colinmatthew

Some do. Many ask about felonies and I think it's state specific whether or not they are allowed to ask you to disclose misdemeanors. Some also ask about university-specific disciplinary action. I'm sure it's just the human factor that comes into play as far as how much (if any) it can impact your application. I have one misdemeanor in my past -- the infraction mentioned by OP -- and I was 1-for-2 on the applications where I was asked about it, which was on par with my results overall. So, probably not a big deal as long as you're honest and can give a description regarding the circumstances, and let them know you're not gonna Animal House it through grad school

So, I may be in for some really devastating disappointment, but... it just kinda sounds like fun. I'm not sure if I'll want to stay in academia or will split (how can you know this when its 5+ years out?), but to me getting paid to become really good at something you like to do sounds pretty great. Bring on the disappointment.

Awesome - well good luck! And let me know what you decide. Happy to help if I can..

Thanks, and congrats to you too! They recently told me that they were expanding their master's program in the coming years, so my thought is that bigger program probably means more opportunities, so sounds like you'd be coming in at the right time. As far as specialties, happy to share what I've come across. The theory department at Rutgers is one of their strongest points, and I think has a pretty substantial overlap with some math dept faculty (see here), which in and of itself is very strong. Lots of really good faculty in various disciplines, and pretty distinguished (e.g. Szemeredi won the Abel prize a couple years ago). For AI (my interest), the current areas of focus seem to be computer vision and bioinformatics (see here), though they have recent hires in robotics, data mining, and are in the middle of hiring several additional younger AI faculty this semester. 'Course, I haven't experienced it firsthand yet ~ just doing my due diligence Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions

No one? C'mon, I've been told it's a pretty big school

I'm really surprised to hear that. All things aren't summed up in any given ranking system (to my knowledge). That said, things like Philosophy Gourmet show Rutgers to be the #2 program in the US. I think that's a good indicator that the program is generally regarded as one of the best. More important things however are probably job placement, work in your subfield, etc... Those things you'd have to investigate. What I'm trying to get at is that I can totally understand your frustration and grief if you're talking about going from #1 to, say, top 60 or whatever. Pretty clear that that would affect job prospects and might be something you'd be expected to explain to people down the road. But I can't imagine that among the top programs, you'd ever find yourself having to explain your choices in the future. The point of going through all of this is to learn, right? To get really good at something you like to do? Set a threshold value for perceived quality of program that meshes with your career desires (preferably not limited to the #1 program in a field as competitive as Philosophy), but above that threshold just realize that you're going to have vast opportunities that are way more dependent on you than they are on the reputation of your program.

Wait -- you're seriously denigrating one of the handful of "best" philosophy departments in the world? I understand the grief of losing your top choice, but maybe you could check out the results page and realize just how many people would KILL for the opportunity to go to top 15 programs, much less top 5 or whatever. What's more, when you get to this elite level of education it's not like comparing a Bentley to a Corolla -- it's (for lack of a better analogy) the comparison between diamonds and gold, i.e. "Oh shit, I didn't get diamonds this time and all I'm left with is this pile of stupid gold."

Honestly, I wasn't much interested in NLP when choosing schools so I'm not sure what insights I could provide there. I can't much vouch for the accuracy of anything they provide rankings-wise, but you can get a good sense of who's doing work in your area and glean some rough info on # of publications and citations from microsoft academic search: http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Comparison?entitytype=7&id1=13235&id2=16473&topdomainid=2&subdomainid=9

Actually, yeah, there's at least one that comes to mind. UPenn has a Master's in Computer and Information Technology (MCIT) program that's geared directly at people with non-CS undergrad degrees: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/grad/mcit/index.shtml They also post their admissions statistics from previous years ( http://www.cis.upenn.edu/grad/admission-stats.shtml ) and it looks like you're right on par with their average admitted student. It's still a competitive program with ~20% admission, but that's why you apply to more than one school =] There are more programs out there like this. If you're interested, just check around at the bigger CS departments -- they're more likely to offer more specialized degrees. I think the biggest question is whether you want something that's geared at starting you on the path to be a developer, or whether you might be interested in research. If the latter, you'll probably want to think more about M.Sc. degrees, which *might* be more rigorous but keep the door to PhD open more so than something geared specifically toward industry. Generally the big difference is that with M.Sc. you do a thesis and are at least exposed to research work. As for the idea that publics would want more CS background, I'm really not sure. It sounds like you have some core courses and can show a strong interest, so, if I were you I'd just take time to write a good SOP that clearly outlines your interests. And maybe just send out apps to both types of program (and private + public) and see who bites? I'm not an expert by any means, but to me your chances actually look pretty darn good.

Lol! Roasting so hard right now...

One thought might be to add in a public research uni or two just for some balance? To my knowledge, the list looks fine, but I also come from a small state university (and know many others in the same boat) and in my experience the big public research schools tend to care less about pedigree and/or will allow test scores and experience to speak more over your undergrad location

Hey guys - stoked on a lot of things about the program and really leaning towards Rutgers' CS PhD program starting in Fall. Thought there might be some others out there heading to beautiful & sunshiny NJ! ;-]

I talked with a professor at Rutgers yesterday - they should be making their final decisions early next week, fwiw. Good luck!