CoolZero

It seems quite good for its price and pretty nice, it is not too pricey ( I assume you want a 1BR ) but it is quite far from the campus and SoIC in particular (more than 2KM s) but there are bus routes near it (route 1&4 in this map). And as for the apartment itself, it has really nice floor plans and according to some reviews it is close to grocery store which is a big plus and also has nice staff which help a lot if maintenance is needed. But for sure any one who lives in Bloomington or has visited there might be able to give a more insightful opinion.

I don't know about the apartments near Lindley Hall, but about the on-campus apartments (if you mean the ones on rps.indiana.edu), I have talked to some of the grad students and they said these apartments are pretty good quality-wise but are a bit overpriced (like any on-campus apartment)

Depending on your field in security you should be concerned or not, mostly the part of Information Security that is the most important for them in TAL, is Cryptography(look here) Also, most of the times they are not concerned about your past works unless they are black hat stuff which has caused serious damage. the following pdf is the source, most of the sites refer to concerning TAL which is for CMU. http://www.cmu.edu/oie/forstu/pdf/tal-students.pdf According to this pdf, TAL is considered for your country just because you are "capable of possessing nuclear tech" so Information Security wont be a concern in your country and mostly physics/energy related fields should be concerned. Also according to the same pdf they want to block technology "transfer", so it does not matter what you have done before, it is just the matter of what you WILL study which if you have a "research plan" letter from your POI, this would not be a concern either (even if you don't have that, you can tell them what are you going to work on based on your I-20 form) I don't think you would face this kind of problem at all Hope this helps. P.S I want to get F-1 for Security field from another country listed in TAL. Wish me luck plz

At last I made my decision, I am attending Indiana University Bloomington for Informatics program in Fall 2015. Finding apartments through internet seems a tough task, but at least I know where to look more closely with your helps. Thank you guys.

Unfortunately yes, It is still possible for a rejection, although if they had asked for your status, the chance of getting admitted is higher.

I think you should feel happy about where you wanna spend your next 5-6 years, so if your "safety school" doesn't make you happy, you shouldn't attend it. But if you think 6 days is not enough for you to decide, I think it is reasonable to ask them for a couple of days extension. I really don't like the idea of starting PhD when I am 30, but this is me, and if you are okay with it, the idea of getting jobs and re-applying is good too. However you should consider that it involves another year of wait and stress and .... I think you should ask for extension on your 15th Apr deadline and in meantime you and your supervisor in Europe should look for alternatives there. By your deadline, you hopefully know which option is the best for you.

I think although you were denied the admission at the second school, I should congratulate you for going through this and knowing where you are gonna end up Thanks a lot for your encouragement. I hope mine would be open to giving me more time too.

Thanks, I took your advice, talked to a friend who knew a lot about the school I am waiting for its results and now I am sure if I get the admission with enough funding, I would attend this school. Thanks a lot for your advice. I got past the first phase and now I know which school I will attend if offered the chance, but as there is no offer yet and Apr 15th is near, this is getting harder and harder I think if I don't get an offer until weekend I should contact my first school too, however it should be really hard as I had been admitted in early Feb asking for more time might seem a bit unreasonable to them

Although I have got a very good offer, I am still waiting to hear from another school which is tied-for-top with my currently admitted one. So the wait is annoying, because even if I get an offer, I should start talking to people to find out which school I want more.

I don't think you are overly concerned about living situation, at the very least you are going to live in the city for 6-7 yrs and also if you are not happy with place you are living in, it would likely have negative effect on your research. I don't know how you value every criteria, but for me, I wouldn't have chosen Yale because it is not flexible and also if I value living situation more, I would have always thought during PhD that Indiana had better living situation and if I value academic records more I would have always regret not going to Northeastern. But that's me and I know this is NOT a good way of thinking and the balance between these 2 is actually better

Completely on point. The only thing I want to add which rising_star has mentioned is that, I think the weight does matter if you are going to carry around the laptop all day around in your backpack. Also I suggest you to read some reviews about the laptop you chose at last, because durability is important which only the users who have used the laptop can comment on that, but from my experience, Lenovo laptops usually have good durability (especially thinkpad series)

I had been looking to buy a Yoga2 Pro or Yoga3, I should say actually Yoga2 Pro is better than Yoga3 according to reviews. It seems that although the benchmarks have shown the processing ability for both laptops should be the same, Yoga3 is not as fast as it should be. I don't know what you want to do on these laptops, but I should warn you, these laptops are not designed for heavy processing, even if they can do those heavy processing, it may damage its processor or battery. All in all, these are good laptops but not for gaming/heavy processing. I think I might be able to help better if I knew what are the main things you will use your laptop for.

I am kind of in the same boat. I am admitted to Indiana 2 months ago, and the only reason I haven't accepted the offer is because I am waiting for Northeastern decision(I thought they haven't sent out any decisions yet but seeing you have an offer, makes me a bit stressed), Anyway, At the time I was applying I thought I would definitely lean towards Northeastern because of its professors and having a well-known group in my field (Security) but after receiving Indiana's offer, I looked at its city and university. Although Bloomington isn't the most exciting city, it seems like it is a wonderful city for a graduate student, like rising_star suggested, you can check the thread for Bloomington in City Guide, it seems like every single person has had a good time in this city and it is not as bad as it seems. On the other side, people seem to struggle a lot for living in Boston as graduate student because of the high expenses. I think you are just considering Yale because it is more prestigious and gives you more money. I think if the stipend in other universities are enough for a good living, as a graduate student the stipend shouldn't be a big factor in your decision (just my opinion). And then you should think would you choose university prestige over professor prestige? because it seems like in the other 2 universities there are pretty good and strong professors to work with. As for Indiana and NEU, I can not help you very well because as I said I am stuck in the same situation, but I will share the information I have gathered, hope they will help you in making a decision : 1- Right now, Indiana has a better ranking in CS, but NEU is improving every year and if it continues like this, it would have a better ranking in CS when you finish your PhD. 2- Boston is a bigger city so if you go there, you will have access to more universities and companies, so you will have a better network for job after graduation. 3- Both programs have good professors, but NEU seems slightly better, however if you work with junior professors, it is more likely their work fits your interests more (The professors like the one at NEU, are most of the times less flexible, so you might not find his research area interesting after a while, and for sure you do not want to do research in an area you are not interested in) 4- As for Living, Bloomington seems like a way better option, it is not expensive like Boston and you wont face problems which students face in crowded cities like Boston (Housing being the most important one). I know you think Bloomington is not an exciting place to live, but I think looking at the thread rising_star mentioned may change your opinion a lot. Also Indiana has a very gorgeous campus, if you have not seen it, there is a campus tour video on Youtube which is pretty amazing. Hope you find your best option and also we may see each other in Fall I also hope others' opinions can help me in making a decision between these 2 programs too

Many times this. I considered myself as someone who would not care about other people's opinions on my relationship, but I should say in one of my relationships this concern was a totally hard-to-deal-with one. Back on topic, I won't get into a relationship with someone I can not find physically attractive at all. Depending on the personality the attractiveness changes, but at first, the physical attraction is all you can see in the other person.

What is surprising to me now is that everyone is saying, visiting school is very important and I can not visit the schools I have the chance to attend But also how important is sending emails to PIs before application and also how your priorities can change during the process. Also how annoying it can get when your PI or graduate assistants do not answer your emails after a while