pascal_barbots_wager

Nothing on the award page, no email. Huh.

Eh. My guess is that the people at the NDSEG (and *especially* the people responsible for their social media) don't have much power over the various DoD agencies that make these choices. For all we know the NDSEG is just as exasperated with the DoD, for the same reasons.

Cool. The award page (https://ndseg.asee.org/award) still says "no information about your award status" for me.

It varies. At some schools, and for some internal fellowship, the process is competitive and only one or a few students get the fellowship. These fellowships usually have endowed names ("The Alice Bob Fellowship"), and getting one is a nice honor. At other schools everybody (or close to everybody) gets a fellowship, in which case getting one is nice but doesn't mean much. It's hard to tell which is which from the outside.

If I remember right the NDSEG technically pays a bit more in terms of both tuition and stipend, but you can't defer it, whereas you can defer the NSF GRFP. If your department guarantees a stipend for your first two years but not afterward, it might make more sense to take the GRFP and defer it to make sure your covered for 5 years. This thread has more.

Sounds a lot like "you'll get them when you get them, in the meanwhile we want the maximum flexibility possible". Same for the award portal, they're probably not 100% sure how the IT side of the emails and awards interact, or what the error handling looks like when people look at those things when they're not supposed to, so they're just saying it's useless to be safe.

Same. Maybe they'll come out on Friday.

Is there a status page where we can check that our application hasn't already been rejected for technical reasons (e.g. late rec)? https://ndseg.asee.org/apply/overview/status just takes me to a generic Overview page. I also get the weird "you declined" message without having declined -- I assume it's some meaningless bug...

They did this last year too, and it was just normal maintenance and no results. Probably gonna have to wait until 28/29!

Here's a good Hacker News thread on this topic. Note that the thread is "Tips for Self-Learning Programming", which is slightly different than Self-Learning Computer Science, but it should be useful to you either way.

Yeah, USNWR rankings are not worth very much. They're a few years out of date and the ranking criteria is too coarse anyway. I would not use rankings as much of a deciding factor here (the schools don't differ much by this metric anyway).

I don't know much about BU, but I would suspect that the USNWR rankings are a bit outdated from their last update in 2014. Northeastern has been expanding their CS theory group since then, in particular hiring a couple of good (or at least well-known in their respective fields of differential privacy/learning theory and crypto) faculty in Jonathan Ullman and abhi shelat. They may be hiring more this year, I'm not sure. At any rate, I think this is a good reason to take the USNWR rankings with a grain of salt in this case. I would also caution against placing *too* much emphasis on visits. Advisors are generally good persuaders, so while "clicking" is nice it's hard to assess accurately in the compressed timeframe of a visit. Definitely talk to current students of potential advisors - most departments will have some students-only event where you can, ostensibly, pump students for unbiased info away from their advisors. Attend this if possible!

Well, how good a 3.4 is varies by school. I don't know what it's like at your particular school so I can't say. You might ask your professors or someone else in the department where past applicants from your school have ended up going. That might give you a rough idea of possible paths, although each case is different and yours will be too. But this will at least give you some idea of how graduates from your university are viewed. As far as knowing your chances, you'll probably never "know" them. PhD admissions aren't random, but they aren't really predictable either. Admission usually depends on one or two professors saying "hey, this kid, he/she seems to have something, I want them admitted", and the reason for that can be hard to pin down. Maybe there's significant (and real) overlap in research interests, maybe you have a strong recommendation from someone they trust, maybe you're so clearly brimming with raw talent and creativity that they just have to take you. Ideally you have some combination of all of these things. Everyone's seen people with what look like better applications get rejected and what look like worse applications get accepted. So a good strategy is apply to a few schools you feel are dreamy reaches, a few you feel are not-impossible reaches, a few you feel are matches, and a few you feel are safeties (but which you would ultimately be OK attending). You might also check the application statistics for various programs to help make this decision. Most places publish middle 50% ranges for admitted students for GPA, GRE, TOEFL, etc. Being in or above the ranges is a good sign, and even being below in one or two isn't necessarily killer. But if you're below-average in everything the school should probably go in your "reach" pile.

Ask the two people you mention. Their word isn't gospel, but they are the most familiar with the work you've done and where your interests lie, and as such should have a pretty good idea of where you might go.

