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^ I wouldn't recommend this. Even if you make a website, only a small fraction of professors will end up reading it. There just isn't enough time. Another reason is that at times, people might be going through the hard copies of your application materials, and they can't just click on the link, so to speak, to go to your website. By adding one more barrier, you are just deterring them further. If you want people to visit your website, provide a public link to it in your SOP/CV and also confirm that it shows up in google searches. That is the best you can do. Regarding the copyright stuff, just include disclaimers and cite sources properly. No one is going to sue you over something like this.

Funding for M.S.E at Princeton would be through TA/RAships, whereas PhD funding will also include a fellowship (for the first year at least). I don't know if you can call that a funded M.S.E, but I guess what you mean is it is more likely (probably even assured) to get TA/RAships at Princeton. Since CS @ Princeton is such a small dept., it is difficult to draw a distinction between the relative difficulty of getting MS and PhD admits. i.e They are both very difficult and even MS applicants will be judged in pretty much the same way PhD applicants are. MS admits might only be marginally easier to come by. Their overall intake of MS and PhD students combined in CS is 30 - 50, and most of them are PhD students from what I know. If you feel that you have a decent shot, you should apply for a PhD.

You can probably wait till you get your admits. That way, the thank you note and/or the gift would come across as your expression of gratitude to the professor for mentoring you through the undergraduate years. Grad school would mark an important milestone in your life. It closes the loop in some sense. If you send it right away, there might be a small risk of it coming across as just a token of gratitude for writing the letters, which sort of trivializes the professor's contributions to your success. And even if you choose to do it now, you will, in all likelihood, end up writing another note later to tell them about the school you would be attending, your plans etc. So might as well wait till that stage and express all the gratitude at one time.

Man, this is a public forum. By mentioning your prospective recommender's names and your plans of "using" them, you certainly aren't helping yourself. Besides, recommendations from family friends wouldn't help much unless you did some work for them(research/internship etc.) in a professional or an academic setting.

Regarding the first question, there is a possibility of that happening if the professors are in the same dept/university and it comes up in a conversation somehow. Not really otherwise. Regarding your second question, why do you want them to share information with each other? What specific motive do you have in mind in doing so?

To be a bit safe, you should introduce the Laboratory or a Group that the Professor is a part of first. The risk in mentioning just one Professor in isolation is that that Professor might not be taking new students, or for some reason, he/she might not be particularly keen on taking you. To hedge your risks, unless you are only interested in working with one Professor, you should write your SOP in such a way that it has a wider appeal, and anyone from the Group/Lab is able to relate to your SOP.

Of course it helped them. It helped them because it was a requirement for admissions. In that sense, by your definition, every other component in the application process helped them too. But we aren't talking about that, are we? You would see a sizable chunk of Asians in Computer science because 1) China and India are the two most populous countries in the world and 2) It is lucrative and in their interest to study Computer Science because of a host of other reasons which we needn't get into right now. Now, if a large number of students from the two most populous countries in the world decide to study computer science, without really doing any fancy analysis, you can safely assume that at least a small fraction of all those people would do really well, which would still be a decent number and also affect the demographic. Hence the perceived outpacing. How you can attribute that to 'LORs' is beyond me. Try stringing that in one sentence and I hope you'll see how absurd that sounds. Soviet Russia was churning out scientists during the Cold War. Would you have attributed that to something like Letters of Recommendation? Not I presume. And while we aren't in a cold war right now, my point is that demographics depend on far more important and influential things than Letters of Recommendation. Anyway, looks like we are digressing. I don't think any of this is relevant to the OP's question.

I am applying to about 10-12 places, and sort of worried that uploading those many letters would drive my professors up the wall. Luckily, my apps are somewhat spaced out. So some respite there. Anyway, coming back to the issue, I could see that some universities use a common third party interface such as CollegeNet. I can see all my apps at one page and navigate from there. It doesn't offer me any great benefits, but I was wondering if such interfaces make it convenient for the professors to upload recommendations. Once a professor has uploaded a letter for an applicant for one university to a portal like CollegeNet, would they get the option of just using the same one for other universities that have subscribed to CollegeNet without manually filling out forms and uploading documents all over again? That would be a useful feature because I doubt if professors really customize letters based on the university. Also, are these forms like detailed questionnaires, or do they just have to upload a document? If someone can speak from first hand experience, what would the average time for submitting a recommendation be provided that the contents of the letter have already been written? I hope it isn't more than 3-4 mins.

