lil kiwi

Yes, sorry I didn't make that clear. I did mean international students who are not in the states.

In my own experience, Internationals do get notified after the domestic students. I think that's also true if you look at the results page on this site for any specific programme (though it could just be the case for the ones I applied to). However, in saying that, I have heard from all of my schools. But don't worry, as long as you haven't gotten a rejection, you're still in with a chance right?

Me too please! http://db.tt/nsqRc1Y

I personally feel that research fit is really important. I guess you need to consider whether UVA will allow you to carry out the research you're interested in, to your full potential. In saying that though, given that you will be living in the area for the next 5+ years, I think it's also important for you to be happy. If Baltimore is horrible, as you put it, then perhaps the tighter budget you'd be on will only make it worse. I think it would be good to figure out how much of a gap the difference in research is, as well as how much you dislike Baltimore and if you'd be happy living there with a (financially) restricted lifestyle. Other things you might want to consider are chances for collaboration, research output of potential PIs, and stats about what graduates of each place go on to do afterwards.

Thanks everyone for the input! I'm finally starting to feel like I'm making an informed decision now, despite not having been to either place. I'll be sure to let you know what I end up going with

Congrats on your offers! The neuroscience programme at Northwestern is interdepartmental: it's actually split over the Evanston campus and the downtown Chicago medical school campus. So hopefully, that would be a nice balance between city and suburb.

It seems I've accidentally piqued people's curiosity about the identity of the schools Northwestern and NYU are the options I'm considering. I'm leaning towards Northwestern at the moment.

I'm one of the neuroscience people! Don't worry, I wouldn't have been at any of the in-person interviews because it would just be far too expensive for the schools to fly me over! Just thought I'd say hi Edit: and no, it's not just you. There does seem to be quite a number of us, or are we just rather vocal?

Unfortunately, I can't help you specifically with your question, but I thought I'd add something else you should consider... You might want to look at not just the reputation and career options afterwards, but also at the 'fit' of the research you might be doing at either place. Are there many members of faculty in the specific field you're interested in? Are their interests well aligned with your own? These are the things I've been considering in my decision making process, and though I've not totally made up my mind, after carefully looking through various faculty's research again, I realised one place was a better "research fit" for me. You mentioned publishing, and I think doing research you are well prepared for, familiar with, and interested in will probably enhance your likelihood of publishing too. Good luck with your choice!

Thanks for covering all of your bases in the answer. I'm not from the states, so any chance you could elaborate on why Manhattan is great?

Yeah it was. It's all good. I received their official rejection a week or so ago. Even if I was successful, I probably wouldn't have been there anyways, given I'm international. Thanks for letting me know though! And the best of luck for your application, got my fingers crossed for you

Thanks I'm not 100% decided yet, but it's looking like I'll be going to Chicago!

Thanks everyone, I'm super excited joenobody0: very creative, I like it! PhD Pharmacist: I applied to Rockefeller, Northwestern, NYU, Cornell, Boston, UIC, UAB and Purdue. I've heard back from all of them now and I'm trying to make my choice

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I'm currently in contact with organising people at one of the offers I'm considering, i.e. assistant director of programme, getting some questions answered etc. Is it bad to mention where my other competitive offer is coming from? Or is it typically better to not let them know who they're 'competing against', so to speak?

I'm currently trying to choose between two well known universities. I will be staying in graduate accommodation at least for the first year, as trying to organise housing from the other side of the world is somewhat difficult. School A in Chicago is slightly better reputation/prestige-wise and I understand the programme to be a little better too. School B in NYC is also a good school. In terms of research interests, both schools are strong in my field and are a good fit for me. Both options are funded and after taking away rent (which includes gas, electricity, water, phone etc.), I'll have about $300 a week in both cities. Can anyone offer me any insight as to how livable this amount of money is? Also, any general comments about differences or advantages of either city would be appreciated. Thanks!

It seems the Fulbright system in NZ is a bit different to what everyone else has been posting. I applied in August and was interviewed in September, found out I was successful soon after. I was then put in touch with someone at IIE. I had already looked around a little bit at various schools and had a number of programmes I was keen to apply to. My contact at IIE then gave me information about a handful of others for me to consider and we chose a list of 6 from the ones I was interested in. I applied to two others myself. Along the way, the IIE person has chased up slow responses for me and also passed on any/all acceptance or rejectance information as it came in. I've also been telling her about what's been happening with the applications I sent in so the lines of communication have been good. I've heard back officially from all of the applications now. She's been super helpful, and made the application process really quite painless.

I don't know if this is something you want to hear or not... But I don't think you should see these rejections as being failures. There are a number of factors which are taken into consideration by departments when accepting or rejecting students and some of these are not within our control. Asides from having good grades, LOR and SOP etc., the programme will probably have a quota of students they can accept. This means that if you've applied in a year where the cohort have been outstanding, you may have been pushed further down the list. This is all due to a limit on how much funding the school has - not something you can control. Another factor may have been dependent on who you were interested in working with - perhaps they are not planning on taking on students in the next couple of years and other advisers were not a good fit to your research interests? While we as applicants do all we can to impress the selection panels, sometimes it just isn't within our power, and luck does play a role. I can understand that it hurts to be rejected like this, but if you're really keen to pursue a PhD, I would definitely encourage you to try again next year. Your luck might just change

To me, my research interests matter the most and I would choose the programme based on how strong the are in my area. I don't know much about CS so I don't know how big a change going from ML to PL would be... but if I was choosing, I would go to the lesser-known school which is strong in ML. In most things I do, I do well at them and put in the effort because it's something I enjoy. For me, this applies both to academia and hobbies. By the sounds of it, you're much more likely to have an adviser who's actively researching and publishing, which is probably also something which will work in your favour. While reputation can be important, if going to this well known school is going to mean either changing your interests to fit with theirs, or working with an adviser who's a bit passed it, I think you need to seriously consider if having the reputable name is worth it.

I am definitely feeling the reality of what's going to be happening in August! I will be moving to a whole new country on the other side of the world, and the number of people I know in the US can fit on one hand. I think scared/excited best describes me right about now.

On the bright side, I received my very own acceptance email this morning: with my name on it I guess I will just pretend yesterday's email didn't happen. I've now heard back from all 8 of my schools so it's decision time!

I have a Sony Vaio which has been working well for the 2.5 years I've had it. However, there is one thing that will prevent me from getting another Vaio. They don't have very good heat dispersal mechanisms so tend to get really hot. During the extended warranty period, I got a replacement fan because it had broken, and even with the new fan, it can still get rather hot. Having done a few searches online, I think I'm not alone in having found this problem. Just thought you might like to know.

I did something pretty similar to improve my vocab. I had just under 3 months to prepare... I just googled for common GRE vocab and got a long list. Me and my friend then took turns to quiz eachother or I just read over the list at least a handful of times a week. While I don't have any concrete practice scores, I'm fairly confident that I wouldn't have gotten the 640 verbal score if I hadn't done this. Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the lovely support, I really appreciate it

I got an email from a professor at 'school which shall not be named' today. I had never heard from him nor gotten in touch with him myself. The email basically said: "Dear 'random person's name' I'm pleased to let you know that you have been accepted into the Neuroscience programme at our school details of who they will hear from and what they should expect to get in the mail" I emailed him back saying that that was not my name, though I did also apply to your programme "I'm guessing this email was not intended for me?" The reply basically said, oops, we screwed up: please disregard and this doesn't have any bearing on your application - we are sending out admissions info one at a time. I cannot believe this happened... I will be super pissed off now if they don't accept me. AND I'm not so sure if I'm still interested in a school that can't even get their email addresses right :(