rising_star

My wise grandmother (RIP) once said, "The way it starts out is the way it ends up." I am 43 years old, and she's never been wrong. If this is how your man is making decisions now, this is how he will likely always make decisions. Don't ignore the data...

You said be blunt, so I am going to be. I can't help but feel like your boyfriend might not be quite as invested as you are. Just the way you said that he applied to U of Chicago "In case something happened between you guys." It's just odd to think like that after being in a relationship for five years. If you guys had only been dating a year or two, fine, but that seems a bit nonchalant to me after such a long relationship. (Speaking from my own experience- my boyfriend and I just celebrated our 5th anniversary and I just can't see either of us thinking that lightly of a break up. But obviously every relationship is different so it is hard to compare)

If I were you, I would do what is best for you and your career, and choose the school you love. What if you went to Michigan just to be closer to him, and it doesn't work out? You don't want to regret the reasons you choose a graduate school, because it is an investment in your future. You are obviously a career-minded woman if you are pursuing grad school, and since he is putting his school first, I would do that same. And if you guys make it another couple years long distance, it's win-win since you got the degree you want and the man. And if you don't make it long distance, at least you didn't sacrifice your dream school for it.

I know it's much easier for someone on the outside of a relationship to say that, and I am sorry if it sounds harsh. I have to say I am very lucky, my boyfriend is a nurse and has the luxury of being able to find a job pretty much anywhere, which has taken a lot of pressure off me on my grad school choices.

Good luck and I hope it works out for you!

Are you kidding?

Take a funded PhD. I know it may be shocking, but people that didn't go to a top-10 still manage to find a job after grad school. If either of the PhD programs you've been accepted to are a good fit for your research, go to one of them. Plus, if you're so concerned about the status or rank of the school you'll attend, one of your acceptances still comes from a "public ivy".

How much debt will you have to go into? How much do you expect to earn once you graduate from Harvard? How about what you would earn after graduating from Tufts or Davis, and how much debt will you have then? How important is your dream, compared to those numbers? Only you know.

This is only my opinion, of course, but if I were you, I would decline the offer. Only you can say how much you are adamant on that particular program in that particular institution, but departments who do not offer reasonable livable funding to incoming students signal they are not so keen in having them around. I would want to feel wanted. Also, think about the debt you'll incur during your years as a PhD student - and because the job marjet situation is also uncertain, there is no guarentee you'd be able to repay loans etc for a long time, because there is no way of knowing when you reach financial stability (which is contingent on a tenure track good position).
So sadly, I would say don't take the offer, and if you have no other choice - wait for the next round of applications. You may find a place that really REALLY wants you.

I don't think there's any reason to hesitate. I've been in touch with the Graduate Chair at my new prospective department about funding questions, among other things, and she's been extremely magnanimous and helpful.

Not like they're gonna be all "OH-HO A LITTLE OVEREAGER, ARE WE? WE HEREBY RESCIND YOUR ACCEPTANCE, IMPUDENT WHELP"

Oh Come on guys! We can at least try to talk about race and hope it doesn't disintegrate into the usual crap. Here goes:

In a nutshell, my answer to the OP's question is that while it may not matter for admissions, it can matter for funding. Many universities have graduate school wide diversity fellowships for which they nominate minority applicants.

I'm going to cite a comment from Insider Higher Ed and a recent magazine article.



"In 1992, half of all doctoral degrees awarded to black scholars in the USA were in just one subject, education. Most of the rest were in social work or sociology. Not one was in atomic physics, astronomy, microbiology, nuclear engineering, geophysics, endocrinology, biomedical engineering, oceanography, cell biology, accounting, business economics, comparative literature, genetics, or archeology. None was in algebra, geometry, statistics, or logic. There were none in geography or paleontology, or in German, Italian, Spanish or Russian, nor any in classics. But, there were 500 in education and nearly as many in sociology. (Source: Summary Report, 1992, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.) How can M.I.T. or any other college meet a racial quota among its astronomy, genetics, or mathematics faculty unless black graduate students seek doctorates in those subjects? They can't hire nothing but sociologists."
- Jack Olson, see here
The article itself is actually about hiring but it's an interesting read nonetheless. The second thing is from the Princeton Alumni Weekly. The article is about Asian-Americans and Princeton graduate admissions. It starts off by pointing out that the university has a visit weekend for minority graduate students in April of each year but that Asian-Americans aren't included because they aren't an underrepresented graduate student population and then goes on to criticize this (though it's not nearly as critical as it could/should be, imo).

I think some people aren't getting the concept of intersectionality. Privilege is not something that you either have or you don't. You can be privileged on one axis and disadvantaged on another. So, to use the common example of a poor white student and a rich black student, the black student is privileged related to the white student on the class axis, but the white student is still privileged relative to the black student on the race axis. The same goes for things like gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc. Rather than try to determine who's worse off "overall" it's better to acknowledge that different types of privilege affect people's lives in distinct ways. So, for schools that practice affirmative action, socioeconomic status is better implemented as a complement rather than replacement for race.

