cardinal

For those waiting in the US, I just got my letter this morning in California. Looks like it was postmarked March 25th and sent via USPS in Buffalo.

It doesn't work that way. Stanford MS students have to apply to the PhD program like everybody else. That is, being an MS student hardly makes one a shoe-in for the PhD program. PhD students are required to TA the equivalent of one full quarter, whereas it takes around 20 quarters to complete the degree. Furthermore, there are a _lot_ of CS courses on offer at Stanford. The undergrad body may be smallish, but there are lots of graduate students (both MS and PhD) interested in courses and there are tons of upper year offerings. That said, I've seen a lot of MS students TAing, and quite a few doing RAships. It doesn't seem _that_ difficult to do, but they probably don't guarantee anything. Huh? One should do a PhD if they want to. If they don't, then this seems like bad advice. One could use a PhD program as a way of getting a "free" masters, but the program requirements will likely differ substantially. They'd probably take fewer courses, would be expected to primarily engage in research, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes longer on average to get a research-based MS on the way to a PhD than to do a class-based "professional" masters degree. I think that "futureGrad" should ask him or herself what they want to do. The two options are actually substantially different.

Disclaimer: As a Stanford CS PhD student, I'm going to be a bit biased. Plus I don't pay, so I can't fully appreciate your situation. You may want to keep in mind a few points: First, Stanford is about connections. Students here have unbelievable opportunities for internships and jobs in the area. The department actually has a handful of full time staff that maintain industry connections (the "Computer Forum"). They set up fancy job fairs and constantly spam us (BS, MS and PhD) with interviews, internship possibilities, etc. Not to mention, many Profs are either formally involved with companies here, or have strong connections. Having come from a state school well outside of Silicon Valley that offered near-zero job hunting help, this seems pretty amazing to me. Princeton may well have good connections too, but they're not exactly close to where the action is. In short, if your dream is to work for a company out here, Stanford could be a really nice in. Second, in the Bay Area you could probably make $15k+ during the summer and another $7-8k per quarter if you get TA or RAships. It seems like a fair number of MS students do TAships and PhDs generally don't do any more than they have to, so you may be able to bank on that. In all, if you work summers and TA one quarter out of the year, you could offset the cost significantly. As far as reputation goes, Princeton is way up there, so I wouldn't make a decision based on name alone, especially for a masters. If you have money to burn, or want to live in the Bay Area and make use of the industry ties here, then it might be worth the price. If that's not the case, then it's probably hard to argue for the $50-100k differential. You'll have fantastic educational opportunities whatever school you choose, so don't sweat it too much.

Yeah. Furthermore, why do they insist on online applications that must be submitted physically?! Maybe NSERC wants to keep Canada Post busy.