anacron

Actually, this makes it much easier. You can always do one project for the adviser in HPC and another project for the adviser in AI. Its not uncommon for young grad. students to try different fields before "settling down". If you make your situation clear to each adviser and they are open to this idea, then you shouldn't have too much to worry about. Its not until you get your hands dirty that you truly realize what you're interested it - this certainly happened to me as I transitioned from undergrad to phd... Also, it's completely possible to be co-advised during you PhD. So, if you had an interdisciplinary research topic then there shouldn't be any issues with working with both Profs. Of course, you need to do the hard work of coming up with an interesting project and convincing the two profs - but its doable and people have done it before. I'm not sure I can help with this... I don't know many faculty from LA or SD. However, San Diego has a supercomputing facility nearby so it may be marginally better at HPC (can't say for sure though). If I were in your situation, I would talk to the AI and HPC profs at both schools about: how flexible they are to changing advisers (in the event that you become disinterested in one of the sub-fields), how easy it will be to collaborate between HPC and AI.

Don't limit yourself, research shouldn't be just about one sub-field or another. You should really aim for what interests you and where your research takes you. I'm actually in the HPC field but I'm moving towards applications of machine learning algorithms and molecular dynamics algorithms. So, I wouldn't go into grad. school thinking that its one or the other. It should really be an opportunity for you to explore whatever interests you.

Well, aside from the usual registration, computer and campus fees that's about it. The only other situation I can think of are for conference/workshop travel. The university may not help with covering travel costs (though your advisor might) This really depends on the university. However, I think you're required to submit the general GRE at pretty much any school. Doing a bunch of practice exams and doing well on the math sections should be enough. The main focus should be on your statement of purpose and conveying why you want the PhD ( I would think the adcom will expect a more focused statement from you). Getting some sort of result in a presentation/conference will definitely help.

I'm glad I came across this post. My dad is going to be starting a part-time PhD this coming fall term. So - yes part-time PhD's do exist although you might have to explicitly call up universities to ask and tell them you have your own funding. It was a bit easier for my dad because he currently works with a professor and its was straight-forward to get admitted (even though the university does not explicitly offer part-time PhDs). If you have contacts with profs. then I'm sure they can pull a few strings to get you in - even if the colleges don't offer part-time grad study. If you're in the Baltimore area then University of Maryland at College Park might be the best place to look. I believe the CS department offers part-time and its an awesome place to study (Top 20 school). As a part-timer with funding, you might stand a good shot at getting admitted. A side note: like you, my dad has similar restrictions on his time and only registered for 2 courses - no complaints from department or POI.

If I understand the aim of the fellowship correctly - it effectively knocks out CS students who's work does not directly benefit 'real science'. This seems to be substantiated by past CS winners who are (primarily) in the field of parallel computing/scientific computing.

man... no luck with fellowships. I received the "We were very impressed with your credentials" email, so hopefully next year with a much improved application.

I emailed them several weeks ago and they said: "Selections are being made now. I hope to notify everyone by the 15th [of April]"

This is true, but there are many applicants who have both stellar GPAs and research experience. I am talking about the top universities where there is no shortage of well-qualified applicants. In order to be competitive there you need to be good at everything... I say this through my experience and through conversations with Profs. at UIUC and Berkeley. By the way, a 3.05 is fairly low. Berkeley's minimum requirement is 3.0 - so being close to this means you need to make up for it with research experience. If you want a good shot at these schools - don't take GPA too lightly. That said DJLamar's advice stands if you're worried about optimizing your GPA (ex. you have a 3.7+ GPA and you're trying to decide between research and improving GPA). Every CS PhD applicant should read this 'paper' written by a CS Prof at CMU: http://www.cs.cmu.ed...dschooltalk.pdf

