grotesqueidols

Well...there is a list of them online

My phd supervisor started his undergrad at 33, became a lecturer at Cambridge heading his own research center by around 40 and at 50ish is a full prof at Stanford. Clearly he is wicked awesome but what I am trying to say is that you cannot box anyone in here. If you are awesome your age will be meaningless. My 33 year old boyfriend was just told by a potential supervisor that he had placed every single advisee who wanted to teach in stellar university positions and that the boyf would be no different.

No...I meant to post it at the Computer Science Board eucalyptus. Zonko: Thanks for the calculator but I am actually American, I just done all my graduate degrees in the UK and cannot advise my non American boyfriend what is snappy deal with regards to American Computer Science. I would honestly be surprised if every package was the same...they aren't as far as I can tell. Anyone?

Perhaps y'all are too shy to share but if anyone is willing to brag (or complain) about the specifics of the various funding schemes they have been offered (stipend amount, for how long, insurance, teaching requirements, etc) I'd sure like to hear it. I think people considering their options might like to compare as well. We in foreign lands have no idea what is "good" That said I've got nothing to offer up yet: details in the post

If there is absolutely no way on earth that you are going to B at this point, go ahead and politely reject the offer. There is no use stringing them along It seems like in the current admission environment, admission wait lists probably won't get used but as you rightly pointed out, your specific funding could be transferred to someone else and that could make the difference for them. Departments love both early yeas and early nays.

Interesting...and a littler surprising. That would be considered a breech of confidentiality where I've worked and studied. There is no way that another graduate student should be looking at your test scores, academic records, or recs. Where I worked, even undergradaute work study students were not allowed to be the ones to make the photo copies. Whoever your advisor worked with must have been a particularly lazy or horrible committee member. That is really not the norm. Even if the application was horrific, someone higher on the committee would need to sign off on the rejection. If that prof was willing to sign off without even looking at it, damn. Weird too. I worked in the US but at Cambridge, where I am currently, the department physically locks the office doors when application material is being handled. The Graduate office closes to the public early, again so no one could possibly walk in on confidential information. Point is, it isn't a secretary or a computer deciding anything: if a committee thinks a grad student is qualified enough to decide that is their business but they are not an unspecialized admin.

TempProfileS and everyone else: No one is being screened out by a secretary or a computer. Secretaries do not have that sort of power and every application is looked at by the committee. Maybe the committee tosses out everyone under a certain score into the trash (which would truly surprise me), but they do so as the designated body to make such decisions. Common comments I have seen coming from the committee in response to low GRE scares are things like "Low GRE score but significant work experience" or "poor verbal score but highly recommended by so and so for this specific project" or "Low GRE score and nothing to make up for it." The secretary will organize the stack of applications is usually organized first and foremost by area of specialization then either alphabetically or most likely by the order they became complete. What the actual committee does after that is up to them but you will never be eliminated by anyone who is not on the committee. If you do get rejected you can (nicely) inquire about what kept you out. Some departments will tell you. For example, if you did not waive your right to see your recommendation letter specifically, the school might let you see a copy. The secretary may have been told that they are allowed to read the notes attached to your file. You never know. Phrase your request like "I would like to become a better applicant so I would like to see what I need to work on."

Because you are an international applicant they actually will pay close attention to your verbal GRE score. I seem to recall a school calling any score below 400 "worrying." Your TOFL score is pretty good, but the committee is going to wonder why it is high when your verbal GRE score is so low. In the past few years schools have really been "cracking down" so to speak on international applicants with poor English skills. Since graduate students are usually required to serve as teaching assistants and so on, undergrad complaints have caused many graduate committees to be quite harsh towards any perception of language issues. Thus you need to get your score up, at the very least above 400. You have to show them you can compete against native speakers. You also need to have 100% of your application material checked by a native English speaker. If you have a low verbal score, every grammatical mistake will look gigantic to a committee.

Oh! I thought you were wondering why the admission committee would meet after final decisions had been made. I'd guess everything has been decided. Accepts have been assigned an adviser and that adviser has either contacted them or not.

DJLamar: That'll either be about undergrad admissions or will be a meeting about either funding or supervisor assignment. My guess would be that is an undergrad meeting.

Ditto: you'd almost hope for a heavier moderator hand. I guess it isn't for someone else to decide what is real and what is fake.

75...psssht 85 and then 185 is where it is at. There is nearly no reason for you to ever have visited Columbus unless a: you joined the army b: you have a dark place in your heart for Southern Gothic literature or c: you are wild for very early Piedmont Blues. Luckily the last two are true for me so I can imagine my adolescence as not all bad! People here imagine me to be quite exotic. I'm actually an archaeologist so no Tech for me...I'm following the CS forum for my boyfriend who is being shy...or too cool for school...I don't know. I did my undergrad in Boston then my Masters and the as yet undone PhD in the UK (Section 2.2.5 is on the docket).

An hour south you say? La Grange maybe? I'm from Columbus

Eep now I feel like a doof! So many people on this forum seem to have a serious amount of bile uncontrollably spewing from their orifices over the application fee and I've been getting more and more pouty about it. I took your words to be sincere: I'm sorry to lump you in with them! Again, you can't imagine how horrible some people are over the phone right now, I took my past out on you! One applicant would call me every single day asking if a particular rec had arrived...seeming to blame me (??) for its absence. When it DID arrive the professor had written "I recommend so and so for admittance." That was it. Suffice to say that person did not make the cut. I can remember every detail of the ensuing post-rejection phone call to this day. The prevailing theme was always "waste of money," "didn't get money's worth," etc. The lead up to the application deadline was "it costs too much," "can you waive the fee," and the ol' "this is my profile and I don't want to pay money unless I will get in, do YOU think I will get in?" I left that job to go get a phd, so go figure A phd that I am supposed to be writing right now, yet I am typing on a forum. Come on section 2.2.4! But for real, my boyfriend has a single acceptance which is seemingly the only acceptance this school has sent out. There is a particular person he would like to work with there and he had his application in obscenely early. Nothing from anywhere else.

