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exp_jw

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  1. exp_jw

    Los Angeles, CA

    Yes, it sounds like all of you will have sufficient funding. A stipend of $16,000 will be very tight, especially if that is for 12 months. If it is for 9 months and you get some supplemental income during the summer, you will have some more breathing room. For everyone else, it sounds like you have enough funding to live comfortably. For the person with $16k: You can share a 1br apt with someone for ~$700/month (utilities included) or possibly less if you are lucky. Groceries will be approx $30-50/wk. You probably won't be able to afford a car here on your stipend, but the bus system in west LA is good and you can either get a monthly pass, pay $0.25/ride, or live near enough to campus to walk/bike. Plenty of people ride the bus or bike to campus from the surrounding areas. Everyone concerned about transportation options might find this helpful: http://map.ais.ucla.edu/portal/site/UCL ... 6643a4RCRD For the people with a larger stipends: you should be able to afford a place in Weyburn Terrace for ~$1000/month (including utilities). Alternatively, you could live in University apartments south (slightly cheaper, but further away and not as nice. A direct shuttle runs between these places and campus quite often). Having a car will make your budget a lot tighter (gas is nearly $4/gallon, a parking spot in Weyburn Terrace is about $1000/year, insurance is expensive, etc.). I would recommend going the first year without a car and getting one after that if you find it necessary. Hope this helps.
  2. Hi tuckie, I am an EE PhD student at UCLA. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you haven't been accepted yet, you are probably rejected or on a wait list. The faculty meeting to review applications was several weeks ago and the accepted grad open house was on Feb 29th. That being said, I think that it is a bad sign if you haven't received an acceptance yet. I don't think it would hurt to email the professor. The worst they can do is not respond.
  3. Let me preface this by saying that I am an EE grad student at UCLA, so I might be a little biased. First, I think that you have a slight misconception about how long it takes to get an MS at UCLA. You can do it in only 1 year, just like at Cornell. I think that the confusion is probably coming from you reading somewhere about the requirement that all MS requirements have to be completed within 2 years of beginning the MS program. This doesn't mean that it takes 2 years, it means that your time here is upper bounded by 2 years (in the MS program). All of the PhD students in my research group always finish their MS in 1 year. At UCLA, the MS is a requirement for a PhD, because there is only a small coursework requirement for the PhD program itself. Basically it is the same as a MS/PhD program or PhD program (without MS) at any other school, just by a different name. I don't know if you are planning on pursuing a PhD or not, so i won't mention anything else about this. Other than that, LA is awesome. It has great weather, lots of things going on, and it is a really exciting place to be. The UCLA area is really nice and the campus is gorgeous. It depends on what you are interested in, but I would highly recommend UCLA.
  4. exp_jw

