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Dear Dawnbreaker, Thank you so much for the great insight! To be honest I was a little bit turned off by Berkeley already before I saw your reply. The cost of me visiting is very high (time and money) and I need to pay for most part of the transportation (they reimburse 300usd which covers only around 60% of the travel cost) and all of the lodging (hotels are expensive there). I'm still debating whether I should cancel my visit or not. What was the other program you visited? Cornell or Columbia? Thanks!

Hi jungjalapeno. It's nice to know that you are also visiting these two programs! I guess I'll see you in both of the open houses this March

Hi OhSoSolipsistic (nice name!) thanks for the advice! I'm definitely interested in OR applications to tech/AI/Internet industry but I also want to try out healthcare, transportation, finance applications etc. so I guess east coast might be better for me? There are also plenty of opportunities in tech/AI there i assume?

Hi predoc, thanks for your advice! Yes it is definitely an important factor to consider and I will try to talk to the faculty members during the visit days. Thanks~

Hi all, I felt extremely lucky to get accepted by these three operations research programs in the US, but now am having a hard time deciding which one to choose (they are all good programs in OR, actually all my top choices...) In terms of research interests, I like discrete optimization, both theory and real-world applications. There are at least three strong faculty members doing work in discrete opt at Cornell. Berkeley seems to have only two professors working in this area, but they are both well-recognized. At Columbia, many faculty members' research interests include discrete opt but they also work on many other theory or applied areas like applied probability, business analytics etc. In terms of locations, Columbia and Berkeley definitely outperform Cornell. I haven't been to Berkeley but I heard it's a nice college town and also it's quite convenient to get to SF from there. The California weather is great too. I toured Columbia last year when I was visiting a friend there and its location is amazing. The idea of spending 5 years of PhD studies in NYC is very attractive. I actually did my undergraduate studies in the middle of no whether. So even if I choose Cornell, the location won't cause too much trouble for me (but I do want to move to somewhere bigger). Anyone has any thoughts on these three programs? Thanks a lot!