finest_engineering

Congratulations on your decision! UW is an awesome CS program and Seattle is an amazing city to live in! I would have gone there but I was too concerned about ranking at the time (I am not in CS, UW is good in my field too but not quite as good as where I am going now). It turned out that I am super happy with my professor now though so I made out well in the end. Currently the dream is to get a faculty position at UW when its all over. When you consider the age old question "how much does the MIT (stanford, caltech, etc.) name matter after graduation?", keep in mind chicken and egg problems. At top schools like Texas, CMU, etc. you will find a very disproportionate number of professors are from a handful of schools. However, this does not mean that going to those schools makes it easier to get a faculty position. It means that better (and more academia inclined) people tend to go to those schools in the first place. Being in the NBA doesn't make you a great baller- great ballers are the only ones that get to the NBA though. The same reasoning applies to fellowships (assuming you have funding). The quality of your research and your vision/perspective for future research is what will matter in the end. The committees that review your applications in the future will understand your work and will give zero brow raising for MIT over UW. If you want to actually work in software then Seattle is a better place to be than Boston. Northern Cal is probably a notch better, but that is not that far away anyways. You can get the MIT name when you are a professor there or the president of the university in a few years =).

Greedy? I am sensing some resent. Note: I haven't won a GRF so I am not as of now getting 50k/year and might not ever. My professor is not planning on growing his lab beyond what he sees as an optimal number of people. He has a lot of funding already because he is the shiznit. When I told him I won the NDSEG he congratulated me and said he would still pay me the same, that the NDSEG was my own thing. I said I might not be able to accept any money (at the time I didn't know about the 5k) and he said "thats sort of a problem because I have money to spend, but I am happy for you." It is true that most professors assume that students with fellowships don't need their funding. I have a very gregarious professor.

I am not going to say what school, but my professor has money to spend because he has a lot of funding and few students. Our work is theoretical so there isn't much spending on equipment. The school doesn't pay my check, it goes through the school but the money comes straight front sponsored projects.

The range of different projects the NSF funds is massive. When you just think about the argument that a GRF is a career boost because you wrote an app as a college senior or first year grad student and won a fellowship, it just doesn't hold water. If you agree that the NSF is clear about the criteria then what are you talkin about hombre? The NSF funds projects in virtually every subfield of every field. From the many rating sheets I have seen I see no indication that they look at a specific project within a subfield and say "sounds great but we just don't fund this". Eligibility is a different matter altogether. I still disagree with the career boost thing. The ability to sell yourself is what matters.

I think your professor is wrong. We can pick apart the reasoning here bit by it. NSF GRF funding is not indicative of researching a project that the NSF was interested in. The selection is not based on this. You should read their guidelines, they are pretty specific about what their criteria are (intellectual merit & broader impacts). NSF GRF's are not for projects they are for people. Your research proposal is more a way of illustrating who you are as a researcher than it is an actual proposal. This is all pretty clear from the guidelines. Furthermore, when you apply for NSF funding down the road, they will look at your application materials at that point. They won't say, "oh this guy had a GRF, we must be interested in funding his work!" The NDSEG guidelines do mention that they give preference to applications proposing research that defense is interested in, but even for them the application is far from a full proposal, I mean its like one page that has to discuss your background as well. I think in general the importance of these fellowships is pretty overstated on this forum. A recipient from a year ago made a good point above that he was ecstatic when he got the fellowship, but soon realized it didn't make much of a difference. The GRF makes a huge difference if it enables you to go to a school you otherwise did not have funding for. It makes some difference if it means you will get more money than you would have gotten otherwise. If you already getting just as much funding, there is a slight benefit of more flexibility choosing a research lab. This last element is pretty marginal because if you are accepted somewhere and your interests align well with a particular lab then you should usually be able to work there. The other scenario where it makes a big impact is if you have some of your own ideas you want to pursue. I applied to fellowships this year because I have some ideas that none of the professors at my school have funding for. In the mean-time though, I accepted a research assistantship and started a project I am really enjoying so the work I proposed in my apps is sort of on the backburner now anyways. I think the people on here who are saying that a GRF or NDSEG is a huge career booster are wrong. It obviously doesn't hurt, but you guys should start accepting the fact that as you progress in grad school, it is your research that you will live and die by, not any specific line on your resume. Winning one of these fellowships means you know how to sell yourself, and that will be what makes you successful, not the fellowship itself. I won an NDSEG this year and accepted it. I would recommend others with NDSEG's do the same. If something happens and you don't want need the fellowship, just let them no and retract in a timely fashion. They understand. The reasons I want the NSF at this point are that it would extend 3 years of NSDSEG out to 5 total years (as discussed here). So I knew I would be accepting the NDSEG one way or the other. I also learned today that the NSF doesn't cap supplemental payments from your school. I was getting about 20k/year in stipend already and the NDSEG forces that down to 5k/year. With the NSF I would be able to get the full 20+30 = 50k. My advisor is pretty well funded as you may have guessed. It was mentioned above that we shouldn't think of 30k/year as a lot of money. I think that is wrong. Getting paid 30k/year WITHOUT WORKING is sick. You are in school, that is something people PAY MONEY for and you are getting paid.