DJ Lamar: Are you from ATL or just a Tech student? I'm from Georgia

*American* students. Do they usually do two separate batches? If so I will remain hopeful from the Southern Hemisphere Not a big deal since he has been accepted elsewhere.

My boyfriend applied to 7 places and has only heard from one: a bit of a special case, very personal message, not one of the places that you applied to. That committee seemed to think he was one of the top applicants out there, yet nothing from anywhere else yet. Basically I am saying it isn't worth being worried yet Sigh sigh sigh sigh sigh! And you applied to BU too! DOUBLE sigh. I used to work within an academic department at BU and dude, seriously, your application fee does not actually cover how much work goes into adequately dealing with your application. Think this all the way through. Someone in the Graduate Admissions office has to spend time to individually gather your material as it comes in, note it in the database, make a number of certified copies of each, file everything properly, and send one complete package on to the department. If something is missing, the GRE scores maybe, they may spend time hunting them down or contacting you about it. Plus they have to answer the phone each time it rings to reassure worried applicants that everything is there OR to deal with problems. Within the department, an administrator receives the complete packet, reviews it again to make sure it is complete, logs the information into the department database and creates a paper file for you. Yes there is a paper file for everyone, of course. They certify any copies of anything that are made. That person has to take your frantic calls and deal with all of your problems as well. This is all done so nothing is lost, accountability, paper trail and all that. Work study students cannot do any of this for confidentiality reasons. Next this all goes to the admissions committee within the department. Maybe this is three profs, maybe this is more...but each of them earns x amount of money and their time is money. Believe it or not they do spend time reviewing and discussing each application and make significant comments on it in written format, even for crappy applications. They go over them all multiple times. Following this, there is further admin work for both accepted and rejected applications. Your $90 most likely does not cover the amount of time it takes across several offices to deal with your application. Depending on the seniority of the admission committee it probably doesn't even pay what their hourly rate divides out to. Now pay me in my job, the people in the grad offices...Heck, if you had a phone interview, that is even more time. Mix in how much time the person in the grad office and the admin in the department will spend answering emails and phone calls from angry people who did not get admitted (you can't imagine how horrible those people can be). You are getting more than your money's worth and you are the one who decided to apply! Sorry to rant. In conclusion: if you are worried call the department admin. If they can tell you at what stage they are at, they will. Be nice though, the job sucks at this time of year and it isn't their fault.

Well my fella's got 800/800/5.5 Not the GPA though, but that was 10 years ago and in another hemisphere. I thought MIT CS doesn't ask for GRE scores...I think we sent them anyway.

Well it looks like one brave soul called the Admissions Office and found out that any offers on the results forum would be unofficial at this point and that formal offers have not been sent out. That and the inherent honesty issue: I wouldn't start the clock until someone who actually comments on this forum hears a result.

Well I don't know about the ad coms, but *I'M* trying to figure out who you are, Oh Yeah

X2 on the Brown question! How did you find out and what is your field/who will you be working with?

Thanks enigma, I'll convey the info to the boyfriend, you know, in lieu of writing my own PhD (speaking of which, are you all SURE you want to get into this? I'm a wreck!) Any idea of MIT Media Lab results vs MIT regular Computer Science? Congrats Iceman!

I feel like I have rolled in a bit late here...hopefully you have sorted everything out but if you do have any questions about the Cambridge Mphil (which is what I think you must mean by MA) feel free to ask. I am an American finishing an Archaeology PhD at Cambridge...and I did an Mphil there as well. It isn't quite Classics but we are just down the street physically and disciplinarily Particularly be careful which colleges you select. That is surprisingly more important than you think and if you, say, pick Trinity and Johns which are too popular you will no doubt end up somewhere unfavorable. You should shoot for nice older ones that are lovely but not absurdly flash.

Hola all! So, let us see, where are we at and what do we know? Anyone willing to work up a list of rumored notification dates? Am I right in guessing Berkley is the biggie that everyone is waiting for this week?

Hi all! First, let me say I am a hanger-on at the moment. My fella is currently applying to CS PhD programs and I am the one following this site and the forums. Why? Mostly because I am in the final year of my own PhD (Archaeology/South American Politics at Cambridge) and it is the only distraction that I am allowing myself. Anyhow: Who on earth could you be talking about? I have never once in my graduate carrier come across a prof that preferred absurdly young students to more mature students. Mature students are safe, so to speak: they are more likely to know what they want and to be able to exist in a less structured graduate environment without freaking out, cracking under the pressure, or producing research that is mediocre or immature. This is all things equal, mind, but I'd accept a 31 one year old over a 21 year old any day. Furthermore, 33 is quite young. In my department we have a small pocket of people who clearly went straight on through and are in their mid 20s, the rest skirt around 30 or older. A 33 year old shouldn't feel weird. For the poster: if you are worried about PhD admission, consider doing a one year masters in Computer Science at a UK university. It is easier to get accepted, you will display your research potential, earn a recommendation from an academic or two, and be able to apply back to US PhDs in only a year. Chances are you will not get funded for the masters but you will qualify for US student loans etc.