svent

I may be facing a similar situation. Top 15 vs. top 35-40 (Masters program, so research/funding isn't the only concern). Top 15 has a possibility of TAship, but seems pretty unlikely, so it'll be more expensive, and I'll be sitting in hours of traffic every day, which will wear on me. Also in a very expensive area. Top 40 is in a cheap area with full funding, top 35 has a pretty good chance of funding semester-to-semester but no guarantee (and somewhat expensive area). Top 35 probably is probably best match, research-wise (and I've taken a couple classes there, so I know I'd feel comfortable in the department). I don't really know why I applied to top 15 anyway... I aced the GRE (did way better than expected), and basically applied on a whim. Then I happened to get in. But it has a bigger name, which helps with interviews, at least for a first job. It's hard to say if top 15 or top 40 is a better fit, research/coursework-wise. There's also part of me feeling imposter syndrome... my undergrad school wasn't even top 50, so jumping up to top 15 feels like a huge jump, overwhelming even. Might get into another top 15 with slightly better fit than top 15 offer I already have in a slightly less expensive, much less trafficked area. I expect a rejection though. Sorry to hijack a bit. Edit: I know the rankings are based on research, not on industry, but I think the industry rankings, if there were such a thing, would be fairly similar.

Deadline was 12/15, and they started admitting people in late January it seems. Obviously it's still early. Is it not too early to start bothering people, or should I wait til the end of the month? Also, out of curiosity, do programs that admit people early, especially with funding, start doing the same thing, bothering applicants about their decision?

Columbia and UT aren't backup schools. Not everyone can be the best.

Not sure. I bet there are plenty of part-time jobs on campus, hopefully even intellectually stimulating ones (meaning not cashier jobs). If you email your department, they can probably point you in the right direction. You may be able to find some people to tutor in the area, but it'll probably be mostly UCSB students. If you're a TA, you can't tutor your own students obviously, but you can still tutor your officemates' students. Often in grad school, a TA will get a request for tutoring from one of their students and email the department asking if anyone is interested in taking that student. SB is very expensive, so people tend to move down to Ventura after school if they're working in SB. Or they move closer to LA and work in the LA area. So if you're looking to tutor high school kids (there's more of them than college kids), you'd have better luck closer to LA sadly (Ventura, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Malibu, etc.). There's really not much going on north of Goleta. Btw, it's not that big a deal if you bump into your students outside of class, lol. When I was a grad student, I bumped into one of my students at a heavy metal concert 150 miles away from campus. Wasn't that big a deal. I'd probably avoid IV though, cause that's undergrad party central. I was also a TA for some of my friends/roommates when I was in college, and was a TA for one guy who was in one of my other classes.

Okay. The campus is in SB by mailing address, but it's really in Goleta, which is about 6-8 miles north of SB on the 101. Most grad students live in Goleta I believe. The undergrads are in Isla Vista. You can commute from Ventura or Ojai if you really wanted to, but that's 40 miles, so would be pretty unpleasant, although the traffic is nowhere near as bad as LA. Those towns are probably also kind of boring compared to SB/Goleta. In the other direction there's Santa Maria which may be a bit cheaper, but that's a really long commute (like 65-70 miles). There's also pretty much nothing going on out there (socially etc.) as far as I know.

Unless you have plans to substantially change your profile, your results are unlikely to change much. In fact, this stuff gets more competitive every year and your results may get worse. I think you should try to accept how competitive you are and either go where you got in or choose a different career path. After reading the details, I agree, study for the GRE and take it in a month. If you can't improve much, take the acceptance. If you can, and if you believe the only bad part of your application was your GRE score, and you believe you can do something productive for the next year, decline (and don't include this school on your list next year). Will your recommenders (presumably from that school) hold it against you for declining their offer?

