TheHoff

Ouch! I have a thing against UCR after last year. I was interviewed in January and they sent my rejection for Fall '18 in October/18. If you are charging $125 to apply, at least have the decency to notify your candidates.

Hello everyone, how are you doing? I've got a big situation now and was hoping I could get some insight here I'm giving a bit of a backstory to give more context to the situation. During the school year of 2014, I studied at UCSB at loved the place, after I came home one of my dreams was to go back there. During this year's app cycle, I was invited over to an open house at CSU and I really liked the place too. I do prefer Santa Barbara over Fort Collins but the Faculty at CSU seemed really nice, friendly and my advisor have some really interesting projects going on which I would love to work on. After getting my acceptance from CSU, I email my PI at UCSB to inquire about my status and he informed me that it would be unlikely that I would be accepted since they received many strong applicants and I wouldn't make the cut. With that information in mind, I accepted CSU's offer (I stated my intent to accept the offer to the CS dept but never signed anything with the Grad School as my official transcripts still haven't made it there). Fast forward, today my PI from UCSB emailed me offering a position there as I made it out of the waitlist. Now I have this dilemma, I like both places (but SB doesn't snow), I have friends in both cities, the pay is about the same (considering the cost of life), UCSB ranks way higher but the advisor at CSU have projects that I find slightly more interesting and he seems the kind of advisor that makes his students almost part of his family. First question is, how bad would it be to change schools after the 15th. The second is, what would you do in a similar situation? Thank you very much for your help, Best, Raphael

Does that better stipend really translate into more money on your pocket by the end of the month? If location #2 pays more but the city is way more expensive than #1, it doesn't make much difference in the end. For me, money does matter, and the calculations I did to see if the stipend is good enough for me was: after paying for my fixed monthly expenses (rent, decent food, phone bills, fees, etc.,) will I have at least $500? If yes, then it is good enough for me. But if it was me, I would go to my dream program even if the stipend is lower (considering it is a decent offer, of course) because I'm certain that I would spend quite some time thinking "What if I had gone there...?"

Since this is my third time applying, I feel like I have some experience with this. Usually, there are 3 cases: You are on a waitlist and might be accepted in the near future They are going to give an offer without funding Or the university simply don't care enough to send rejection letters to everyone The last one is the worst of them all and it happened more than I would have expected. For example, UC Riverside sent my rejection on October 16th, 2018 when I applied for their Fall 2018 program! They rejected me so far in the game that the classes had already started and a new application cycle has begun.

I couldn't agree more! Charging thousands of dollars in fees is just ridiculous, it's pretty much masking a lower stipend since they are getting back part of it. Thank you for the spreadsheet, looking at it and adding the amount for the entire year it looks like CSU would rank on the top 10 (maybe even top 5 depending on the summer costs) so they are not as competitive as they claim

Hello everyone, I recently got an offer from CSU with full funding (yay!), after some research I concluded that the stipend they are offering is pretty decent comparing the cost of life in Fort Collins. The thing that is bugging me a little bit is the amount of fees per semester that is mentioned in my letter of acceptance. They used as an example that a graduate student taking 9 hours of coursework would pay $1078 in fees (emphasizing that their fees are lower than most schools). After splitting the amount of fees by the duration of a semester, I realized that the stipend is not that great anymore. So I was wondering if you wouldn`t mind sharing the amount of fees at your university so I can get a grasp of how accurate their information is. Thank you!

Congrats on your acceptance! To which program did you apply? I was accepted at the Computer Sciences and I received funding information with my acceptance letter

Excitement: Finally got my first offer today! Fully funded position at Colorado State, which I visited last weekend. The location is great (except for the cold that I don't enjoy), the projects are exciting and the faculty seems super nice persons. Worries: Will probably have to borrow money to cover the first expenses, such as fees, travel tickets, security deposits and so on since I'm now officially unemployed after finishing my Masters

If you are a meat eater and can spare some money, I definitely recommend getting a sous vide machine. Sometimes you can get one for less than $100 on Amazon and it yields great results with minimum effort

I don't know if that's common where you live but here some people tend to work as a volunteer on some Lab when they don't have anything better to do. It's not the funniest thing but it could be helpful even to improve your applications

It's not over until you receive news from the school, don't lose hope!

Yesterday I received an invitation for an on-campus interview which really gave a little bit of morale, the thing is it not my first option (not complaining, just to be clear) The thing is that I worked with a POI at UCSB during the summer of 2015 and I really enjoyed my time there. I felt like I had a great connection with the faculty, I loved the community, the city, still have friends attending there, etc. so it is my first choice. After the internship, I kept working with one of the PhD students there, we got a publication together and the professor agreed to write LoR for me (which he did). I'm thinking about writing an email to the professor asking about the status of my application but don't want to seem demanding, like if he owns me a spot there because of the LoR. My idea is something around the lines of: "I am writing because I was wondering if you could give any updates regarding my application for the Ph.D. program. I started hearing from the other schools I have applied but still no word from UCSB. I reiterate that UCSB is my top choice and knowing what is my situation there would help me better assess the offers from other schools". Any ideas on how to improve that email? Thanks!

Congrats! Hope you have a great time at your new school!

Colorado State. Thank you, I hope you get some news soon too!