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Hi everyone, I recently got admits from UCSD, UCI, UMD, UMich, all MS in CS. None comes with funding. I'm having a hard time making a decision, and really appreciate any help you could provide. For the context, I want to focus on AI/HCI for my MS CS. Because I am an international student, these are my top two priorities to decide: 1. ROI, or career prospect in the US after graduation 2. TA/RA opportunities, anything to help with the cost These are general feelings I had from reading through the internet and department websites (the only source I had), please correct me if any is wrong: - UCSD: the Design Lab, Prof. Don Norman, Scott Klemmer - UCI: Big school of CS & informatics, lots of professors, more resource (?) - UMD: Research oriented, big HCI, Good TA/RA opportunities* - UMich: Good AI, overall CS rep (I got Texas A&M and CU Boulder, but will probably choose from 4 schools above. Please add anything that comes to your mind.) Thank you very much.

Hi, suppose I ask 4 letters for the recommendation (three required, one for safety). And as expected, only 3 letters were done in deadline. The question is: Should I leave the last pending letter request in the application system? E.g., would it look bad to have one pending letter shown in the system, in spite of three completed letters? (Thus I should cancel the pending request.) Or I can leave it there just in case the last recommender submit it, and adcom would not care about that and just pick those three for reviewing anyway.