iceman

I wasn't planning on visiting, been very busy. I am not to keen on Purdue right now, its only a back up.

Just a note on the Masters admissions. When I applied a couple of years ago - I got my first admit in the last week of Nov (I was crazy and sent in all my apps by Oct) and the last at the end of May so it does vary from department to department.

I've only heard from Purdue. The wait is killing me.

My advisor was actually one of the people involved in the US News rankings for CS theory. I discussed it with him while I was short-listing universities. Here is how they do it -- The part about asking heads of other places to rank universities is just one of the metrics involved. They also take into consideration other factors such as PhDs graduated, funding available, number of publications, new faculty hired, citations received, etc. So it is pretty well done. However, here is a little tip he gave me: Looking at the latest rankings alone is pretty useless, look at the rankings of the last 3-4 years at least to figure out trends of which depts are moving upwards and which are on a slide down (also what you want is for the dept you end up at to be ranked high in 4-5 years when you graduate -- meaning it doesn't have to be a top 10 right now, but has the potential to be there soon). Of course all this comes only after short listing places that have people you want to work with.

I am finishing up my masters thesis right now. And in fact, i think it's really helping me not go crazy with the waiting. But I am defending on Feb 25th, if I dont have decisions after that date -- I will go insane!

My current advisor also told me to apply to my current school, but only as a back up. He said, you should try to go some where else. His reasoning - Aim at better schools, build your contacts, try a new advisor and lab, get diverse letters of recommendation in the future.

Netflix documentaries (particularly about the Roman and Greek empires, the holocaust).Seinfeld (seen them all), Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia (my new favorite).The Gradcafe, checking email every 30 minutes.Smoking.Hitting the local pub almost every Monday and Friday night.Making plans for a six month unemployed period I have from the end of march to august (if I do attend grad school this year).Finishing up my thesis - I am defending at the end of this month.Trying out new dishes at my favorite local restaurant (and also pushing off learning how to cook).Going to Vegas this weekend Telling my friends and family - "No, I dont have any more updates. Sorry." every time I meet them.

4th: "Graduate Admissions Final Decision 8:00 AM - 7:00 PM"

I got no funding with my admit -- making it as good as a reject. I wonder why they even bother giving out such admits.

Congrats, you really deserve it! Brings this quote to mind -- "The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough." - Randy Pausch

No, I wouldn't call. Leave them to do their job.

If you want to give up a research career just because of a 6-month stressful application period -- Maybe you really aren't cut out for it? (Just a thought). Hell, i'm already planning alternatives for improving and applying in Fall 2012 if things dont work out this year (i.e., I end up with only unfunded admits).

Seems like the big acceptances are starting to come now (Cornell, CMU, Berkeley, UCLA). Yale and Columbia are kicking some ass from the looks of it. I still haven't heard from Columbia -- but I guess at this point, no news from them is good news.

Its already been 15 weeks since my last haircut and I plan on not cutting it till I get a decision from every place I applied to. I hope this wont be longer than April -- the summers are hot here, and I just found out my hair starts curling and getting crazy when its long! I would love to do the beard thing, but as someone above mentioned, I only get patches, cant grow a killer one yet