Mumbet

Isn't that sentence still missing an article?

Go outside and play. Stop dwelling.

During my undergrad research, producing a research paper took much longer than planned. While that was its own stressful ordeal, the delay unfortunately made my application suffer in three indirect ways: 1. By the time it was finished, I had to immediately drop everything and prepare for grad school applications (it was October and I hadn't even studied for the GRE or CSGRE yet!). Because of this and a lack of funding, I only had time to submit the paper to one very selective conference. The result is that I still have zero publications, when I could have feasibly gotten one or two. 2. Due to #1, I have been barely making deadlines for all the schools I have applied to so far. I was researching programs / groups so late in the game that I decided to apply to many at the last minute, meaning many of my mailed materials will be getting in late. 3. Also due to #1, I didn't leave myself any chances to retake the GRE tests, which it turned out I actually needed when I didn't do as well as I hoped. I got nervous and "bombed" the math portion of the GRE by running out of time. I spent too much time rigorously checking answers or struggling with the one or two questions I should have skipped. A score of 740 isn't awful, but competitive computer science students normally score higher, and I know I would do better if I retook it. Similarly, on the CSGRE I carefully took my time on the first half (feeling great about all my answers), then looked up at the clock and realized the test was almost over.

Oh yeah. I've applied to 10 schools so far, and have yet to hear anything; it's like they all just vanished into thin air as soon as I hit submit.

From what I've heard, University of Texas at Austin places an unusually huge importance on the CS GRE compared to other schools.

I was at Santa Cruz beach this year and it was really nice. The beach itself was super cold - enough to make you panic if you got all the way in - but the weather was warm enough in the summer that it didn't stop me from getting in. There were sea lions though. Like, from antartica. Huge ones. It was that cold. Dozens of them were fighting for positions under the scaffolding of the nearby pier. The beach area was very crowded though, including lots of immigrants and also some homeless people. In fact, all the places we passed through near the bay in Santa Cruz had a vibe of poverty to them (except for one neat little futuristic diner we ate at). Even if the campus is in a town with some poorer areas, I can attest that it's very secure; we tried to drive in just to see the buildings (Sunday afternoon) and a guard flagged us down at the edge of campus and told us it was after hours and we couldn't go in without a pass. Also, the campus seemed to be in a nicer part of town. So, UC Santa Cruz is one of the few downtown schools where you probably won't have to worry about crime leaking in.

I'm used to the SomethingAwful.com forums which also thankfully lacks the usual internet stupidity. They combine a registration fee (which REALLY helps keep idiot kids out) and a really intense policy on banning / publicly humiliating users who lower the quality of discourse, and the result is that this comedy website has an unusually intelligent community around it. Its Debate and Discussion sub-forum especially contains ridiculously educated/informed posts. The science subforum of that subforum has a pretty good Grad School Preparation "Megathread." You all might find it handy, http://forums.someth...hreadid=3194477 but the forums look like garbage to unregistered/unpaid users (this is intentional, again to scare off potential posters who are nonserious about joining and contributing).