I think "intellectual leaps that I usually could not make as easily" falls under the umbrella of mathematical maturity mathcat mentioned. It's a tough thing to quantify, but figuring stuff out is just something you get better at with work over time. As far as math problems to have, that's a good one.

Yeah, like eteshoe says it's not like you can just compare GPAs across schools or majors (or even within majors, really, depending on what courses you take). For what it's worth I struggled hard in my first upper-level math class and got a demoralizing B-. But after that adjustment period it was mostly A/A- with some scattered B+'s, which was enough to get into a Top 20 CS PhD with a fellowship (without any CS coursework, even!). It's fine and normal to be scared or intimidated, but I wouldn't get too freaked out.

3.5 at the end of your first year is not bad, and grad schools care more about how you do in upper-level courses anyway. So that's fine. Also, I was a math major too and am very, very familiar with the feeling of being too dumb to understand something. Once the abstraction ramps up your head starts hurting, and the other kids in the class who seem to just breeze through don't help. A few things that helped me get through, eventually with honors: 1. Work with other people, ideally people you get along with. You'd be surprised how many other students are struggling in the same boat you are. Struggling together is less scary, and talking through concepts with other people will really help understanding stuff. Worst case scenario you all just sit around bitching about the problem set, which isn't terrible. I did OK in my first year classes but it was always stressful because I did everything alone. The classes got harder as I went along, but cultivating a small math peer group in my second year and beyond helped a ton. 2. Don't worry too much about the kids who seem to know everything and breeze through stuff. Some of them are faster answering in class, but math in practice isn't necessarily about speed. Some of them don't have to put in much work, but putting in work is a good habit to acquire because you'll have to do it sooner or later. Some of them seem like they know a lot more than they actually do. And some of them are just smarter than you, which isn't a huge deal either because there's plenty of math for everybody. It's fine to have a little competitive spirit but don't kill yourself by constant comparison (because you'll probably end up comparing an unrealistically negative image of yourself with an unrealistically positive image of the other person). 3. Try and get involved in some extra-curricular math stuff if possible. Look into REUs, cultivate relationships with professors, etc. Opportunities vary by school, but it's good to make sure your professors know you and know your plans for graduate school. Go to office hours (but make sure you have something to say). Those connections turn into opportunities and rec letters that matter when you're applying to schools in a few years. Quick note about research though, it's extremely uncommon for undergrads to do actual math research before starting a PhD, even at top 10-20 places. Unlike the situation in biology or physics or even computer science, they're isn't very much "grunt work" to do in math research (this is most true for the pure side, less true as you get more applied and computational). You have to know a lot of math before you can make original contributions. That's what a PhD is for! Even REUs don't commonly result in publishable work. But they're nonetheless great experiences as you get paid to learn math and at least get a feel for what research is like, so apply for them.

I had a response but it was basically cribbed from this blog post on the same subject: "Pursuing a Ph.D. is the only way to spend 4 to 8 years being paid to work on something that the market does not directly value in the short term." "Something that the market does not directly value" could be an unusual and fragile new idea or your own ability as an independent researcher. A PhD seems like the best way to nurture both.

I did my undergrad at UChicago (2014) and the area just north of campus from 53rd-57th has a ton of apartments housing UChicago students, a ton of whom will be away from campus for the summer. If you check UChicago's version of Craigslist (google "UChicago marketplace" and it's the first hit) there will correspondingly be a ton of people looking to sublet over the summer.

