and program seemed really really impressive, I would have thought they were a Top 10 program easily. Brand new building, interesting faculty, a lot of interesting research, particularly if you're into seismic stuff. Also, they don't have mosquitoes. That's really tempting all by itself. At the moment, they're my first choice (out of two good programs). But funding is really important, and if I end up somehow getting something more financially viable... well... money talks. This may sound a bit obvious, but I only applied to places I wanted to attend. Are you considering them yourself? Where are you in this whole hectic application process?

Congrats Lebiatan! I'm going to choose to interpret this as a sign that there are still a few more acceptances to be doled out.

I'm impressed by your positivity. For everyone dreading the idea of the "real world," I've spent the past year out in industry as a way to get a sense of what I want to do, and it's been really helpful not just monetarily (though that helps!) but for making me feel more confident about my next step.

Congrats on getting into UT Austin! I went their for my undergrad, and the program is truly stellar. Their on-campus facilities are a bit old, but when you get to the off-campus labs and see what the faculty is doing, you realize why they're ranked as high as they are. Since I'm a huge nerd, I pulled some results from the Results page into excel (for Civil generally, not specifically structural) and got some averages and standard deviations. They are: NCSU: Average Response: March 14th; Std. Dev.: 16 Days UT Austin: March 2nd; 25 Days Georgia Tech: April 2nd; 20 Days (Small sample size though) Columbia: March 17th; 25 Days UC San Diego: March 7th; 25 Days I'm not sure if the dates are that significant, but the standard deviations seemed fairly consistent, which surprised me. Apparently we should always expect to hear back from a program "give or take a month." Food for thought. (Those are the programs I applied to except for CU-Boulder, which I had already heard back from by the time I went crazy enough to do this.) I hope this is slightly helpful to some people...