pterosaur

My stipend offer is already just over 34k, but they offer a one-time 3k bonus if you get a fellowship like this, which is pretty nice. I'd like the flexibility since I have some crazy-ass off the wall ideas for robotics projects (none of which are remotely related to my GRFP proposal, of course), but my soon-to-be advisor also said she's pretty good about finding money to work for what students actually want to do. I guess it's one of the perks of being in a well-endowed department.

People on my scholarship (which allows study at any UK university) have had to do this in the past, so it wouldn't be unprecedented. No one has done this particular program before, though.

I'm at Imperial. I'm doing a research degree, so I have some flexibility, but it's incredibly nerve-wracking to have my thesis due in mid-September and my US orientation August 24. I might actually have to fly back to defend at the end of September, if they're not flexible.

I'm having to deal with the transatlantic part coming from my current school in the UK, plus having a lot of stuff in my dad's basement halfway across the US (and he probably won't be able to drive it out because of work). And technically a one month overlap between programs, so I'll be going straight from one to the other with no break. I'm basically trying to move from two places at once with no time. I have absolutely no idea how the logistics of this are going to work. Aaaaaaaagh.

I didn't know they had stats that precise available. Where did you find that? Or is it just looking at the list of winners and not actually knowing anything about the applicants?

There's a 12-14% success rate for the GRFP in general. I only know stats for one PhD Pegram I got into, but it has a 10% acceptance right. So clearly, if I abuse probability, if I got into the one with a lower success rate, I'm guaranteed the one with the higher rate, right? That's totally how it works. Or alternatively, the probability of getting both is 1.4%...

I've had a website for a couple of years (just applying to PhDs this year). Because I'm partly in computer science, I also have links to my Github and information about some of my programming projects. I also use the same domain to host some web project demos, so most of the 2,000 pageviews this month were interested in my web framework project, not me. One unexpected benefit was that with Google Analytics, I could see where people were viewing from. It meant in a few cases, I could tell when people were reviewing my application at schools I'd applied to!

Funny, I had sort of the opposite experience. When I was working my personal statement for international fellowships last year, I called my dad to brainstorm and asked him what I did as a kid that showed I'd go into science (he's also a science teacher). He told me there wasn't anything - I was so interested in everything that he had no idea where I'd end up. Once I started thinking about it, that way, all the pieces in my essay fell into place, since I wasn't trying to fit it into the mold of being "predestined" to be a scientist. I ended up getting the fellowship, so I guess it worked! It's interesting how people can end up at the same place from such crazily different directions.

It's $75 application fee for GSAS housing. It's also guaranteed your first year if you get the application in by the deadline.

Boston area is crazy expensive, so my stipend will also be correspondingly high, so I wouldn't actually get a boost from the grfp stipend amount. But they would give me a one time $3k bonus for getting it.

You're already writing for next year? I started my grfp proposal in mid October...

Based on the past few years, it looks like we should anticipate the week of March 28.

I just committed. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

The professor who will be my advisor is already in CS. They don't have real departmental divisions within the school of engineering, so it's kind of an unusual situation. I haven't started yet, but it looks like all I'll need is a one-page form and approval from my advisor (who's the one who told me about the possibility and is on board with it). Since the course requirements are really flexible, that's also not a big concern.

Has anyone committed to a program yet?

@hippyscientist - I don't think he'd Skype to reject you. It's a good thing.

In sciences, I think it's more important who you work with than the ranking of the school (which is messy and doesn't reflect subfields very well). For the TA position, would that require you to TA every semester? Or is that TA funding until you find a professor to pay you?

So why does it take so long to hear back from schools? It's easy for us to complain about it from the outside, but I'm guessing that there is an actual reason, not that they're just screwing with us. Does anyone know profs who are/have been on an admissions committee that have shed some light on this? My guess is that when you get a lot of professors involved, it's just not their highest priority at any given point in time, so with everything else they have on their plates, it takes a long time to get through.

From my naive perspective that you got in everywhere you applied, I'd think you stand a pretty good chance. But the NSF is also a crapshoot, so if you get one reviewer who's in a bad mood when they're reading your proposal, you're out of luck. One of my letter writers also told me he thought I'd get in everywhere I applied. So we're already 0 for 1 on predictions.

It's made even more stressful by a conversation I had with my undergrad PI yesterday where she said she's betting that I'll get at least 2 of the 4 fellowships I applied for (NSF GRFP, NDSEG, DOE CSGF, and Hertz). I feel like I'm now under even more pressure, even though there's nothing I can actually do about it now.

Also, @Puffer Fish - I'm sorry to hear about that. Can this picture of a happy puffer fish do anything to lighten the mood? Or maybe a sad puffer fish that can empathize with you?

I'm not sure how much overlap there would be since we're in pretty different disciplines. Pittsburgh itself seems like a pretty cool city. It's done a good job or rebuilding and rebranding itself after being a steel town. It's also the lowest cost of living of all the schools I visited (with a correspondingly lower stipend). The BME department is relatively small, which appeals to me since it means that they can focus a lot on the students. Every semester, the faculty meet to discuss each student's progress, so no one falls through the cracks and they can *almost* guarantee that I'd finish in 4 years. Funding is also guaranteed for the full duration, which is definitely a plus. I could definitely see myself living there and being successful in the program. I felt that way about all 3 of my top choices, though. So it's kind of coming down to (1) which research direction do I want to go in, and (2) which option would give me the most opportunities to do more things on my own and leave doors open.

Yeah, I visited CMU about 2 weeks ago, when I did a whirlwind tour back to the US and visited all my schools in one go. I had 24 hours in Pittsburgh, so the scheduled a really jam-packed intense visit for me. It also involved the department head giving me a tour of the new biomedical engineering building, which is still an active construction site. So that was fun.

Now that I have word back from all my PhD applications, I'm not sure whether I should move on from "Wine, Wait, and Whine" to "Decide and Drink", or whether I stick around to stress about waiting to hear back on 4 independent fellowship applications. (You want to talk about a long and frustrating wait? Some of these applications were due in October and don't send back word until April!)

@hippyscientist Why go you need to worry about a US driving test? I thought the rule was that a foreign license was valid for 12 months (and that 12 months resets whenever you leave the country).