pd1989

@DogsArePeopleToo Thanks! Yeah. The interview was really smooth. Didn't expect it to be so easy! Don't know about the "enjoying the summer" part. So many things to do. But at last some relief. Visa was the last hurdle to cross.

My visa got approved as well as my husband's. The visa officer did not ask anything related to spouse either to me or him. The visa officer who interviewed me was a charming lady. She greeted me back with a smile and my nervousness reduced to almost zero. So I was asked the following questions - 1. How many universities you applied to? 2. How many admits? 3. What was your second choice to go? 4. What is the highest degree you have? 5. Who is going to pay for your studies? And then she approved my visa. My husband's interview was longer and he was assigned to a serious looking young guy. His interview went like this - 1. Are you going for PhD? Do you have funding? 2. What does your father do? Where did he work (my FIL is retired now)? Which post? What does your mother do? (and other family related information, but asked nothing about being married) 3. What are the other admits? 4. Why are you going to this University? "Collect your passport in 5 days. Visa approved!" Yaaayyyiii! @debrak7 Sorry for this late reply! Thank you for your wishes. All the best for your studies and I think your visa for DC next year will also be approved. They don't reject genuine candidates.

Thanks for your wishes @TakeruK and @DogsArePeopleToo . Hoping for the best! After it's done I shall let you know what happened.

Thank you for your assurance @TakeruK .. Actually there is no particular reason. We are going to different universities, so decided to attend the interview on our own. This way we were more comfortable going about the VI. I hope saying this as a reason wont hurt our chances.

Hi, I am going to join University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for CS PhD and my husband is going to join University of Colorado, Boulder for his PhD as well. We have scheduled f1 visa interviews in Mumbai (India) consulate on same date and time, but separately. Could this lead to any problem? (example - can the visa officer doubt why we did not book a group visa appointment despite being married) Also, I wanted to know if being married and applying for F1 visa reduces my chances of getting the visa approved. Online visa experiences for married couples are not making me optimistic. Please let me know if you have any such experience or can guide me about the situation.

Hi, I am in a serious dilemma. I have been accepted to several schools. Making the decision is already hard. Moreover, I just got accepted to CU Boulder for Cs PhD, where my spouse also is having a positive sign and he may get offer by 3rd April. The dilemma is that I also got accepted to UIUC. My interest area is mobile and real time systems. The professor at UIUC is very new and young, his research area is related to my interests though not an exact match. I would be on an RAship from the beginning. So may not be able to change advisor later on. In CU boulder, I shall be with my family, although it is not a as big a name as UIUC in CS Systems research. However, the professor is more senior and reputed working in an area in which I do not have much experience but I am very much interested to explore. My questions are- 1. How much ranking matters when it comes to PhD? 2. Staying away from spouse for 5-6 years for the sake of a top school, how much does it worth? 3. What would you do if u were in my place? Please help!

Hi! I wanted a feedback on the quality and reputation of the PhD program in Computer Science in University of Texas, Dallas focusing Natural Language Processing. In USNews ranking UT Dallas stands at around 70, but its research output is great in NLP as per csrankings.org. Could you shed some light on the following questions - 1. After PhD from UT Dallas , can someone get a good post doctoral position in the top institutes? 2. Is it possible to transfer to other top university after first year in UT Dallas? (I really do not have an idea about how PhD transfer works in US. Please share your advice if you have any) 3. How the students having PhD in CS from UT Dallas are regarded by professors at top tier institutes? Thanks!

For fall 2017 I applied to 10 programs. Accept - 5, Reject - 1. Waiting for the other schools. In the mean time I already declined my offer from Ohio State University and I would like to rank the other programs I got accepted to and I require help from you people. My interest area is Systems particularly mobile and embedded systems, IoT and verification of such systems. I am going to list down the universities and the factors I am considering for each school. One of the big factors is that my husband got into University of Texas, Dallas for PhD in AI/ML. That is the only offer he got till now. So, here goes the list - 1. University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign -- It is the best systems research institute according to csrankings.org and also in the top 5 in Usnews. I was interviewed by this young professor who joined last year only and I would his second PhD student. He is also providing me RAship for the first year to pursue my studies, I may have teaching responsibilities. His research interests aligns mine somewhat, but explores a comparatively new domain for me. Other senior professors whom I mentioned in my SOP did not contact me. UIUC is almost 800 miles away from Dallas, but the flight tickets are cheaper from Dallas to Chicago compared to other cities in my list. I think I am leaning towards this option because of its prestige and ranking mostly. 2. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta -- It is also somewhat similar in USnews ranking with UIUC, but its systems research rank is far below UIUC at csrankings.org. There was no interview. But a professor who is quite senior mailed me about joining his group. I also talked with his team. Their research area aligns pretty well with what I had done earlier. GaTech ensures a fellowship for 5 years without any responsibilities. Living cost is much more in Atlanta. It is also around 800 miles from Dallas. 3. University of Massachusetts, Amherst -- No interview. Admit mail contained name of three professors as my recruiting professors - one senior professors and two associate professors. The senior professor contacted me and I talked with his current student. They are working in the domain I earlier had worked in and one other research line is there also. But I am more interested in the work of one of the associate professors, but unfortunately this professor did not contact me and I dont know if I would get a position in his team. One year TA is offered. But the caveat is that Amherst is far far away from Dallas. And I was unable to compute the rough estimate of living costs here. 4. University of Pennsylvania -- Interviewed by the young assistant professor who is interested in me, along with two more senior colleagues of her to be sure of me. All of them has co-authored papers and they liked me very much (mentioned this in their email). One of these three professors have a paper with the prof at UIUC! Anyways, my admit letter says that I am going to work with the assistant professor and I have scope to explore newer areas within my research interest. I am also getting 5 years fellowship with no teaching responsibilities may be. However, the department is smaller compared to that of UIUC or GaTech and it is around 1500 miles away from Dallas. Could anyone please help me out in deciding the ranking of the universities? Thank you in advance!

Hi all, I applied to CMU - Protugal Dual PhD CS program. But have not heard back from them. There were many accepts and rejects in gradcafe though. I am unable to check the online application portal either. I have mailed them with no reply. Please let me know if anyone of you applied to this program and heard back till now. I am getting worried.

Thank you so much @TakeruK for your detailed reply. I think I will try to contact the professors about the scope of doing research with them. Meanwhile one professor from each of the programs has sent me emails saying that they would like to take me in their lab. Skype sessions are scheduled with their grad students next week. Let's see how things turn out to be.

Hello, I have been admitted to two programs without interview and I have no idea which research lab or professor took me in. I had mentioned few professor's name in my SOP. So should I mail them to find out if they want me to work with them? Is it appropriate? Help me out!