OH YEAH

I don't think coming from a name brand school helps in and of itself. The reason it is so important is because your letters of recommendation are important, and professors at name brand schools know the professors that you want to work with! However, that won't help so much if your recommendations aren't great. If you don't have research experience, then what exactly will your LoRs say that will convince an adcomm that you are prepared for doing research? Every year I see the admits for Princeton, and almost everyone comes from a name brand school. What will set you apart from those people will be your research experience, and you don't have any. I wouldn't get your hopes up.

You want to "major" in Computer Science? You applied to liberal arts schools (Richmond, Oberlin)? Is this for undergrad or for grad? If you are applying for undergrad, go to Richmond or Oberlin!

You seem to misunderstand... it isn't that you would have a "better chance" to get into a good PhD program, it's that you would have a chance at all. I would totally put my money on 3.3 and research over 3.7 and no research. But then again, if we are talking about "good" PhD programs, it is likely that the person with a 3.7 and research will get selected...

Where the Princeton admits at? I'm again going to be going to (at least one of) the welcome dinners for the new recruits so I look forward to meeting you guys in person Speaking of dinners, I'm jealous of everyone who gets to pick schools. It is a lot of fun travelling place to place, meeting cool people and being wined and dined.

I didn't. Who cares about the specific dates? I've never seen that advice given anywhere.

The information you have given is not sufficient for me to come up with appropriate schools. One needs a sense of your research potential. If I had more information about your research, or knew where it was published, or had an idea of the kinds of letters people would write for you, then maybe. My first impression is that your research did not appear in very good places, because 1) journals aren't the main means of dissemination in systems, and 2) four publications is a lot for only one research experience. But to be sure, I wanted to clarify, and/or take a look at your publications to try to gauge how interesting and involved the research was (I partially work in systems). People in PhD programs on this forum are your peers. We're generally good contacts to make, if only because you should be networking in grad school. I've met people from this forum before. Nobody is out to expose you. However, I'm not "very, very curious" -- I am doing you a favor, not the other way around. *Perhaps you shouldn't be so sensitive

You got 4 publications out of one semester as an RA? Where are you published?

Yes, I know that it costs a good bit of cash to publish in PLoS. I don't think these costs are necessary, though--doesn't most of it go to actually printing the articles? For instance, PLoS One is cheaper than most on that list, and is online only from what I recall. There's no reason to print journals anymore--print on demand is greener and cheaper. That being said, I think PLoS is a step in the right direction, and it is nice to have an official organization to back open access ideas. I agree that the arXiv is the way to go. At least in CS, you don't get paid to review articles, so there is no reason any of the process should cost money at all (except for hosting costs, which are cheap).

Let's not take that for granted -- a lot of careers have been made through NSF grants that *didn't* require the material to be open access. I would like to think that this great move was made partially under pressure from concerned scientists. It's still not good enough. Not a dime should go to these publishing companies, as they do not provide a service that the community could not perform on its own. It's still a waste taxpayer money, and given how tight money is for research grants, we should be guarding that money as carefully as possible from special interests.

Why vote down the OP? (corrected now ) It's true. While publishing companies used to provide an essential service--typesetting and physically disseminating the research--they no longer provide either. At least in computer science, we typeset everything ourselves. As for physical dissemination, who cares? It makes more sense (to the readers, to the authors, to the funding agencies, ...) to save the publishing costs, put the material for free on the Internet, and let whoever wants a copy spool it to their printer. Now the role of journals and conferences (the latter if you are in CS) is brand name, but this is a function of the community, not the publisher. One can transfer prestige by simply having all of the distinguished members of the community move to a different home. This is most often seen when entire editorial boards resign and fork the journal (which has happened many times). This is the best introduction to the problem I know of. http://www.scottaaro...ngs/journal.pdf Those looking for a longer, but perhaps more comprehensive account, should check out Knuth's experience resigning from the Journal of Algorithms (http://www-cs-facult...nuth/joalet.pdf). It will probably be our generation that finally cuts out the leeching middle man, so spread the word. P.S. I am jealous of the biologists, who have the Public Library of Science (http://www.plos.org) behind them.

2 posters, not papers... posters generally aren't competitive. I don't actually think it is easier to get into the MS program at Princeton than the PhD program because they are both fully funded (I don't actually know, though). I think you should apply to whichever fits your life's goals. You seem to have a lot of research experience, so if your research was good and your letters of recommendation have very positive things to say about you and your research then I would encourage you to apply.

Uh, examples? I just looked at Berkeley and MIT and didn't see such a requirement, and I know Princeton doesn't have such a requirement. Nobody cares about your verbal GRE as long as you aren't in the 30th percentile or something. Your "average" recommendations are what will kill you, not your GRE scores

That sucks. I just assumed all grad students had (shared with 3 or 4 people) offices with their own computers. Guess it is a CS luxury :-)

I find it weird people carry so much stuff with them. I usually carry nothing but the essentials (keys, phone, wallet) and my iPod for the walk to the CS dept. Sometimes I leave my phone at home. I have notebook/pen setup at both my home and office desktops. I also a keep a notebook/pen/reading light next to my bed. I only carry my laptop when I need to give a presentation---if I want to walk around and think, I either use a whiteboard or take a notebook to a random peaceful location on campus. Internet is just a distraction. Is it that History students do not have offices with computers?

My girlfriend bought me a space pen a year ago, and I've never looked back. It's really nice to never have to scribble to get the ink running, and it can write from any angle no problem, which is great when lying down with a notebook to brainstorm. It never bleeds either. It really is the perfect pen. Specifically, I have this one: http://www.spacepen....ebulletpen.aspx