tragicomix

As Aaron and Mal83, I don't think you need to do the "look how great I am" thing. My statements consisted mostly of factual statements like the following:

Hey all, I''m from India and I'm joining the EE dept this fall. I've been allotted a room in the new graduate college. I'm a bit worried about the weather in Princeton because I have don't have any experience living in a "cold" place. The last time I had to experience slightly cold weather was when I spent a summer in Sweden. This was an unmitigated disaster weather-wise because I assumed a Swedish summer would be somewhat similar to an Indian summer. In fact, it was far colder than the winters that I was used to!

Thanks for all the great replies. Two things that did sway my decision were: (1) a longer (conditional) guarantee of support and (2) the presence of a few alumni (who're doing really well and working in the same area as me) from my current university at the school that I chose to go to. I told the POI these two things in my reply. Hopefully, he'll take it in the right spirit.

Depends on what your goals are. In the areas of EE and CS that I'm familiar with ending up with fewer publications keeps in you in the running for industry jobs but academic jobs will be difficult to find. One thing you want to make sure is that your advisor can help you publish as many papers as you need to achieve your goals for graduate study. I'd suggest talking to his students and other students at the same university to make sure this will be the case.

I declined an offer from a school yesterday. I was quite interested in their program, but I also got an offer from a department that seemed be a better fit. As a nice bonus, this department was ranked higher and also made me a better funding offer. Now, my POI at the school I declined is asking me why. Just saying they were a better fit seems a bit vague. I'd rather not point to the higher ranking or better funding offer either. What's a vague way of saying that "it's me not you!"?

This story starts with me getting an accept at a certain school where I was really interested in working with Prof. X. As soon as I got the accept, I e-mailed Prof. X asking him if he'd be taking on students and whether he'd be willing to consider advising me. I didn't get a reply for two weeks. After this I sent him a reminder upon which he replied saying that he was happy to hear I was admitted, and he was anticipating taking on some students. However, he said he doesn't commit to advising any students before meeting them in person. In the meantime I was contacted by Prof. Y who showed a lot of interested in advising me. Now, my preferences at this university are Prof. X, followed by Prof. Z followed by Prof. Y. I really like Prof. Z's work but I was missing some background. So, I contacted Prof. Z to know if that was gonna be a problem. He replied saying that it wasn't a problem at all. Since it seemed like I had a shot at working with Prof. X, and if that didn't work out, I also had reasonable "backup plans" in Prof. Z and Prof. Y, and this is a really great university and they made me a fantastic funding offer, I accepted. Since Prof. Y had called me and answered a lot of general questions I had about the program, I let him know that I was accepting the offer. He replied saying he was really happy to hear this and now introduced a new actor, Prof. U to the e-mail thread! So a quick summary of the situation is like this, ordered by my interest in these professors: Prof. X - has told me he doesn't commit to anyone before meeting them.Prof. Z - I don't have the perfect background for his work, but he seems positive.Prof. Y - I'm somewhat interested in his work, but he seems really interested in me.Prof. U - Not sure where he entered the picture from, because I don't really have the background for his work and am not that interested in it either. My question is, should I now contact Prof. X and ask him how I should prepare for the start of grad school this Fall? I want to do this for two reasons - (1) to show that I'm really interested in working with him and (2) do whatever preparatory work he suggests so that I can maximize my chance of working with him. Is this a good idea or does it come off sounding desperate? Any other suggestions on how I can maximize my chances of working with Prof. X or Prof. Z without getting into a situation where I commit to working with Prof. Z (thereby precluding any chance of working with Prof. X)?

As far as I know, no one at TAMU does traditional computer architecture - there may be a few professors working on embedded systems and such - which are somewhat related to computer architecture. Purdue on the other hand has some very good professors working in this area. I think your decision should be based on how interested you are in computer architecture and what your career goals are.

I'm looking at the NRC rankings in ECE and it seems that Princeton is a little ahead of UIUC in these.Having said that, I wouldn't put too much trust into any of these rankings. Go for where you think you'll be able to do better work. It's your work at the end of the PhD that matters more than anything else.

I think asking the school or department for more details about the offer would be the first step.

I know exactly what you mean. I had to send a rejection e-mail to one of my POIs yesterday and it was simultaneously terrifying and heartbreaking. I have four more of these to send out and I'm feeling terrible about it.

Somewhat luckily, I've been funded with a TA at this particular school so this is not a problem. I do agree, this would have been a bit messy if I'd been offered a RA. I think this is the case in this school as well. However, who I'll get a chance to work with will influence whether I want to go to this school, or choose another where I know for sure who I'll be working with. This is why I want to contact a few professors now and get an idea of who is likely to want to advise me. I do have an idea of who I want to choose at each university. But the problem I'm worried about is what if I end up at University 1 and don't get professor A and then realize that in retrospect it would have been better to go to University 2 to work with Prof. B.

