adinutzyc

I found this link interesting, but I haven't had much time actually comparing different columns. http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix

This: http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm

This was such an amusing topic. I would definitely not live with my adviser. I wouldn't live with another PhD student either though. Been doing that through my undergrad (living with an apartment mate), I think it's time for some privacy...

Romanian Shawarma. Unlike anything I have ever found in the States (and definitely unlike the traditional shawarma lol). But, if worst comes to worst, I'll take a grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomato, swiss or american cheese, mayo and mustard (the regular kind not the honey one bleah). I actually like Subway's grilled chicken too, with everything I said before plus cucumbers, pickles and olives. Yum! Or, the sandwich I've been making over and over for the past two days: grilled roasted turkey breast (you read that right, I like the meat nice and roasty), shredded cheddar cheese, mustard and lettuce, on either a tortilla or a hard roll. Plus, I love grilled cheese. Only bread and cheese. Yum. P.S. Whomever said they were confused about all the types of cheese in America: me too! Also, the bread types...

Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but has anyone decided to attend WashU? I am visiting my last school in two weeks, but I really liked WashU and I will probably end up accepting their offer. If so, what are you guys doing for housing etc.?

Also, try to see if you can gain some research experience... I don't really know how you could work this out, but publishing a paper, or presenting a poster at a conference would do wonders. You could start by contacting some professors on the NSF REU list (unless you have a job) and ask if they would need some help for the summer, explaining your circumstances and the reasons you would like to work with them. I can't guarantee they will say yes, but if they do and you do a good job, they would be able to give you a very strong recommendation. Although I was an undergraduate in a US institution, I had to do the same thing (I am an international student and we aren't really eligible for REUs), and there were more than a few people who were impressed by my willingness to devote my summer to doing research with them (I did it for free btw, because they only had the NSF money that I wasn't eligible for, so you have to have some money to invest in this)

Hey, I just discovered this: http://academic.rese...tart=1&end=100. (I hope the link is not session based) It's a ranking of institutions based on publications in Graphics. It is not necessarily accurate, but you can make it more accurate y adjusting years etc. I wish I saw it earlier, but oh well! Actually this ranking is even better: http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=7&domainID=10&last=5&start=1&end=100&continentID=2

The F1 lasts for the estimated duration of your program (am on an F1 for my undergrad right now). You can also stay in the US and work on an OPT in your field of major for another year (a little bit more for sciences)

That being said, you can apply for a visa by going to any country close to the States, so less expensive to go to (eg Mexico). The only problem I see with that is that if they deny your visa, you're sorta stuck there...

Hey, congrats on your admit, FunkMasterFlex! It's good that you don't have to wait on them/worry about not getting in! About the masters, I am not sure, this is the email I got from them (for PhD, but my guess is that it's the same program): To access the online status service, go to: http://www.guest.banner.vt.edu, and enter your Guest ID, whichis your email address, and the password you created. Applicants who have not responded to priorchances to set up a Guest Account may request a new Guest Account invitation at http://www.inviteapp.banner.vt.eduwith your email address, date of birth, and Virginia Tech ID number. But this was the email I got after my decision was posted online (I didn't actually check it, since I had previously refused their unfunded offer), so if you didn't get one then you probably don't have a decision yet...

Sign me up for that too! I am taking too many hard homework intensive classes for friggin senior year, I also have a thesis to write, and I don't feel like doing anything. Or I always do the wrong thing. It is extremely annoying, and am really mad at myself because of that.. I need to pass my final year in order to actually go to the program I want to go to, and nobody (except for myself) seems to be cutting me any slack. I really wish I could work more on my senior project, which is due at the end of April though, but homework and exams and grad school visits always get in the way. And when I have down time, I just watch TV.... Also, I was wondering whether there really was a cut-off GPA that would get programs to rescind their offers... There was none on my admission papers...

Hey, I think that if you're American / studying or working in America, you should write them off. They have an interview weekend they invite people to (they call it "Graduate Preview Weekend" but anyway) they call potential admits to. I went there and eventually didn't get funding. I actually think they already interviewed the international students too, and announced the official results some time last week, but I cannot be sure they sent out all of their admits.