Depending on at which school you're attending, the quality of the undergraduate population will vary quite a bit, as will the quality of the grad student population..

I hope you read what you've written again from an outsider's perspective and realise how elitist and douchey you sound. As an undergraduate in a high performing research laboratory taking graduate level physics and chemistry courses, I experienced this elitism from the first-year graduate students every year and it was quite satisfying to stomp on their faces come exam time. Just because you've gone through an additional selection process doesn't mean you walk on clouds and are a higher authority on a topic than one of your pupils. There will always be undergraduates, college dropouts, and high school dropouts who are more qualified than you are in some subject material.

I understand that your cohort's behaviour serves to solidify your sense of kinship and shared experience, but it's kind of petty and antithetical to the basis of academic intellectualism to criticise a population based on hierarchical orderings of goodness. Perhaps you should all discuss your latest poetry stanzas regarding the flowers of Spring or whatever it is you do instead of practise ego-inflating elitism at the expense of others.

You dig?

I will admit though, that the student you mention is completely out of line, though I don't know what his age has to do with it. It sounds almost as if you have disdain for him for being older than you and for being in an allegedly inferior social position at the same time.

Oh Come on guys! We can at least try to talk about race and hope it doesn't disintegrate into the usual crap. Here goes:

In a nutshell, my answer to the OP's question is that while it may not matter for admissions, it can matter for funding. Many universities have graduate school wide diversity fellowships for which they nominate minority applicants.

I'm going to cite a comment from Insider Higher Ed and a recent magazine article.



"In 1992, half of all doctoral degrees awarded to black scholars in the USA were in just one subject, education. Most of the rest were in social work or sociology. Not one was in atomic physics, astronomy, microbiology, nuclear engineering, geophysics, endocrinology, biomedical engineering, oceanography, cell biology, accounting, business economics, comparative literature, genetics, or archeology. None was in algebra, geometry, statistics, or logic. There were none in geography or paleontology, or in German, Italian, Spanish or Russian, nor any in classics. But, there were 500 in education and nearly as many in sociology. (Source: Summary Report, 1992, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.) How can M.I.T. or any other college meet a racial quota among its astronomy, genetics, or mathematics faculty unless black graduate students seek doctorates in those subjects? They can't hire nothing but sociologists."
- Jack Olson, see here
The article itself is actually about hiring but it's an interesting read nonetheless. The second thing is from the Princeton Alumni Weekly. The article is about Asian-Americans and Princeton graduate admissions. It starts off by pointing out that the university has a visit weekend for minority graduate students in April of each year but that Asian-Americans aren't included because they aren't an underrepresented graduate student population and then goes on to criticize this (though it's not nearly as critical as it could/should be, imo).

I think that you are neglecting to separate "sex" from "gender." Sex refers to the biological categories of male and female which are determined by genetics, reproductive organs, and hormones (though to fit everyone into one of these neat and tidy boxes can also be a dangerous assumption). On the other hand, gender can be looked at more as a spectrum from masculine to feminine traits, behaviors, and roles determined by and generated from social expectations. While people may be biologically male or female, they are capable of displaying or associating with characteristics from any range on the gender spectrum. A person who is female does not necessarily need to be feminine, and likewise a male does not have to be masculine. Those who classify themselves as transgendered associate with a gender identity that does not match their biological sex.

Actually, I do that a lot. But I don't necessarily go by what the coin says--I base my decision on my reaction to the coin toss. Silly, perhaps, but often useful as a quick and dirty way to tap into my gut feeling about something. I'm debating doing that with schools, too.

This.

Don't feel bad about taking your time to decide, you earned your offers so don't let anybody pressure you. But once you've made up your mind and feel confident about the decision to decline an offer, do it. Don't keep everybody waiting. Tell the department directly so they can offer the spot to the lucky person who is next on the list as soon as possible. You'd want the person taking up your spot at your top-choice school to do the same.

Going to a well-known school will not hurt your application. If your school is known for challenging academics, that will bode well for you as it will show to the adcom that you are willing and able to take on and meet academic challenges. This is probably even more important if you're switching fields/disciplines to one that you have less of a background in.

I always took the really honest approach, telling them the names of the other schools I was considering. Why? All of the people I wanted to work with are friends with one another so they weren't surprised at all by my list of schools (with the exception of two departments, which were a good fit for me research-wise but aren't places people normally consider due to their low rankings). Here's my way of thinking: these people are going to be your colleagues for the rest of your life. They already know you've applied to other programs and they really all want you to make the decision that is best for you.

I always took the really honest approach, telling them the names of the other schools I was considering. Why? All of the people I wanted to work with are friends with one another so they weren't surprised at all by my list of schools (with the exception of two departments, which were a good fit for me research-wise but aren't places people normally consider due to their low rankings). Here's my way of thinking: these people are going to be your colleagues for the rest of your life. They already know you've applied to other programs and they really all want you to make the decision that is best for you.