    Los Angeles, CA

    Hi tehkatt, I am a grad student living in Weyburn terrace right now. The bad news: Unfortunately, from what I have gathered, if you don't have a guaranteed housing slot, your chances of getting housing here are pretty darn slim (especially if you want a studio, which I feel is the better option). I heard of one person getting in by a (mutual) roommate request with someone who DID have a guaranteed slot. That is the only person that I know of that got a housing slot here that didn't have a guaranteed space. If you have that option, I would exercise it. I don't claim to know everyone who lives in Weyburn Terrace though, so there may be some lucky lottery winners among us. Also, it probably changes slightly from year to year. The good news: Weyburn Terrace is super nice and quite a bit cheaper than any comparable housing in the area. Cable, internet, utilities, etc. are all included as one package deal. If you want to find a cheaper place, you are going to pay for it in other ways like hour long commutes (the shuttle from university apartments south - the other grad housing - can take up to an hour depending on traffic and it is only 5 miles away), sharing a bedroom, living in a dumpy place/neighborhood, etc. I walk from Weyburn to the center of campus daily and it takes about 15 minutes if you walk at a quick (but not uncomfortably quick) pace. You can also take the campus shuttle (it takes about 5 minutes longer than walking if you are going to mid-campus). I take it on days when I am feeling lazy. Other than that, UCLA is a pretty awesome place. Grad student life is a lot of fun (albeit busy). If anyone has any questions, feel free to send me a message and I will answer them to the best of my ability. Note that it is the last week of the quarter, so don't feel bad if I don't get back to you immediately.
  5. Update on my applications for all those interested (EE applicant): Admitted: UCLA MS/PHD (full fellowship + nice stipend), UIUC MS/PHD (full funding with 20k/year stipend for RA), Stanford (MS Only) Rejected: Princeton, MIT Waiting: Caltech I think that I am going to choose UCLA... I am really excited about the professor I get to work with, the campus is beautiful, and California weather is awesome. I'd be interested to hear everyone else's final decisions. Good luck to everyone choosing.
  6. Update on my applications for all those interested (EE applicant): Admitted: UIUC MS/PHD (full funding with 20k/year stipend for RA), Stanford MS Only (I applied for MS/PHD... so most likely no aid), UCLA MS/PHD (nominated for fellowship) Rejected: Princeton, MIT Waiting: Caltech (not holding my breath)
  7. Regarding Stanford's funding offers being made after March 11: this may be the general case, but I just wanted to point out that someone received admission to Stanford with funding for the first year on 2/27.
  8. I applied to comm theory and signal processing, from what I've seen browsing older materials in this forum and others, Caltech is almost impossible to get into. It seems like they send out their rejections at the beginning of April... Talk about inconvenient.
  9. Okay, haven't posted for a while, but here is my results so far: Accepted: UCLA, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign Rejected: Princeton, MIT Waiting: Caltech, Stanford
  10. I called and asked (I got rejected). Apparently they are now giving out decisions over the phone, so if anyone else is still hopeful, call and find out.
  11. I don't know if we should put too much stock in the theory that this year's dates will be the same as last year's. The decision dates are a result of many variables: when the admissions committee happens to meet, what faculty schedules are like, etc. It seems to me that we are likely to see a number of admissions in the upcoming week. I am actually doubting if any admissions decisions were sent out yet. With MIT being one of the most applied to programs, at least someone on this site would have heard of something by now. If we can learn anything from the results last year, it is that when the first round of admits goes out, we will see some of them posted on the results board (on this site or elsewhere). I did notice that one person was admitted for EE on 2/14 this year and was notified by phone. Notification by phone doesn't seem to be the norm, so this person may have been notified a little earlier than most people because of some special circumstance. For example by a potential advisor, by someone else that they were corresponding with, or maybe they were an MIT undergrad. Also, I think that sometimes MIT will wait until results for competitive fellowships (NSF, NDSEG, etc.) are posted before they will offer admission to some candidates (hence the admit at the end of March last year).
  12. Yup, it looks as though we are just going to have to keep waiting. Logic would say that we should have found out by now, but the fact that nobody has posted an MIT EE admit on the results page (I am pretty sure that we have established that the EECS posts were CS admissions), tells me that we are probably still in the running. I mean, really, the department has over 850 graduate students. Lets assume that they each year 200 new graduate students join EECS, (worst case: 100 EE and 100 CS - In reality, I think that EE is a larger proportion). This means that they will offer admission to at least 400 students (200 EE and 200 CS) because 50 percent will not take their offer for funding reasons or to go to another school (I read this 50% statistic somewhere else). The chances of NOT ONE of the >200 EE admitted students posting their results here, on yuster, or anywhere else that any of us is watching is pretty slim. Especially considering the fact that most graduate programs out there are significantly smaller than this and we are seeing them post results on the board (I think I saw a post about a department with 8 slots). Additionally, the lack of a straight answer from the MIT office on the phone (as described by the people who called) seems to indicate that admissions haven't gone out yet. Let the tension resume next week... Or, who knows, maybe they work on Saturdays... Well, enough speculating. Although this situation is complex, we need to remember that only part of what we know is real and the rest is purely imaginary. (Get it... complex, real, imaginary.... Okay, sorry for the bad joke. It was a poor attempt at some EE humor)
  13. Well, as somebody said earlier, today is probably the day that most of the acceptances go out. With next Wednesday being the official date to RSVP by, and Monday being a holiday, we will most likely know our fate by close of business today. 5.5 hours and counting.... (or 6.5 if they work late on a Friday - unlikely). Also, I can see how it might be beneficial for them to send out the admissions decisions on a Friday evening; then they can avoid the inevitable flurry of questions (at least until next Tuesday) that is likely to follow the mailing of the results. One way or another, in 5.5 hours, a beer is going to sound real good... Good luck!
  14. Madmax, out of curiosity, what was the "so and so date" that they told you? (I am assuming that you called MIT)
  15. Okay, not to be too analytical, but let's look at the situation... The one person who posted that they were admitted by MIT, Berkeley, and Stanford was admitted for CS (there has been no Stanford EE acceptances or rejections posted, and this person is obviously posting his/her results). This leads me to believe that the other 1 or 2 MIT admissions were probably also CS because they were posted at approximately the same time. This would confirm my earlier statement that the EECS acceptances were probably CS in reality. Next, we probably aren't the only people on this site who are interested in the EE program at MIT (and even though we are nervous, there will probably be at least one of us that gets accepted - I imagine that most of the students reading this are of pretty high caliber). We will probably see more than the 1 or 2 scattered responses when the bulk of the acceptances/rejections go out. Additionally, I don't think that we should focus on that date of the 21st too much (although it does seem like a good indicator), because the page was probably created by the person who has their hands in the organizing of the open house and not the people who are making the real decisions about admissions. I am sure that there will be several admissions on or after the 21st, and they will just have to make travel arrangements as soon as they can. I know that this may sound optimistic, but I think that we shouldn't start losing too much sleep... At least not until the date of the open house starts to get REALLY close.
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