aberrant

think twice

free path

Sling Blade

second thought

Last Night

yellow generation

stunt pilot

life sentence

single bond

the size of a department/program that one is interested in; statistics from schools will be very helpful (at least for me) to determine if a school is worth a shot or not.

bell labs

mint cookies

Zero character

ball LIN

break loose

i don't think non-adcom prof. can't change the decision much unless s/he knows you well enough that s/he wants you badly.

"This kid wants to be a research scientist and yet s/he cannot write proper English. NEXT!"

big thumb

It isn't just UCSD do not accept many international students, it is the public schools in California (in general) accept a lot less international applicants. All the schools in the UC system accepts fewer international students compare to private schools or public schools in other states. If you want any numbers, Cal accepted 52 students in 2009 and only 2 of them are international, as far as I know. And I'm pretty sure what you read about UCSD @ tgc is pretty accurate thus far.

peanut butter

the gradcafe

warm weather