Right, the professor didn't commit to anything. Thanks, neuropsych76. What you're sayings make sense to me.

Before I decided to apply I had e-mailed a professor at a certain university. The professor replied telling me that he'd take a look at my application and also that he couldn't say anything more. I've been accepted by this university and I am seriously considering going. However, I'm now thinking that I'd rather work a different professor at that university. I hadn't contacted this professor, but I did mention mention him and his research in my statement. Both professors work in the same area, but have slightly different specializations. I'm now wondering if it would be considered bad form to talk to the second professor now and ask him if he'd consider advising me. Would this be considered unprofessional behavior?

Thanks, jaxzwolf! To be honest, this is my first choice university if I get a chance to work this particular professor. Hopefully, he'll show some interest in my application. If not, I have a tough decision coming up soon.

I got accepted into a program that I really liked. So the day after I got the e-mail I mailed one of my POIs over there asking whether (1) he'd be taking on any new students and (2) whether he'd be willing to consider advising me. It's been exactly a week now and I still haven't received any response. Does this just mean he's not interested and that I should stop wasting his time? If not, is it ok to send him a reminder now (or maybe after a few more days)? What should I say in the e-mail? "Did you miss this e-mail?" is a bit rude, right? Somehow getting in then not receiving a response like this feels worse than getting rejected.

What I'd do is contact the professor and ask him if he can take some time out to talk with you on the phone. When you get him on the phone, you can ask him what he's looking for in a new student, what projects he expects you to work on, what background, knowledge and experience you need to have and stuff like that. If all that looks good, then your problem is solved. If it doesn't, then you can let the professor know what your concerns are and I think there is a pretty good chance he'll try to address them.

Anyone have any advice on what the next step is after receiving a reply from the POI? My POI has indicated that he'd be willing to do a semester long independent study with me, and if that goes well he'll advise me. After this, I asked him a few questions about his style of work, and expectations from grad students etc. and got reasonable answers. I don't want to commit to joining the program just yet, but it's definitely something I'm considering, so I'm not sure how I should word my reply to the prof. Did I make a mistake by talking to prof before I was sure of going to the university?

Thanks, Strangefox! I just hope that my relationship with X isn't soured by this incident. I'm pretty sure we'll run into each other in the future ...

The background for this is as follows. At the beginning of the application cycle, I contacted of my POIs (lets call her X) at a certain school (lets call it A) and talked about her research. She was very nice throughout the application process and always made it clear that she would be very happy to have me come to A. When we first chatted at the beginning of the application cycle, she'd asked me where her university figured in my priorities. I told her that I was applying to 11 universities and that A was near the middle of that list. I talked to her again a few weeks ago and she again asked me the same question. I reiterated that A was near the middle of the list of universities that I'd applied to. I also told her that I liked the group and that a professor at my university had said good things about it. At that point I had only one acceptance from a university that was more or less as attractive to me as A and I told her about that acceptance. My current situation is that I've been accepted to 2 out of the top 4 in my list, so it is unlikely that I will accept the offer from school A. However, I haven't yet decided where to go because I still need to hear from the other 2 out of that top 4. Now X has e-mailed me saying I have been accepted and that she hopes I will strongly consider their offer. I'm feeling a bit guilty that I may have done something wrong by letting X think that I was more interested in A's program than I really was. I certainly didn't mean to "cheat" anyone but it's possible that I may have, in an academic sense, "led her on" because I wasn't really expecting to get into both of these schools that I have been accepted into, and so I may have sounded more positive than I should have. Do y'all have any advice for me? What should I do now? Is acceptable to wait until I've decided where I want to go before letting X know about my intentions?

A friend of mine did this for exactly the same reason and the university (Purdue) allowed him to defer. In my opinion, this is a very reasonable request especially if your offer is not funded and the university will almost surely allow you to do it.

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about this area. Sorry!

I sent out an e-mail that was a lot more terse than MsAussie23 and got a reply immediately. I think the programs are used to this.

You've mentioned some very broad areas, so I can't really say anything besides that both schools are really good. If you can zero in on a few areas of research that you're interested then it might easier for you to decide which schools are better fit for you.

Thanks Gunner24!

I've been accepted into my 2nd choice school after an interview. I'm super excited but I'd like to wait for the decision from the my first choice school before accepting the offer. Before I received the e-mail, I had a telephonic chat with a prof from this school. Towards the end of the chat, the prof said he hoped that "I would consider their offer seriously." Obviously, I'm quite keen on going to the school, but I don't want to commit to anything right now. So, my question is, what would be right response in this situation? Should I just send a short note thanking them for their offer? I'm not sure what else I can add besides saying that I'm really keen on their program - something which I already the prof during the interview. Is it ok to not respond at all? Also, the offer has been cc'd to three profs, should I reply to all of them?