Other factors:
- ability to design and teach your own course
- corollary: are the courses taught ones you would want to teach?
- how well you get along with other students
- summer funding, whether to go do your own research, to teach, or for both
- professional development opportunities (workshops, chance to co-author papers)
- availability of dissertation writing fellowships (so you don't have to be a TA or RA while writing)
- average time to degree for your advisor's students
- how well you get along with your potential advisor (and I mean in terms of personality, not just in terms of research fit)
- weather
- extracurricular activities that you want available in your area
- proximity to major airports (and then average cost to fly home)
- availability of conference travel funding (and how much that funding is)
- computer resources (computer labs, software availability, etc.)

At the risk of sounding like a huge asshole, it doesn't have to be like that.
After suffering through the first year of my MA, I made a concerted effort to fix my mood, my time management, and my organization skills. Sure, I still have the occasional rough patch when a major project or application is due, but overall I'm much calmer and happier now.
I get everything done. Ahead of time. Without working 16 hour days or pulling all nighters. Every evening, I spend time with my husband and relax, and every night I get 8 hours of sleep. At first, I was super worried that if I wasn't going crazy, I wasn't working hard enough. Now I'm finally getting confident enough to know that if my supervisor is happy and I'm happy, it's enough. I was so in love with the drama of being stressed out all the time that I tortured myself for years. Letting go of the need to feel overwhelmed in order to feel good enough was the best thing I ever did.

When I visited one of the universities I got in to, I was given a piece of friendly advice:

If you really, really love somewhere, head over heels, completely smitten - consider not doing a PhD there. It is very rare that someone will get a faculy position i nthe same place where they did the PhD, so if you have two options for grad school that are both very good, but one you are in love with in terms of location and other things that may last a while, go to the other one.

Also, here are some things I am considering (in addition to above, maybe, I'm not convinced), which were not mentioned:

- who wants to go here? is this a name-brand school, where people may want to go because it's OMG, ___! ? i do not want this: many students there are there for the wrong reasons, and could have had a better match at a lower-ranked uni. of course there are also the brilliant students, but a fair number of brilliant students are just people who lucked out with undergrad research advisors and have grown an enormous ego. also not compelling to me.

- who else lives here? for example, consider California. I'm not a resident, and I don't like the weather. But a lot of people want to be in california, and the cost of living is quite high. i am choosing to say no to all california schools simply because i don't like the prospect of high living expenses for being surrounded by people motivated by totally different reasons than me.

- what about babies? i am planning to get married, and i don't want to rule out having/adopting children over the next half-decade. obviously, a reasonably family-friendly environment is good. since i am a female in cs, this means that i am looking for evidence in each school of successfully graduates students who had or adopted children when both they and their spouse were in school or working, and how long ago that was.

These are a bit different. Obviously I am considering all the other factors listed in this thread.

Other factors:
- ability to design and teach your own course
- corollary: are the courses taught ones you would want to teach?
- how well you get along with other students
- summer funding, whether to go do your own research, to teach, or for both
- professional development opportunities (workshops, chance to co-author papers)
- availability of dissertation writing fellowships (so you don't have to be a TA or RA while writing)
- average time to degree for your advisor's students
- how well you get along with your potential advisor (and I mean in terms of personality, not just in terms of research fit)
- weather
- extracurricular activities that you want available in your area
- proximity to major airports (and then average cost to fly home)
- availability of conference travel funding (and how much that funding is)
- computer resources (computer labs, software availability, etc.)

Other factors:
- ability to design and teach your own course
- corollary: are the courses taught ones you would want to teach?
- how well you get along with other students
- summer funding, whether to go do your own research, to teach, or for both
- professional development opportunities (workshops, chance to co-author papers)
- availability of dissertation writing fellowships (so you don't have to be a TA or RA while writing)
- average time to degree for your advisor's students
- how well you get along with your potential advisor (and I mean in terms of personality, not just in terms of research fit)
- weather
- extracurricular activities that you want available in your area
- proximity to major airports (and then average cost to fly home)
- availability of conference travel funding (and how much that funding is)
- computer resources (computer labs, software availability, etc.)

Location has nothing to do with the program.
It's irrelevant, inappropriate, and makes it seem as if you're more interested in the location than the actual program.
If sure you can find more compelling reasons why you want to attend that school

No.

Compromise your passion and you compromise the only legitimate reason for pursuing a PhD in computer science.

People...... people. Number two is superior not because of Harry Potter, or because it looks less dated, but because it makes you look like your arms are actually on fire. I mean, have some standards!

Publications are not even expected of PhD applicants (at least in my field), though, as you say, they help.

The intangibles are more important than the tangibles - prior research experience (including a thesis or any projects you worked on, even if nothing was published); FIT with the department you're applying to; good letters of recommendations; a strong, focused SOP, a good writing sample. Grades can only keep you out, if they are too low, but it's the other things that will get you in.