mojojojo

<br /><br /><br /> Congrats! Austin is a great school.. I'm sure you'll do fine there.

I'm guessing you're still holding out for Stanford. My advice would be to just reject them. If I'm not wrong, all funding decisions have been sent out. If you haven't heard from them regarding funding by 15 April, you aren't going to hear from them again. Since you accepted a financial aid offer from another school, you are contractually bound to attend school there. The only way you can accept another offer is for them to release you from your original acceptance.. I don't think you want to go through all that trouble, so just reject the unfunded offer.

Do any of you guys know when the housing results will be out? Also, how do we go about setting up email accounts?

I agree.. Everyone knows US news ranking are just a rough guide anyway..

Same here. I rejected the SGF. So good luck to those waiting to decide!

What other schools have you gotten into? How is your funding there? Any offers of TA or RA?

That's too bad. I thought we could have been school mates! Haha I'm leaning heavily towards Princeton. Will probably go there.

Thanks! So Slorg, where are you intending to go? I know that quadsbaby is going Stanford..

Thanks alot people! =) Glad to know that the standard of living at Champaign-Urbana isn't that high. I was worried that it would be closer to what people pay in Chicago.. Any Princeton people out there? I would love to hear from you.. Also, do any of you know how industry/academia view the reputations of the departments at each school? I'm guessing UIUC is more highly sought after in industry, while Princeton is more highly sought after in academia? Or does UIUC triumph in both aspects?

yeah, i was under the impression that uiuc was as strong as princeton in the photonics area (if not stronger). both places seem to have equally good facilities, uiuc with its mntl and princeton with its prism. its just so hard to decide. is a smaller program always better? zilch, i see that you are currently attending school at uiuc. how much would you say it costs to live there per month? would i be able to survive on my stipend (after taxes)?

Have you rejected the rest of the schools that accepted you? I'm not sure how to politely reject them. Will they feel offended?

Guys, I need a little advice here. Basically, I narrowed down my decision to either Princeton or UIUC. I'm choosing based on the faculty's research and I've gotten a professor at each university who is willing to take me on. Both are world class professors, and are very well established, so I need not worry about having my work funded. On a related point, Princeton's fellowship offer is slightly more attractive than UIUC's, as I've been offered a little more than 30k compared to UIUC's 25k. However, it seems that Princeton's reputation is not as good as UIUC's. Finally, I'm in the photonics and optoelectronics field. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I've got a similar problem. I had a professor at MIT who really wanted me in her group. She even flew me over to visit her group. But in the end, I too was not admitted. I graduated with 4 refereed papers (all first author), and 3 conference papers, plus a GPA of 3.97/4.0 from a top 5 undergrad EE university. GRE was 790 for verbal, 800 for quant and 6.0 for AW. I'm pretty sure my LORs are rather strong as well. I guess they are not just looking at statistics, but maybe other factors? I did get into my other schools, so I don't feel that bad. But still, I do feel a tinge of regret..

How about Princeton?

Most schools usually give funding for a year (except maybe Stanford, which gives out the SGF for 3 years). They expect you to make use of that one year to find an advisor, and he or she would then support you with an RA for the rest of your PhD. So you should start looking for advisors now.. Personally, I would take up the RA offer, as that's what you'll be doing anyway.

Yes, I think they have exhausted their supply of fellowships and are just waiting for people to reject them. I'm in kind of a similar situation too (I've been told I was nominated for the SGF, but no news on that yet), so I'm going to wait till 10 April or so before I decide where to go. Even though Stanford gave me a deadline of 20 April to decide, most of my other schools are setting a deadline of 15 April.. So I don't think I'm going to risk waiting till 20 April. On a related note, does anyone know how much does the SGF and the EE departmental fellowship at Stanford (supposedly support for 3 quarters only) pay in terms of stipend? Also, are our stipends taxable? I'm thinking that even though my other schools offered me a slightly lower stipend (as compared to the SGF, which I believe is 32k per year), I might end up having more to spend since the tax rate at California is alot higher..

Crazy Horse

What if the email was sent by a secretary, on behalf of a professor (who is the chairman of the admissions committee, and whose email is not listed on the email). Do you thank the secretary or the professor??

I was just wondering if any of you actually replied to emails that notified you of your admission. Most of these emails are sent by admissions@Some_University.edu, so I was just curious whether there was a need to reply. Or should we just wait till 15 April to make our decisions? For those emails that had information on Visit Day, I did send out rsvps to the corresponding person in charge, but I didn't actually acknowledge receipt of the actual notification email.. What are your thoughts on this??

Thanks! =) MIT did reject me though, so I don't think I'm that good..

I got accepted by Princeton yesterday.

It's 830pm, Thursday, in Cambridge, MA.. Still no email. Guess I'll have to check again tomorrow.. Any one else who applied to materials, devices, photonics? Any news?? Judging from previous years' postings, they should be done notifying admits by the end of this week...

I applied for Area 4 (specifically materials, devices, photonics). I haven't heard from them as well, although two professors from Area 4 did get in touch with me waaaaaaay back in Nov 09 when I first submitted my application to discuss the possibility of me joining their group. I haven't heard from them since. Wonder what's going on... I haven't received any email from the department to invite me to any open house as well.

Can I ask how did you find out about the decision? Was it through the website, or did somebody email you?