Yeah, it's still just one way of doing things. That doesn't make it the best way or the only way right? You are confusing correlation with causation. The current demographic in computer science has got very little to do with letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation are just a part of the process. There can be other equally reliable and rigorous metrics to judge a person's aptitude. The best, of course, would be to spend time with the applicants in person to get the most accurate estimate, but since that is not feasible, we need to rely on letters, essays, interviews, examinations etc. It is up to the university to see what fits its bill. Why are you putting a process on a pedestal? Your basic argument is that Indians and Chinese benefited from an American education, which is true. What difference does it make whether the universities used letters or not? They could have just as well used a different metric and the outcome wouldn't have been very different.

How does that connect to Letters of Recommendation in any way? A sizable population of Indians and Chinese in Computer Science is a different thing altogether, and Letters of Recommendation don't enter the picture. Things wouldn't have been vastly different even if the U.S admission process didn't rely upon LORs. No one is arguing against the merits or the quality of education in US universities. The admission process is a different thing though. It's just one way to do things. US chooses to do so because the ratio of number of students applying v/s the no. of positions available is still manageable. In other places, like India and China for instance, it wouldn't be possible for a university department to leaf through 100K Essays and LORs. They rely on multiple levels of filtering where the first one is usually an examination.

No matter what you are applying for, it always help to have research experience and interests. However, just make sure that you explain the reasons for applying to a Master's program well enough in your SOP. You shouldn't come across as someone who is confused about which program he/she wants to apply to. Go through the 'Letter of Intent' section on http://www.cs.princeton.edu/academics/ugradpgm/gsg.php for some useful information regarding your situation. Don't take it too literally, and don't fret too much over it. It's a good thing to be interested in research. Just balance your SOP out with other stuff too.

Yeah i forgot to mention that x<y. Edit: It wasn't x and y in the question. As I said they were some numbers. I remember that x was less than y. Besides, the obvious typographic error is about 15, 8 and 8. Even if there were a way to find the answer in spite of the error, which in this case there isn't, it doesn't mitigate the problem. An error is still an error.

I wrote the GRE today, and (at least) one of the questions that I got had a typographic error. It was something like this: "In a set of 15 measurements, 8 numbers are less than x and 8 numbers are more than y " where x and y were some numbers. It was a comparison question where A was 'median of the set' and B was some number. This was a very flagrant typo, and there is no way to deduce what the actual question might've been. Either 15 should've been 16, or one of the 8's should've been a 7. Based on that, 3 out of the 4 alternatives are possible candidates for the right answer.(Only the equality is not possible). I assumed that they meant 16 numbers in the set, and I selected 'Can't say' since that seemed like something that they might want to test. I'll mail and call ETS on Monday. Has anyone else faced something like this? I got another question too which I'm pretty sure was incorrect, but it was too long to remember. The score ranges I got were 750-800 in quant and 700-800 in verbal.

Yes. Fill in the blanks can still be tricky. Take a few mock tests and judge for yourself.

The lack of data to prove things one way or the other is exactly what I was talking about. Schools would publish cutoffs and averages separately. What that insinuates is that unless the rest of your profile can outweigh your somewhat low score, the average score that the schools publish should serve as the score that you should strive to achieve. In any case, the relative importance of GRE in relation to other things is not the point of contention. Everyone agrees that it is/should be used only as a preliminary filter. However, a lower than average score might put you at a slight disadvantage. Personally, I feel that the AGRE (subject GRE) makes more sense than the GRE. It at least tests your abilities in areas that you are applying to and not the ability to read arbitrary passages. As for basic reading, writing and speaking, tests like the TOEFL are far more practical. A combination of the AGRE and something like the TOEFL would be a more balanced approach.

Ok, we are digressing here from the original post and our posts are getting longer. I'l try to be brief. If the GRE is clearly not a metric of technical aptitude or success in grad school, it should largely be ignored by most schools with just the requirement of clearing a cutoff with minimal variance across schools. Something like the TOEFL which is not nearly as important as the GRE. However, that is clearly not the case. Different schools attach varying amount of importance to the GRE score which just reinstates the fact that it is used as a metric, no matter how little or how much its importance is. Given that it is used as a metric, it makes little sense to have a test with little correlation to what the test is used for. i.e. Grad admissions. Hence, the argument for it being relevant, realistic and representative and the original post in this thread.