Look in Goleta. You can probably get your own apartment for that price, which means you can find a room for much cheaper. Check out Craigslist. Or you can deal with an annoying commute from Ventura/Ojai/Oxnard and get a room for even cheaper. Campus is not in SB...

notsureifsrs

I've heard Boulder is beautiful, but never been. Ann Arbor might be the cheapest to live in (not sure). Santa Barbara (Goleta, actually) would be the most expensive for housing, but not by too much. Boulder isn't cheap, and although Santa Barbara is quite expensive, Goleta isn't too bad by California standards (traffic is pretty light compared to LA/SF, too). But CA involves a lot of driving and gas is very expensive there. Parking is pretty easy at UDel and UCSB (but not free). I'd imagine socially, UCSB > Boulder > UMich/UDel. Perhaps you can be specific about your field, but it seems like UD is a notch below the other three, and UMich would be the most prestigious school on the list. When people talk up UD's quality of life, they give pros of it being near so many great places (NY, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC). Well maybe so, but Newark is pretty boring. Goleta isn't the biggest city in the world, but it's got great beaches and mountains. It's a few miles from Santa Barbara for some nightlife, and a couple hours from LA/Anaheim if you want a lot more to do. It's also a reasonable drive to San Diego, or even San Francisco. Boulder has Denver for more nightlife, but Colorado is pretty isolated. If you had 8 hours, you could probably drive to Salt Lake City or Albuquerque (which aren't the most exciting cities), but it's really far from everywhere. But honestly, I think you should decide based on career opportunity, not social life. This isn't college. You can find things to do for fun.

Your Master's friends aren't going to bother applying somewhere because they might not get a free visit if admitted?

Not likely.

Slightly OT (not about MIT), but based on the link: I think last year someone posted an email from UCSB saying their Master's program admitted 144/900 = 16%. UCLA (for Master's) admitted 212/1722 ~ 12% (similar rate for PhD). Much lower than the 22% that that page claims. Penn was around 12% for Master's last year. As for UCSD, Does anyone know a source for this? 900 MS applicants seems very low when UCLA had 1700+ and even UCSB had 900. I find Georgia Tech's number of around 20-30% a little surprising, but I believe it. UCSD's page says they admit slightly less than 10%. Their admissions page says they get > 2700 applications each year (I assume MS + PhD). I assume this number is rising and wouldn't be surprised if it were to hit 3000.

My guess is it's not really rolling admissions. Looks like just about all of the admits so far are internationals. I'm American, so we'll see.

Just curious, to anyone who got accepted at UCSD (particularly for M.S.), when did you apply? I didn't realize it was rolling admissions until I applied (12/15). Might've applied early otherwise. Rolling admissions seems kind of strange for a highly ranked grad school IMO.

Okay. When I was making a list of schools, I only applied to places ranked in the top 50. I had a reasonable distribution. I also made a list of some schools ranked around 50-100 to apply to in case I didn't get in anywhere. Lots of the schools ranked below 50 have very late deadlines (like July). I already got in somewhere, but here's a list of schools with late deadlines off the top of my head (again, these aren't top schools -- if I weren't good enough to get in to a top school, I would have accepted that): NC State, Florida, UI Chicago, Delaware, UT Dallas, FSU, UNM. If you want better schools with open deadlines (meaning 2/1 or later, not 4/15 or later), there's still GT, UPenn, Colorado State, Minnesota, UNC.

If you have a reasonably distributed list of schools and get rejected everywhere, you should aim lower for your backup plans. Columbia is not a backup school.

No, don't post them here. After a few minutes, these posts are final. This SOP isn't very good. Wastes a bunch of space with a silly intro story, then lists a bunch of classes taken, talks about class rank, talks about industry experience instead of academic research experience, etc. Standard mistakes that I see in all the international students' SOPs. Some typos, too.

It's January...

Meh, fit is more important anyway. I'd rather go to GT than Berkeley for example. Btw, UWashington doesn't do MS-only. Berkeley does, but only officially. Really they're all about PhD. Anyway, GT is probably the only one with apps still open.

Maybe. I would hate to live out there, but UPenn and UMD are great departments. You can still apply to GT, not sure if any other top 10 schools still have open applications.

You have good scores. Might as well retake the subject test to see if you can get close to 800, even if you don't have much time to study for it. Can you talk more about this spycam?!

You'll need to hope your professors remember you for LORs, and have sufficient coursework. You may need to find a school to take classes at in a non-degree capacity (this is also good for LORs, doing so gave me 2 current LORs, only needed to use 1 LOR from graduating 5 years ago in a different field). Data structures, algorithms, computer organization, operating systems, automata theory, etc.

You can send them an official transcript, and upload your new unofficial to the apps that'll still let you modify your application. But I wouldn't bother emailing people with pdf's of new transcripts or anything.

You shouldn't have applied to 12 schools if you're that low on cash.

I would caution against using any online service for sensitive information like transcripts.