An unpaid internship in a corporate setting is illegal (although not uncommon) in the United States. Only nonprofits are allowed to offer unpaid internships, legally. That being said, it is your choice, but if I were you I wouldn't take an unpaid internship in a corporate setting, especially not in New York (NYC is expensive). Again, working for a nonprofit is a different deal.

Agreed. 5 years at least, people that finish in less usually had a Masters to start with, so took less classes in the first few years.

I am not a US citizen. Just got a 25k offer from somewhere else, so maybe I was wrong about the 18k average. But I did not get accepted for graphics, anywhere! Every acceptance that I got was into the computer science department, area to be decided in your first year (although they are aware of my interests). Are there programs that accept you into a specific field? And how come I didn't apply to those (rhetoric question)?

In most of the schools I have visited there were people who were accepted that already had done the coursework for the Masters, so the question that came up, pretty often, was whether or not they had to retake all the classes they had already taken as part of the MS. The answer was that no, not all classes have to be retaken, since some of them can be transferred, but there would still be classes to be taken, since for the PhD, even at that university, you would have to take about 5 more classes than the Masters, and also some of your Masters classes will not transfer. There are some MS programs that do have a dissertation, depends whether it's a coursework-based Masters or not. In my opinion, doing an MS before the PhD in America is a waste of time, when you know you want to go for a PhD. Most PhD degrees allow you to get an MS on the way, and you do that while not paying a dime (well, you don't go to a PhD if you don't get funded, at least not in Computer Science), but actually getting paid. And by wasting time I mean finishing the same degree (PhD) in 7-8 years instead of 5-6 (it does depend on the school though). My country doesn't do PhDs directly after undergrad either, but they seem quite common here... and since I couldn't afford a Masters and a PhD was my ultimate goal, I decided to try that, and got in and got funded. Of course, coming from a foreign country (I did my undergrad here) might make it more difficult to apply directly for a PhD, when many of the activities you had/recommenders are unknown to admission committees (so I do understand).

40,000? And they say one does not go to grad school to make money...

I know where you're coming from. Maybe figuring out whether your potential adviser is known in the field / has contacts and good placements would be of help. Sometimes, the school doesn't matter as much as the adviser does.

I really wanted to live in a cooler apartment than the University owned ones, but I will probably decide to go with one of them for my first year. I was looking for an apartment that was furnished, somewhere maybe in the Clayton area, but I am in NY state right now, and it would be difficult to look for apartments/visit etc..

I got 750 too, but decided the rest of the application was good enough not to care. But there's a big difference between 750 and 660...

Agreed. I don't think I could get a 660, as long as I was trying to get an 800. Maybe a 720, but not a 660... Stanford and Rice... uhm, did you have 20 first author papers? Or something? Also, did you apply for Math? Cause although that doesn't make it better, that means you are on the wrong forum .

All of my other offers are the average (I expressed above), and all offers are 12 month assistanships. The program is actually very well ranked, so it's not like the school is trying to convince me to come by giving me money... Makes me think they value their students pretty highly. And the living expenses really aren't high where it's at, if maybe a little higher than other places! My understanding (from reading the results board) is that 27k is on the higher end, but was wondering what other people got... I know it's not about the money, and was prepared to turn down a pretty high offer if it came from a safety...

One suggestion (though I am not going to follow it, since well, I want to see which schools would accept me anyway): withdraw your applications from schools you know you wouldn't attend anyway that haven't given you a decision yet, since that way you'll have less schools to decline

Rochester Institute of Technology? Depends what your ultimate goals are, but also whether you can actually afford the second school...

The only way to know for sure is to ask, though I am not sure how one would go about doing that. Since part of it is an MA, I would suspect that you will get a Master's after two years, after which you can just quit the program. On the other hand, getting recommendations from the people you worked with that you are abandoning might be tricky. On the right side, I know one of my college professors (bare in mind I am in a different field) told me that if I want I could probably transfer to a better ranked school if I wanted, after a couple of years into my PhD (which is not really something I believe right now that I want to do, but who knows, I might change my mind). So maybe you can, but you have to consider where you'd be getting your recos from etc.