Congratulations on getting accepted to MIT! I do not go there but I am a grad student in EE so I will attempt to provide some advice. If there is a specific professor providing your funding at MIT and there is no guarantee from the school to provide you funding apart from that professor, then well, you have no guarantee =). You might be able to convince a different professor there to fund you. If you are a US citizen you could also apply for fellowships in your first year and get external funding that would conceivably enable you to work with a different professor. This is an outcome of the extreme selectivity of MIT. They accept a small EECS class (~100) and have a very small student:faculty ratio. So the professors are basically handpicking students in many cases. Since they have loads of applicants with perfect grades, research experience, publications, and favorable recommendations, they lean heavily on fit. All engineering departments at all schools consider departmental fit in their selection process, but more so at the most selective schools. When I started grad school I was guaranteed funding for the first year (3 semesters) as a teaching assistant. I did research with a professor for elective credit in my first semester. I liked working with him, but I didn't really have any comparison as it was my first semester in grad school. A different professor contacted me and I decided to accept funding and start working for the professor that I did not work with in my first semester. There are MAJOR differences between the two professor that I did not fully understand until after I had worked with both. I will use E for the professor I decided not to work for and J for the professor I am now working for. 1) J has been a professor for much longer and it shows in a lot of ways. He has been a professor at three top universities and is very well connected. If you plan to pursue academia your professors' connections are very important. These connections will be critical for getting postdoc/faculty positions when you finish. 2) J's funding is a lot more long-term and gives him more freedom to choose his directions. E gets funded for a lot of small projects that have more specific goals. 3) J's group is two students (including me), a visiting student, and three postdocs. E's group is one postdoc, one visiting student, and seven other students. I think the smaller, more advanced group is a lot better. 4) I meet with J for about 1.5 hours almost every week and he is on-time and not distracted during our meetings. E was difficult to meet with very consistently, and often distracted. His other students are frustrated by this also. A lot of these things are outcomes of J being a lot more established than E. I always get the impression from E that he is running a sort of factory, he has a lot of students, but they don't get a lot of individual attention and their dissertations are sort of afterthoughts based on whatever sponsored research he puts them with. He publishes A LOT and I feel like he is at the point in his career where he is trying to get his name out there. J on the other hand is very established really just enjoys what he does and focuses on quality and not quantity in his research and relationships with students and postdocs. If you want to go into finance or management when you graduate, go to MIT. UW is a great, great school but will not resonate with the suits the way MIT will. If you want to go into scientific research, choose based on professor. Your professor's brand is the one that will matter, not your school's. The quality of your research is the other major factor and that will depend on who you are personally, and again, who your professor is. You want a professor who: - knows the field you are in extremely well - is super committed to his/her students - works well with his students The third thing is one you won't hear too often, but it is important. You want a professor who will give you some freedom to pursue you own intuitions, but also knows when to reel you in and keep your from wasting time. It is very hard to gauge this third criteria before you have actually started working though. I hope this has been helpful. All I can say about changing advisers at MIT is that I know that my professor did it when he was there, but it was LIDS and not CSAIL. He told me the breakup was fine. He also told me this very important piece of advice: When it comes to your PhD, be selfish. You will be one of n students your professor will advise in his career, while you will have only ONE opportunity to do a PhD and it will in many ways define the rest of your career. It is essential that you put yourself first.

