learner123

@Arcanen, I understand the risk. Generally, 10-12 students apply for PhD and 6-7 get in and others mostly get into top 10 CS programs. There might be 1-2 students who end up in industry. But CMU is world leader in robotics and worth the risk. Also according to last year stats, everyone was funded from second semester, so we won't be under debt. Personally, I feel that I have just now completed Bachelors and it is time to explore. It might be safe to take direct PhD option but I will keep on thinking that I had the good opportunity to do the PhD from the best robotics school and I didn't tried.

Actually things are bit different at RI, CMU. There are only 20 students in their MS program and not everyone is interested for PhD. I was summer scholar at RI last year and found that even MS student gets lot of opportunity to interacts with profs. They invest a lot on their MS student compared to other schools. So if you are really interested for PhD then there is very high probability of getting in. I have decided to join CMU. Thanks everyone for your opinions.

I am fourth year undergrad from India. Currently, I have been offered master in robotics at CMU (no funding), and PhD in Stony Brook with financial aid. My area of interest is Computer Vision and I think CMU is best place for it. According to last year trend, all most everyone is funded from second sem and I don't have any problem in paying fees for the first semester. Stony Brook also have good vision group but not as good as CMU. Also, if I do well in my Masters at CMU there is good possibility of getting PhD at CMU. Only advantage I can see joining Stony Brook is that I can do direct PhD and may save 1 year. But I don't think it will matter in long term. Kindly give your opinion on it.