pterosaur

September 1 is a nightmare because almost all the leases start on that date, especially in areas that students are renting. If you're OK with the chaos of multiple moves, you could probably get a summer sublet relatively cheaply and easily since a lot of students go home over the summer.

Those general rankings are useless for determining how good the school will be for what you're studying. In general, Oxford does not have as strong of a reputation in CS/engineering. (I'm at Imperial now, and it's not looked on super favorably here.) ETH I would say has the strongest reputation for these fields. But I think the most important factor, especially in a European style PhD, is where would you be doing the research that best aligns with your goals and interests?

I think it depends a lot on the degree and the department. Would you be reapplying or trying to transfer within a university you've been accepted to? The latter would be much trickier. The former I think depends a lot on your research experience and background, since you'd have to prove thrt you're qualified more so than someone with a CS degree. I suspect physics or math would be one of the easier to transition from, though, given the technical nature of those fields. I kind of ended up in a serendipitous situation, coming from a neuroscience undergrad and (99% certain) starting a computer science PhD in the fall. I applied for all bioengineering programs (not an uncommon transition), but one school is very open within the engineering program and said it's no problem at all for me to switch to CS as my official field.

I started going by a nickname when I started college. The easiest way to get people to start calling you by that name? Change it on Facebook. I generally go by my full name in the academic world and my nickname with friends. But sometimes I'll introduce myself by my full name and people will end up calling me by the nickname, since that's what they're used to seeing on Facebook. As an interesting social experiment, I introduced myself by my full name to everyone in my current program/scholarship group by my full name, and nearly all of them who I'm FB friends with use my nickname.

As it is, are undergrads and first year grad students evaluated separately? Or do the reviewers just look at them with the knowledge that of course graduate students are going to have more experience under their belts?

At my Northwestern interview, I saw the whole range: everything from a full suit to flannel and high tops. I wore boots, nice jeans/khakis, a button down, and a blazer. This seemed pretty solidly in the upper middle (and pretty closely matched what most of the profs were wearing!). That or slacks and a nice cardigan is probably a good bet. What you're describing also sounds perfectly fine. Definitely a good call on flats - you would probably be dead in heels by the end of it.

So that means basically it doesn't affect any of us who applied this year as first year grad students? That's great to hear!

Welp, I guess that means it's all or nothing for me this year, then. I'm a grad student in the UK now, so to me it feels like it doesn't counts, but it does to the NSF.

I'd think that depends most on what your background is and how well your research interests align with each of these schools.

Hey, thanks for starting this. I've been admitted for bioengineering in the robotics group, but I might switch to CS. I visited on Monday and spent the day with professors in a couple of labs I'm interested in and had dinner with their students (because I can't make it to the visit day on the 25th). From this kind of visit, though, I wasn't able to get a sense of the program overall (community, classes, culture, etc). It sounds like you're more familiar with it, so it would be great to hear that. Also, one thing I found interesting/surprising was that a lot of the students recommended living in the grad dorms. This is my top choice at this point, but now that I have all my options on the table, I want to give them all a critical look before making a final decision.

I just finished all my visits, during which I took a lot of notes (about potential advisors and the programs in general) and made pros and cons lists. Now that I have all the information in hand, I'm planning to make a list of factors that are important to me, give them weights based on importance, then rank the schools in each category and see where I come out. Will I end up using the numerical end result to decide where to go? Probably not directly, but it'll help me think through what's important to me and what each program's strengths and weaknesses are.

I'm also considering Harvard as one of my options, though for an engineering PhD. I haven't widely distributed news of my acceptances on social media partly because I don't want these sort of influences do have an undue effect.

I just finished doing all my visits in one week. I'm so exhausted right now. Now comes the waiting part for the universities as I process all this information and try to decide.

Northwestern interviews were yesterday and today, so it looks like you're out of luck there.

I'm always surprised by people thinking $25/week is crazy. Through high school, my parents budgeted $100/week for groceries for our family of 4. We shopped sales, bought house brands, and always cooked meals from scratch. I average about $28/week on food for myself now, including the occasional meal out.

I think that's exactly one of the reasons that they don't release the decisions earlier.

I got an email today saying I'm funny funded for one of my programs, with a PDF of the details. Except the PDF won't download or open or something on my phone, and this hotel doesn't have free WiFi. So I still have no idea what they're offering. But the PDF filename is "Distinguished Dean's Fellowship," so that's probably a sign of good things inside.

Why would you waste a milkshake like that?

I have a new theory on why they wait so long to reject people: at that point you're just happy to hear anything back, so it softens the blow of it being a rejection.

Thir thread feels like everyone interviewed at JHU, and no one's looking at the same schools I am.

As I'm trying to plan for my own interviews and visits, that seems like an awesome guide. Thanks!

That's interesting - none of mine have asked about that. One just told me a number straight off the bat (and I'm not sure if it's consistent within the program/university), and another has a fixed stipend amount for all PhD students, posted on the website. It seems like that would be hard to have them compete with each other when costs of living can be so wildly different.

I'm not entirely sure what job fits your description - setting the projects, but no undergraduates, and without doing a post-doc. Which of the programs aligns best with your interests in terms of coursework and research that you'd be doing? It sounds like you prefer the CS PhD but you're not sure if this would be OK with people looking to hire you. My instinct is that it's fine as long as you have the biological background to back it up (maybe taking some bio courses while doing a CS PhD, if the school allows it). On the other hand, if you do biomedical science, your technical/computational background may make you stand out more. I was trying to decide whether to apply for a PhD in neuroscience or biomedical engineering, and my undergrad research advisor suggested that my technical skills (computer science and maths) would make me stand out in a neuroscience career where people tend to lack these skills in favor of the wet lab. Ultimately, though, I opted for engineering as my research interests evolved. I don't know what's best, but those are some of the things I thought about when deciding. Hopefully some of that's useful for you, too.

Would the school even allow you to do a part time PhD? And I'm not sure about the visa as well. I'm currently studying in the UK, and my visa requires me to be a full-time student (though it does allow for 20 hours per week working during term time and 40 per week out of terms.) Also, the funding situation for foreign students in graduate school is very grim. And London is very expensive - both overseas tuition and cost of living. I definitely would not start a PhD with the hope of getting funding once you start.

That's awesome to know! How do you find such Facebook groups? I only found one Harvard group, which seems to be aimed at undergrads.