Yes that's how it should ideally be. Yet, people continue to fuss over it. In fact, lot of universities clearly mention the minimum cutoff, but at the same time report out previous years' average scores and trends. The average scores are obviously much higher than the cutoffs. The cutoffs themselves are pretty high in some cases. That just adds to the confusion. Nobody wants to regret missing out on an admit later due to a mediocre GRE score, and hence they would try their best to do as well as they can, or in some cases write it again as well to improve the score. My point is that either it shouldn't be there at all, or there should be standardized cutoffs and criteria for judging the GRE score, or it should be more meaningful.

Therein lies the problem. At least I thought it did, and as far as I know, that's how most people, including admission boards of universities view it. Why else would it be mandatory for most graduate programs? It needs to be realistic and representative of the real academic world. If it's just about doing well in the test for the sake of doing well and proving that you are smarter than the others, you might as well write the MENSA test. If everyone agrees that it doesn't measure the ability to do well in graduate school, it would just make the test redundant. You might as well do away with it.

The question is not about mutual exclusion of skill or abilities. The issue is regarding how well reasoned and realistic the test is. Most of the passages that the test gives are dry, drab and convoluted. It is clearly giving out the message that that is what you should expect to find in academia. There are two problems with that. One, that most of the passages that GRE gives are intentionally or artificially convoluted. I have never read a paper that is so badly written in my areas of interest at least. The passages are not fair representatives. You might say that GRE tests and prepares you for the worst case scenario, but that is just absurd. That's like testing someone's ability to understand the functioning of a device with a poorly written manual at hand. Why would you want to test people's ability to do that? The other point is that if GRE truly believes that the passages are fair representatives, then that would imply that that is the norm in academia. If that is the case, the AWA makes no sense. Why would you test people's ability to write precisely against the norm?

Imagine if someone were to write a passage like that for the AWA section. I bet he would get an abysmally low score. So, in essence, what the GRE is telling you it broadly this: We expect you to write precise, objective and crisp sentences which when read as a passage constitute one well reasoned theory or argument. That is what you are supposed to do in "academia". However, at the same time, we also believe that nobody really follows that in academia, and we'll give you a taste of that in the next section.

I didn't multiply and divide by (1-x) as you did, which makes things clearer. However, the limiting case x->0 is still a valid case. Obviously for all other points 1/1-x is greater, but even if you use mathematica, matlab etc. to evaluate 1/(1-x), x->0, you'd get 1. And same is the case with 1+x. Yes, comparing 1 and 1-x^2 in the numerator makes it clear that the former is bigger. But unless you can remember to use that trick in the exam, there is no way you can tell the difference for the limiting case. In any case, it was a tad ambiguous for a GRE question.

Ditto. 730 in math. Physics and Computer Science major. I did a few silly things though. In one of the DI questions, I didn't scroll till the bottom, and didn't have some crucial data. Wasted about 5 mins on that question trying to produce data out of thin air until I finally scrolled and could do it in 30 seconds. Hence, I couldn't complete the paper. I remember another ambiguous question. Something like 1/(1-x) vs. 1+x for 0<x<1. Clearly, in the limiting case(x->0) (and only in the limiting case), both would be the same, but later they diverge and the former would certainly get bigger. But I chose 'can't say'. So not sure if GRE expects you to take limits. Stuff like that. I am writing it again. Hope I don't mess it up again.

It's best to get done with it as soon as possible. With the new format, the scores would anyway reach only in November. As far as I know, in your applications, you can mention your unofficial score which you would get right after the test. I would suggest you to write it by August. This would give you time to work on your SOPs, recommendations etc. and your scores would reach within the deadlines.

Alright. Thanks guys for your advice. I suppose I should write it again after all. It would require some nifty time management, so that preparing again for the new format doesn't eat into the rest of the application process.

Thanks for the inputs. Yes, I suppose it can't hurt as long as I don't do worse than my previous attempt. The only remaining issue would be ensuring that the new scores reach the universities while they are evaluating the applications. Any idea how that would work? Like I said, my current scores will anyway go to the four universities that I had mentioned (unless I try calling ETS to block them). If I write it again,and apply to those four universities, they would have my current score in their database. The new scores would reach only around November. If they already do some sort of filtering of applications before that with my current scores, any potential advantage that I would get with the new scores would be lost. What are your thoughts?