OH YEAH

Cool, see you there What kind of theory do you like?

If you want to do research, Cornell's MEng is not what you want. I don't know anything about the other two programs.

Yeah, this happened to me too. You'll see these people later, since presumably they are in your research area...

I trust the popularity contest because it is good for what it is. I do not trust the NRC rankings because they have been shown to have no statistical validity. But, believe what you want, I have a feeling you care a lot more about this than I do

Nobody in CS trusts the NRC is an understatement. I don't remember the Computing Research Association denouncing the USNews rankings. USNews and the NRC are not comparable because 1) the NRC study claims to be an objective measure based on statistical evidence, where USNews claims to be a popularity contest and 2) the NRC has a claim to legitimacy as a government funded, "official" project. The NRC report being erroneous is a big deal. Academics from a wide variety of fields have denounced the rankings, even those that come from schools that did well in the rankings (for instance, Princeton did well, and here I am). The links I cited were but a small sample of the backlash: all you have to do is Google. Here are a few more, for fun: http://leiterreports...l-rankings.html http://news.uchicago.edu/node/42456 http://www.insidehig.../09/28/rankings (the last one reveals that even the NRC doesn't trust their own rankings... to quote: To be honest, I find it more surprising that you are defending the NRC rankings, given the large amount of extremely negative press it has received in academic circles. Edit: I am interested, which programs in the USNews top 20 do you think don't deserve to be there? I don't agree with all of the exact placements, but I would pick the same top 20.

Nobody in CS trusts the NRC rankings. http://www.cs.washington.edu/nrc/ http://www.technolog...=349&bpid=25822 http://blog.computat...c-rankings.html Even the CRA denounces them: http://www.cra.org/g...mputer-science/ I'm not saying UCSB is a bad choice, but don't make your decision based on them being "top 10"

I knew UMD had a strong HCI group, but I didn't even know UIUC had one.

I have observed a sharp phase transition (in the theory of algorithms sense ) between the quality of students at top 10-20 schools and the quality of students at > 20 schools. I wouldn't recommend going to a school outside of the top 20. The difference between Stanford and UC Santa Cruz will be dramatic.

I got a 750, which I'm sure most on this forum would also think is awful. I also think I am pretty good at mathematics. What relevance do the math GRE questions have to advanced mathematics or computer science? I do very little calculation, and when I need to do calculations they tend to be intractable anyway, so I write a program to do the calculations for me. PHD Comics says it better than I do:

Don't disparage implementation. There are many advantages to implementation: for instance, 1) it admits compelling evidence that your ideas actually work (or show YOU why they don't work...) and 2) it can serve as a platform for future research (do you really want to wait for industry to build X so you can continue your research?). Implementation exposes a lot of holes. Make use of it. That being said, when writing a paper about an implementation you should discuss the general implications and big picture as opposed to trivial engineering decisions. Regardless of who you work with, you can make a conscious decision to write good papers. Nobody in the top conferences wants to read about boring implementation details, and advisers at good schools want to publish at these conferences, so you won't be met with resistance. In other words: don't worry about it so much, just find an adviser who is working on stuff you find exciting. If you don't like their papers, keep in mind that whatever graduate student wrote them isn't going to write your papers.

He isn't whining, he is trying to find a school and adviser that does the kind of research that he is interested in. He isn't criticizing anyone in specific in public. He doesn't need "authority" to express his views, just as you don't need "authority" to criticize his views. I'm very pleased that this thread exists, because it is one of the few on this forum that permits actual discussion (as opposed to "yeah, I got into that school" or "no, I didn't get into that school" or "oh no, X school hasn't notified me of my acceptance yet!!") ... so please don't stifle the discussion.

I'd go to JHU just to work with this guy... what a kickass mustache!

Can't you just wait till next year? Going for a masters is expensive, you want to go to the best school possible if you're going to be shelling out such cash.

Princeton also has strong PL (Andrew Appel, David Walker, David August) and systems/networking (Kai Li, Larry Peterson, Jennifer Rexford, Michael Freedman, Vivek Pai). Many people there are very interested in security. While there is only one official "security" person (Ed Felten), many people do interdisciplinary work in it (such as all of the systems and PL people). I'm a student at Princeton, so let me give you my take. All of the active faculty there are extremely strong, but there aren't many of them -- if you're interested in what someone there is doing, don't be worried about the "caliber" of it. Of course, due to the size, it may be hard to find someone who is interested in what you're doing! The smallest group is AI, but again, if you're interested in what Robert Schapire is doing, he's one of the most cited CS researchers period (not just in AI).

I remember finding an apartment in Plainsboro, NJ for around 770 (without utilities)? That's the absolute cheapest you'll find, unless you get lucky on craigslist. I don't remember how flexible the leases are. In general, finding housing in this area is a pain in the ass. I'm happy to live in the Butler apartments.

March 23rd. And I was wrong: there were 7 people who attended, and 2 that accepted out of those.

I got into Yale last year. There were 8 people at the visiting day. I think out of those one accepted the offer.

I suggested this, but all it got was a snarky comment.

You didn't have to make another topic...

Last year I got the Princeton acceptance e-mail Feb 15th. So you probably still have a little bit of waiting to do...

Perhaps we should just have a stickied thread where people can ask questions about specific schools and representatives from each school can answer said questions. I'd be willing to answer questions about Princeton; I know there was a Stanford MS student offering to answer questions as well.

Princeton gives funding to MS students and has a very strong networking group.

I can read it

I'll give it a glance. I'm in CS, but it's always good to get someone not familiar with your work to give comments.

I'd mention the algorithms, as well as the project.