I did my undergrad at UChicago and spent 12-13 and 13-14 living in IHouse, so it might have changed since then but...if you like the idea of mixing a (small) private living space with a wider community right outside your door, IHouse might be a good fit. Every evening there were usually plenty of little groups in the common area playing pool, foosball, watching a movie, etc. You won't be lonely there unless you want to be. Just in case you don't know how IHouse is set up: there's a giant main kitchen with 12-15 full gas stove/oven combos and a bunch of stainless steel countertops and several deep sinks. It's effectively a commercial kitchen and the thing I miss most about the place. Unless you're cooking on a Saturday night - the one night the dining halls close and undergrads have to fend for themselves - there will probably be plenty of space to cook. I actually met some of my best friends from UChicago cooking in that kitchen, so I have a soft spot for it (it's also just a good kitchen). Some people share pots and pans, but there are also lockers (of varying sizes) that you can rent per quarter for some reasonable amount that I don't remember. There are also a few walk-in refrigerators and freezers where you can also rent bins. At any rate, I really loved cooking in that kitchen, and I cooked there a ton. Definitely not the horrorshow that communal kitchens typically are. People tend to be reasonably good at cleaning up after themselves, and the whole thing gets cleaned by the custodial staff daily. Near the kitchen is a large dining room/recreation room with a bunch of chairs and tables, a TV, a foosball table, a pool table, and a piano. The rooms themselves are in separate wings that require keycard access and are set up like dorm rooms with a bathroom/showers on each floor. These are communal so they aren't perfect but, again, they're cleaned several times per week so it's never so bad. There's a pretty good gym in the basement (stationary bike, elliptical, treadmill, freeweight dumbbells from 5-60 lbs, a pull-up bar, a dip station, various balls and mats and bands) as well as study/practice rooms, a Mac lab with about 6 desktops and a printer, and a laundry room. IHouse also has several events per week ranging from musical performances to lectures to whatever. These are held in an auditorium in IHouse and don't disturb residents much. Sometimes you come home and there's a line out the front door for some event, but then you just swipe your ID and walk past into the residential area and it's quiet and fine. One thing that might have changed since I left is the proportion of undergrads, but with the new dorm I don't know what will happen with that. I don't remember the "application" process ever rejecting actual UChicago students - I think it was more for people who might not be affiliated with the university - but I'm not 100% sure about that. At any rate no one I knew who applied ever got turned down. It might be a decent plan to live in IHouse your first year, make some friends, and look for an apartment together for the next year. Even many of the people who did this come back to IHouse frequently throughout the quarter to hang out with people. It's a pretty nice place to live and there is a good sense of community if you want to get involved. It's a good location for getting around Chicago too, since it's only a 2-minute walk from the Metra station and a 5-10-minute walk from the 6 bus stop, both of which get you back and forth from downtown. Trying to think back to what I disliked about living there...it is a bit pricey. I think it's $800+ a month for a very small private space. Communal bathrooms, even if they're clean, can be kind of a drag. It's about a mile and a half from Hyde Park's best grocery store (Hyde Park Produce), and it's an annoying walk/bus ride to do every week. Although it is only a half mile from Treasure Island, which is expensive but not so bad. And it is a bit dorm-ish, which gets old. I always felt kind of embarrassed living there because it didn't feel like I was really living on my own. But yeah, I mostly stayed there for the kitchen. So many burners, endless indestructible counter space...

If you make an account with a non-upenn.edu address you'll be able to access everything but the roommates section. But if you click on the roommates section there should be a link for what to do if you haven't received the PennKey yet. I emailed the person at that link, explained that I was an incoming student without a PennKey, and they sent me a code that let me upgrade my account to post in the roommates section.

https://offcampushousing.upenn.edu/login You need a Pennkey to access the roommates part, but they should have sent you that. I got mine in the mail a few days ago. You can also just email them and say you're a new student who doesn't have a upenn.edu email address yet.

I'm an incoming computer science PhD student. How are people finding roommates? The semi-official UPenn offcampushousing site has maybe 100 people listed total.

I think MathCat was just disagreeing with OP's "you get what you pay for" argument, and the weird chest-thumping authority that's supposed to be behind it. It is a bit strange to suggest that self-prep is a bad idea. For many people it's perfectly fine, and MathCat used himself/herself as an example to show that. I basically did the same thing with similar results. If OP uses his strong score as evidence to offer advice, MathCat's allowed to use his/her strong score as evidence to disagree, yeah? Also, for the record I'm the person who suggested The Economist to improve on reading comprehension. And I stand by it!

If you did ask to "be in their lab" what would you be able to do for them? A tricky thing about CS research is that it's usually not like biology or psychology where someone has to do simple but tedious grunt work (e.g. taking measurements or actually sitting people down for experiments or whatever), here grunt work is often along the lines of "code something up to do this" or "debug this". So while it's not bad to look at existing research and see what you find interesting, I'd pick up some experience coding or something first.