The list will be online so it is not a secret anyways. Further, the fellowship will give you more options as far as joining labs is concerned. Some professors may share an interest with you but not really have available funding in that area at the moment. The fellowship will make that relationship possible. When you start e-mailing professors about advising, you should mention the fellowship because they will be more likely to respond. If I had funding at the beginning of this year I probably would have ended up with a different adviser than I have now. I did research with a professor for credit in the fall, but towards the end of the semester he said he would only be able to fund me to do a different project from the one we had been working on and shared an interest in. I ended up going with a different guy. Now I just won an NDSEG fellowship, so I imagine I would have more funding options now then I had a few months ago if I shopped around. I am happy with where I am at though and right in the middle of some interesting research, so that is not gonna happen. On the plus side, my adviser is going to pay me the maximum allowed by NDSEG (5k/year) to supplement my stipend. He says he has "money to spend". My dad says, "well he can send me some money then!"

Those are both great schools, congratulations! No one can really answer this question for you. Here are some things to consider though: - Which school has more faculty in your area of interest and how well are those faculty known in the research community? - If you were offered financial aid, who is offering more money? Expect cost of living to be similar in those two places. Also, working as an RA really beats working as a TA. It will advance your degree faster and, well, TA'ing sucks. - Do you have friends or family near either school? It isn't as easy to make friends in grad school as it is in college, grad students are older and busier. You will make friends though,but having a network around you is a plus. - Both those places will have very hot summers, but Maryland has a lot colder winter. - GaTech is ranked a little higher across the board. - GaTech is an enormous school. Maryland CS/Engineering is a lot smaller. Size is good if you are not sure what faculty member or research area you want yet because you will have a lot of options. Size is annoying because you are relatively insignificant. - Maryland is not as centrally located as GaTech. GaTech is right in the middle of Atlanta. College Park is sort of in between Washington, Baltimore, and Silver Springs. Both would be classified as suburban campuses, but GaTech is more urban. - Athletics are gonna be pretty similar, both are strong ACC schools. Most people would probably lean towards GaTech, as it has a little bit better reputation. Some of the more personal issues (money, professors) might sway you to college park.

The school you put in as your desired graduate institution makes no difference. If you put MIT or something, they know that you are probably not going to get in. In a field like EE/CS, around 1:10 get NSF fellowships and around 1:25 get into MIT. So it does not boost your app to put that there. You should put whatever your top choice is though. The only way you could hurt yourself is: - a non-US institution - an institution that does not offer doctoral degrees in your field

I called up mit eecs grad admissions and my request actually moved up the chain 3 times. It was funny. The first lady said they don't change the decision once its made, then she asked me what fellowship and I said ndseg and she said hold on let me talk to my boss. Same thing happened with the next lady, finally the third person said no. I e-mailed the professor there who had asked a professor of mine about me and has similar research interests to my own. She didn't respond to my e-mail in the past so I won't be shocked if she doesn't again. Doesn't look like the NSF decisions are coming today.

I got the NDSEG. I am not sure who to e-mail though. The admissions office? I know a specific professor looked at my app (I mentioned her in my app). She had contacted a professor of mine. He said positive things (I know, I was CC'd), but obviously it wasn't enough. Should i e-mail her?

Can anyone else here verify that this happens? I am very intrigued by trying this. However, I want to avoid burning any bridges.

