kdilks

National City (which was just recently taken over by PNC) is also an option. Pretty comparable to TCF. Which one is better really depends on whether or not TCF/PNC have locations in your home town, but if that's a push, I'd say that TCF is the marginally better option. Snow shoes are not necessary. You probably want to get boots or some kind of rugged/waterproof shoes, but they aren't absolutely necessary (you just might have to deal with wet feet when the sidewalks get slushy). The key to staying warm is layering (and wearing a hat). Columbia Interchange parkas are pretty awesome, because not only does it keep you warm in the winter, but you can split up the interior fleece and the exterior shell to use during the spring/fall. You'll probably want to wait until you get there to buy warm stuff, since stores here will have a better selection than in Texas. Do the buses run on time even in warm weather?

It can at state universities. Domestic students can change their residency during their first year to qualify for in-state tuition, whereas international students cannot, making them "more expensive". Especially with the budget crunches most schools have been going through, this makes the standards a little higher for international students.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/bells-eccentric-cafe-kalamazoo

Grew up in Michigan, went to school in Michigan, or both? I'm in my first year at Minnesota, but I went to undergrad at Michigan and grew up just outside Ann Arbor. GrandMarc seems like a pretty awesome location. Tons of stuff in your immediate vicinity (especially Town Hall Brewery...mmmm...), even more stuff on the edge of West Bank if you go down Cedar/Riverside, or even if you go across 35W towards downtown. Pretty close to the bus stop for the campus connectors and #16 (both of which stop right by the EECS building, and the #16 can take you to downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul). The District is closer to the Stadium Village commercial area. I'd imagine the two places have distinctly different feels. If you go away from campus in the direction of the District, it's all student housing/residential neighborhoods. If you go away from campus in the direction of GrandMarc, then you're getting into downtown. I don't think you'd be able to find anything cheap for parking that's remotely convenient, given that you're kind of boxed in by campus/downtown/the river.

Somebody isn't a sports fan...

I always find it amusing that you have to do stuff like this to go to school in Canada.

Ann Arbor isn't that much of an island, especially if you have a car. Most people don't even take advantage of everything there is in Ann Arbor, let alone venturing over to Ypsi (personally guilty of that...), let alone exploring Detroit/metro Detroit. Deficit of natural beauty? Compared to what, exactly?

Check to see if schools will reconsider now that they don't have to pay nearly as much for you. It's worth a shot. Ratings sheets don't come up until later tonight/tomorrow morning, IIRC.

Yup, it's up.

Way too many people are assuming that the NSF GRFP people act as a rational entity.

Personally, I think MIT/Harvard/Princeton/Berkeley/Stanford are about even as the top 5, and then Columbia/Chicago/Michigan/Yale/NYU are about even as the next 5.

Actually, I think last year both rounds were posted around 2am after the site temporarily went down for "maintenance".

Way to keep it up by continuing to throw out petty insults . I'll civilly add to the discussion and elaborate on my comment by saying that it's irresponsibly ignorant to insinuate that PCs aren't capable of running more than one program at once, and hopefully it's clear to everybody else that the opinions of people that think so should not be given a modicum of gravitas.

The only information this post adds is that you're an idiot when it comes to computers.

Closest one is Mount Brighton. Artificial one built on a trash heap, and covered with a snow machine. There's also Pike Knob in Clarkson. There's better places up in Northern Michigan, but you'd have to devote a weekend to it. There's lots of opportunities in the area for cross-country skiing. If you have any questions about hockey, I probably know the answer. You'd probably be interested in seeing the Kerrytown Farmer's market on Saturday morning. Zingerman's would also be a good idea while you're in that area. The brewpubs I usually go to are Ashley's, Arbor Brewing Company, and Grizzly Peak. Any student that applies for season tickets on time gets them. That holds for football, basketball, and hockey.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00133.htm "In our training at Penn State, one of our professors declared that high humidity makes it seem colder when the temperature is below 53 degrees F and warmer when the temperature is above 53 degrees F. This makes sense if you extrapolate the heat index chart downward to cooler temperatures. I also can attest to the cooling effect of high humidity at cool temperatures from working outside in a wide variety of humidity conditions during cold weather(including Barrow, Alaska). Because of this experience, I have always said that the most uncomfortable conditions to work in outside are with the temperature right around freezing and the relative humidity at near 100%. However, this has always been a subjective thing and not scientifically well determined." David R. Cook Atmospheric Research Section Environmental Research Division Argonne National Laboratory http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/weather/A0824520.html "Cold air with high relative humidity “feels” colder than dry air of the same temperature because high humidity in cold weather increases the conduction of heat from the body. Conversely, hot air attended by high relative humidity “feels” warmer than it actually is because of an increased conduction of heat to the body combined with a lessening of the cooling effect afforded by evaporation. On the other hand, a low relative humidity “modifies” the effect of temperature extremes on the human body. Humidity decreases with altitude. Proximity to large bodies of water and the prevalence of moisture-bearing winds favor high humidity." This corroborates with my experience of 20+ years in Ann Arbor and the most recent winter in Minneapolis. Even though Minneapolis was generally 10 degrees colder, the moisture from the Great Lakes made the two feel fairly comparable. I know my threshold for when it starts to feel cold enough so that I consider wearing long underwear, and that happened in the 10 to 12 range in Ann Arbor, and I didn't get that feeling until it was around 0 to -3 in Minneapolis.

I don't see how water evaporating is relevant at temperatures that are below freezing. If there's less humidity, it's easier for your body to warm the air entrapped by your clothes and stay warm. It also means that you get the same effective coldness in terms of heat in the air at higher temperatures.

Minneapolis' temperatures are slightly deceiving, because the fact that it's drier there (at least compared to what I'm used to in Ann Arbor) makes the really cold temperatures not as bad as you might initially think. Also, on top of Minnesota's Applied Math Department, you are also literally across the street from the Institute for Math and its Applications (http://www.ima.umn.edu/), which brings in a ton of visiting professors from around the country (and the globe). I'm not exactly sure what reputation you're referring to with CMU and applied math, I always thought their strong suits as a school were mainly engineering/comp sci.

As far as I know, the culture is not different in mathematics. Transferring programs or leaving early with a Master's is acceptable if circumstances dictate it, but starting with that as your end-plan is just unethical.

It's not an interview if you've already been accepted . Jeans, sneakers, and a polo (or probably even just a t-shirt) should be fine.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Swiss+Gear+-+IBEX+Laptop+Backpack+-+Blue/8483036.p?id=1186003258092&skuId=8483036&st=backpack At some point they had this on sale for considerably cheaper.

Obviously, you did not visit Chicago.

My offer from UCSD's math department last year included a small amount of money I would have gotten upon arrival to help defray moving expenses, but that's the only time I've ever personally of heard something like that being included in a funding package.

Another thing you might want to keep in mind is initial costs. There's a lot of stuff that you'll need right off the bat, and your stipend just slowly trickles in over time. If your apartment is unfurnished, you'll have to buy a bed, a desk, a dresser, something resembling a kitchen table, chairs, maybe a couch. If you've been eating in the cafeteria, now you'll need your own plates, bowls, silverware, pots, pans, baking sheets, measuring cups/spoon, other utensils, etc. There's also general things like a shower curtain, plunger, cleaning products, etc. that you might not have needed in the dorms but have to buy. Then you have moving costs, buying books for the semester, stocking your kitchen for the first time, student fees, etc. So that's something you want to make sure you're prepared for, and take into account before you just divide your stipend by 12 and think that's how much you'll have for monthly expenses.