Based on my admissions experience, no research experience will kill your chances at top schools. They can overlook a bad GPA if there was lots of (stellar) research experience to back it up. However, the sheer number of applicants makes it hard to stand out without any research experience and a bad GPA. Now, theoretically, waiting a year and getting some research experience might sound good but will you be able to find someone to work with, do publishable work and publish that work within a year? Even then there is no guarantee... As far as bringing your own funding is concerned, I don't think the big universities would really care about that. They bring in more than enough funding through grants and industry sponsors to be able to fund every PhD student they take in with RAships. This was certainly the case at UIUC and Berkeley. A Ph.D from UPenn is nothing to frown upon. Sure, it may not be your dream school but in the end your Ph.D is defined by what you do not where you do it. If you can take the rejection from your dream school and turn it into motivation for a great thesis, then - who knows - you may just end up at your dream school doing a postdoc. Don't give up a sure thing just because its not the best of the pack.

If those are the only options then go for the Laptop. However, carrying around a 10+ pound laptop gets really old really fast. You would get better performance from the desktop but you have limited mobility. The tablet can do your browsing, note-taking and entertainment but you won't be able to code on-the-go (which I'd say is important nowadays). Having said that, I would highly recommend getting a 'regular' laptop - especially if you can get access to high performance resources. Its much more portable, can get decent performance and is much cheaper.

Well, not so outlandish - they've done late march before...

very cheeky... I'm sure the NSF folks got a kick out of that

Man that sucks... I've heard some real horror stories about Math applicants for the GRFP. I wonder why this is the case

Yes, definitely agree. However, I do wonder whether these delays are because they are gov't funded and depends on budgeting and cost projections. This may explain the tendency for notifications to be delayed until April (around tax deadline).

I emailed one of the program coordinators and got the following news: Dear anacron, We will be notifying applicants early to mid April and will let the awardees know when we need their acceptance decision.

Can someone post the official link for the EAPSI program. I can't find the application website on google other than the nsf.gov funding page (which doesn't link to the program/application page). Thanks.

I applied but haven't heard back. Perhaps sometime this week if they stick to their schedule.

I don't see why not. I was (effectively) automatically admitted to my ugrad. Essentially my advisor said not to worry about admissions and spoke to the dept chair to strongly recommended my admission. The same seems to be the case at Berkeley. From the recent Berkeley visit I found that all of the other admits for scientific computing are current Berkeley ugrads. So its not as rare as you think, but you do need to impress your research advisor.

Well, based on the visit it seems like the grad students are managing pretty well (at least the ones I talked to). I guess it would be tight for the first year but once you start doing industry internships (in the summer) you'd make it up pretty quick. Their stipend for the summer isn't bad either.

Your question is probably more appropriate for the Engineering forum... I don't think many of us would have any idea about the Engineering program at Cornell.

Not sure... but we were supposed to receive a "formal" letter of admission. I can only imagine that this letter would contain info about accepting the offer. I have not received this email but then again I had issues with the funding email. I was planning on sending an email (about something unrelated) but I can ask about this as well. I'll let you know what I find out.

For future reference, it seems like Berkeley sends out funding info 1-2 weeks after admissions email. So, if you've been admitted but haven't received this info within that time email the admissions assistant. In my case the email was not delivered the first time.

I was just wondering if anyone admitted to Berkeley's CS Department has received funding information. Seems like they sent out generic emails saying that in-coming students will be funded but nothing about the type or amount of funding. Is everyone waiting for detailed info, or are there people who started receiving this already?

I'm not sure if email signatures are all that important. If the point is to present your research and to make connections, you should probably put up a website and register for LinkedIn. You can put all of your info on those sites without seeming pretentious. After all, a personal website (or LinkedIn) is essentially a repository for everything you've ever done (awards, experiences, publications, presentations, etc.). I don't see why you need to force this information on people. If people are really interested in learning more about you then they can easily Google for you or refer to your research lab's personnel page. The only thing I would suggest is: use your college email rather than your gmail. For people with common names the college name would be a distinguishing factor.

Good question, barring any pre-reqs for the "outside minor" requirement I think that's it. Of course, we have to register for the "Individual Research" or "Doctoral Research" courses so that we count as full-time students. After that its just courses that you'd like to take or (like you said) courses recommended by advisors.