Some notes for everyone: The NSF fellowships are random as hell. Last year I was not even an honorable mention and a friend of mine got it who was not a very strong student at all. If you are thinking you have a good chance based on grades and GRE's, forget it. Your essay is virtually all that matters and being a female or minority helps a lot too. Also, last year they posted the entire list of awardees and honorable mentions online before they notified me personally. I had to browse through the whole list and search for my name (yes I used crtl-f) and then feel dejected that it wasn't there. They sent me the official reject on April 2nd 2008. This year I reapplied to the NSF, and also added the Hertz and NDSEG. I was already getting funding from my professor as a RA for as long as I need it. I made it to the final round of the Hertz process (as I have mentioned here previously) and didn't end up winning. Going on two interviews and getting nothing sucks. I won the NDSEG fellowship on Tuesday, which was an awesome feeling after getting rejected from all 3 of my schools (MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, all EE). I am finishing up my masters at a top 10 school so I am not completely sweating it though. The NSF would be icing on the cake now for me, the main difference is that I could defer the NSF funding so I would have 5 total years instead of 3. I was making around 20k/year as an RA. Now I will make ~31k/year from the NDSEG, my adviser also wants to supplement the NDSEG with the max allowable which is 5k/year. The NDSEG also pays for tuition+FEES, I currently have to pay about 1k/year in mandatory fees even though my tuition is covered. Lastly, the NDSEG pays 1k/year extra for health insurance. So I am making (for the next 3 years), 18k/year more then I was as an RA. The moral of the story is apply for these freaking fellowships as many times as they will let you, even if you have some funding (provided it is less). Writing essays and asking for recs over and over sucks but I feel like it is worth the extra $54,000 over the next three years. I am thinking of stretching my masters out until next spring so I can publish more on my MS thesis research and reevaluate how I feel about doing my PhD at my current school vs. somewhere else, perhaps even trying my hand at the big guns who just rejected me, this time with the funding to dangle over their heads though. I really like my MS topic so I am in no real hurry to abandon it. With my financial situation so good (I had a full-ride for undergrad so I have no debt), I can take my time for my PhD and I sort of feel like I want to start my PhD after gaining a lot of maturity from a very serious research experience as an MS. Getting the additional years of funding from the NSF would make this decision even easier. So yeah, keep refreshing the NSF page and your e-mail endlessly, it is quite close!

Pay very close attention to the nature of the MS acceptance. I started an MS program this year, but I was already sort of 'pre-admitted' for the PhD program. My funding was only guaranteed for one year (enough to finish a masters w/o research) . However, I was allowed to take the PhD written exam and gain PhD status. I was also eligible to receive a research assistantship. I have since done this. Although I have not taken the exam and am still technically an 'MS' student, I have a research assistantship and my professor is committed to funding me through my PhD. A lot of schools accept MS students who are not eligible to take the PhD exam and are almost never funded. These students are on a completely different track from the PhD's and the ability to make the switch is not guaranteed and may be somewhat out of your hands. Make sure you give the necessary thought to this sort of thing. Figure $50,000 to earn an MS like this.. Paying nothing for your degree and actually getting paid instead is obviously a lot better.

chuck_b: If you did well on the GRE you probably should have submitted your scores anyways and just called them about it. They don't require GRE scores though. You want to know whether not submitting GRE scores will hurt you... Last year, when I applied to the GRFP, I had submitted GRE scores. However, ETS (the GRE people) screwed up my record and by the time they fixed the issue the NSF had already reviewed my application. I was a little upset about it because I did well on the GRE. I don't think it would have mattered though. My application was reviewed by two people ( although I understand it is supposed to be three, sort of weird ) and one gave me a 4 for intellectual merit and a 4 for broader impacts, and the other gave me a 5 for intellectual merit and a 2 for broader impacts. I don't think any GRE score would have alleviated the broader impacts '2' that most certainly killed my chances. Anyhow, I don't think the GRE matters much, if you are extremely borderline then they might take it into account, but it is all about the essays. As for not getting into MIT, the NSF doesn't know you didn't get in and if you get the fellowship you can use it wherever you did get in. To the above who said they delay in reporting because of admissions.. What is your source for this? I don't think the date alone is suggestive of this.. they are probably just genuinely slow. =)

Basic theory and lab courses in EE is all the background you will need. If you are interested in pursuing your PhD in the materials/solid state/devices realm, you will be exposed to all three major approaches in this field while you are in grad school. These are (1) computer simulation, (2) mathematical theory, and (3) 'wet' experimentation. You may be focused on one of these approaches in particular, or you might be focused on an application area and use all three approaches regularly to accomplish your goals. Your first year in grad school will probably advance your understanding A LOT. You sound particularly worried about learning the experimental techniques. Don't be. Labs never expect students to come in already knowing how to use the advanced equipment in their facilities. Some students have used similar equipment at other places, but the techniques don't always transfer. Scanning Electron Microscopes and Deep Reactive Ion Etching machines (among other gear) are VERY expensive. Labs don't let anyone off the street jump on one of these machines as they are very expensive to fix if broken. As such, they always have training programs for all the different equipment. These programs will be more of a crash course then what you are used to from lab courses in college where you write reports after every little thing you learn how to do. Other people in your lab will help you out. A lot of the experimental work is very monotonous so it will be worthwhile to train you and have you do grunt work for a few semesters while you perfect your craft, learn more in your courses, and develop some ideas. Good Luck!

================================================================ Grad Institution: Top 10 engineering program (1st year MS in EE) Undergrad Institution: Small private college, reputation as one of the top/hardest engineering programs in the country. Major(s):ECE Minor(s): none (Math as an MS minor) GPA in Major:3.95 Overall GPA:3.94 Length of Degree: 4 Position in Class: 2nd out of 125 Type of Student: Domestic Male GRE Scores: Q: 800 (94%) V: 630 (90%) W: 5.5 (88%) Research Experience: One summer REU in nanotech at a different school led to a top conference pub. 4th author and an undergrad pub as 1st author, One year senior project in wireless comm. paper submitted to undergrad conf. and won an award, 1.5 years in research department at a capital mgmt firm. During my first semester doing my MS I did a first author paper (independent research with a professor advising) which is soon to be submitted (I listed it as such in my apps). Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Summa Cum Laude, top EE prize at graduation, award for paper at undergrad conference, deans list every semester, Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Worked at a .com startup for a summer, volunteered as a math tutor at a high school, was the TA for the main grad course in my area last semester Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Currently a finalist (one of 50 out of 550 applicants) for the Hertz fellowship (informed schools before I had heard any decisions from them) Applying for PhD at: MIT (rejected), Berkeley/Stanford (no decision yet, but probably rejected based on timing). All EE/EECS Lastly, I had a really good essay that discussed my research, emphasizing my most recent independent work and highlighted faculty at the school who I aligned well with. So those of you out there who think that stats are real important, take a look at me and think again. I have excellent grades, recs, test scores, research experience, and more and I seem to be getting rejected from 'the big three' for the second year in a row. I was upset for a while about what happened (or is about to) this year because I really feel like my application is nearly flawless. I am not sweating it anymore though. My new plan is to spend another year on my masters at my current school, where I am actually quite happy. I have several ideas for a PhD topic but I am not sure what I want to do yet. This is one of the reasons I applied around again this year despite being in a top program where I can continue to my PhD- I wanted options because I felt uncertain. For this reason I think it is best to spend another year on my masters now that all the courses are pretty much done. Now I can focus fully on research which has three benefits: 1) When I start my PhD I will be able to choose a path from a very informed perspective 2) having done two different, significant projects in grad school for PhD and Masters will be helpful when marketing myself for faculty positions down the road (they want to see multiple possible funding sources) 3) I can potentially apply to PhD programs again next year if I still don't feel certain about staying put. I will have my substantial MS work as the centerpiece of my app next year and hopefully that could move me up another notch... So my advice to you is RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH. It is all they care about. Many with lesser stats than me have gotten in to top schools. Grades are like a box that the school will check off if you did well. All the countless hours I spent studying hard so I would have a 3.94 instead of a 3.85 were worthless at this point. I don't feel they were truly worthless because I think I know my field better than the next guy, but the grad schools don't really care. So do a lot of research, it isn't a check box.

When Stanford sends out their rejections they will also send out three types of letters: 1) plain rejection 2) waitlist for MS/PhD program but accepted to MS-only program 3) rejected from MS/PhD but accepted to MS-only program Don't get your hopes up too high if you get letter #2, like other waitlists, they keep A LOT more people on the waitlist then they will ever actually admit so that in the rare event that they get turned down by a large number of admits, they have students to accept. The chances of getting funding in the MS-only program are approximately zero. This is generally the case with MS programs that do not explicitly lead to a PhD. There are a few exceptions though, that is why you should apply widely!

pros: The PhD has some real diminishing returns. You can finish your masters in 1-2 years and that makes a big difference over a BS and you will learn A LOT of useful stuff and really improve your general knowledge of your field. The extra 3-5 years you spend on getting a PhD will focus your attention on a very narrow topic. The PhD is only worth it if you really want to do it and want to go into research. Remember, these are your best years, you are young and ambitious. If you want to take risks in business and make it big, don't waste your life in grad school. cons: Your professor might not like it, whether he will hold a grudge depends on his personality and how misleading you were in the first place. It's your life though. Be selfish.

That may or may not be true. Most students enter these programs immediately following earning their BS. In this case, the students eventual subarea may change. It is very common for a student to get into a grad school in one subarea and then change to another, even before actually arriving at school. I am not aware of any school that does not allow this (within same department that is). You will be required to take courses in several different areas while at school, many students take courses from different areas early on in order to help them decide which area they want to continue on in. Don't over-think it too much dude. You will either get in or you won't, you will not be able to figure out much before you hear from them. You have gotten into some great schools already.. Start thinking about which school that you have gotten into you would go to, if you get in off of a waitlist, then think about those ones.

A family friend of mine, Steven Gortler, is a computer graphics professor at Harvard. I don't know much about computer graphics because I am in control theory, but I know Gortler is amazing. Won SIGGRAPH award in 2002. Keep in mind that only one professor matters at the school you end up going to -> YOUR PROFESSOR. Also the person who matters the most to what you can do with your research is YOU.

please do tell =)

Dropping out of a PhD program after getting a masters is pretty common. Your advisor probably won't like it, but that doesn't mean he/she won't like you anymore. A lot of professors are pretty cool and realize that your life doesn't revolve around them. If you have a change of heart about the PhD, a lot of professors will understand and you can potentially maintain a good relationship with them. You do take a chance on that to some extent though. As was mentioned above, most don't really care because they have their MS and can go get a job and don't have to worry about school anymore. I am aware of three reasons that people drop out of PhD programs with a Masters: 1) They only intend to get a Masters in the first place and apply to PhD programs just to get better funding options. 2) They get a better idea of what getting a PhD is all about and decide it isn't for them. As an undergrad you are exposed to a wide range of ideas that are well understood. In grad school you get very narrowly focused on ideas that are not that well understood. You are very commonly asking yourself (Do I care about this? Do I really want to put a big stamp on my career tying me to this work?) 3) They fail the PhD examinations and are forced to leave with their Masters. A buddy of mine is leaving Berkeley EECS with a Masters at the end of the semester despite being accepted and funded as a PhD student from day one. I am a first year grad student at a top 10 EE program now and I was taken on for an RA'ship under the pretenses that I would do a PhD with the guy. This year I re-applied to the few schools I didn't get into last year (haven't heard anything yet- obviously worried about it). My advisor got a call from one of those schools and subsequently summoned me to his office. I was scared but he was totally cool about it. He told me he left the guy he did his Masters with and did his PhD with someone else. Anyhow it looks like I won't be leaving anyways unless a miracle occurs.

Why wouldn't you apply to some safeties?? I just don't understand that. Some places might have rolling admissions so you should probably try searching around for one of those. Does anyone here know of any schools with rolling admissions, or admissions for starting in Spring? You should just keep looking for a job, its tough right now but you just have to keep at it. Stay in touch with professors from your current school. Tell them about your situation and try to convince one to let you continue to do research as a volunteer. I do not recommend that you just do the volunteer research and not look for a job though. Volunteering with a prof. won't keep you busy enough to generate the sort of pop you want for you applications next year if you want to re-apply. Professors are busy and have their 'real' grad students to worry about. Someone at your stage who can't just work on a research project alone for months and requires more handholding by a prof will go through stretches of inactivity as a volunteer. This is why I recommend you get the job and have the research supplement the job. You mentioned you felt the GRE severely hurt your chances. The deal with the GRE is this: The schools (particularly the top ones) don't rely on it much. They are much more concerned with your research experience and how well you express that experience in your statement as well as how you fit into the department in terms of interests. Grades and GREs can bolster but are not the foundation of an application. You should think of the GRE as a checkbox. You don't have to kill the GRE to get in, but you don't want to raise any red flags. I have seen people get into all of the top programs with as low as a 4.0/6.0 writing score on the GRE. This should tell you that you have to really bomb the GRE for anyone to really care. Also, schools use the GRE to make sure foreign applicants have good enough english to not bomb the test. If you think you REALLY bombed the GRE, take it again. If you just didn't do amazingly, then it isn't what is hurting your chances.

They couldn't have because it hasn't been printed yet, and they certainly couldn't have found my CV there. I applied for EE, not CS. However, you may have noticed that at many schools the EE and CS departments are a single unit. The work I do is not really EE or CS, but rather control systems so make of it what you will. As far as EE departments doing game theory.. I know of professors in EE deparments at all of the following schools that do game theory: MIT, Stanford, Georgia Tech, CalTech, there are others but I don't want to look them all up for you. Keep in mind 'game theory' isn't like 'architecture' (two words you'll see thrown around these forums). One is a tool and the other is an application area.