Networc

If you haven't already seen the email, one of our (future) classmates setup a Google group (link is in the email).

Are there any other ISPs in southwest Durham that offer higher speeds than Time Warner Cable? Anyone have any experience with TWC?

Add UIUC to the list. +1 to everything else blankslate said.

I think it might have been the essay prompts. UVA wanted two essays and, rather than put the time into two good essays, I split my overall template into two and tweaked it to answer their questions. End result: two really short essays.

Yep, I'm all set for UNC. Regarding specialization, I'd love to get involved with research in networking, security, virtualization, and/or distributed computing. I feel like there's plenty of intersection between those areas that, if I were to get involved in one, I wouldn't be locking myself out of the others. Plus, I'm in the US Army, so I can't stray too far from my specialty (i.e. graphics would be fun, but the Army wouldn't be too happy with it ). I'll be living off campus, hopefully in southwest Durham (looking to avoid a commute through Research Triangle Park).

Me! I'm American, though.

What about an Asus PadFone (once released) and remotely connect to a powerful desktop?

Thanks to both of you - great advice!

I've been working on a small project that I would like to eventually put on GitHub and write a few blog posts about. I have a feeling that the project could be a springboard for a Master's thesis, but I'm worried that if I open source it now, I won't be able to do any grad school work on it later. However, I feel like posting it now will help me gauge whether or not the project is actually useful or just a silly hobby. Plus, there's always the nagging desire to get something "on the street". So, my question is: would posting the code and blogging about it now prevent me from using it as the foundation for a future Master's thesis? (or any research, for that matter)

Going to UNC-CH!

I found the following at: http://www.cs.unc.edu/cms/research/research-areas/computer-graphics "Computer graphics research at UNC investigates the representation, creation, and manipulation of image data that serve as the visual interface between people and computers. One of our primary research focuses is interactive graphics where the main challenges are the rapid generation of photorealistic images and high-quality simulation in response to user inputs, as well as the development of both software and hardware mechanisms for human interaction with graphical systems." To me, this description seems very similar to how they describe HCI: http://www.cs.unc.edu/cms/research/research-areas/human-computer-interaction Your best bet is to contact someone like jyyhope said. If the Ph.D. acceptance letter is like the Master's, then you should have been given a 'contact professor' for correspondence. I'd start there.

d1991: What is considered Southwest Durham - is it the area roughly bounded by I-40, 751, 55, and Scott King Road? Everything I've street-viewed in that area looks really nice. Would it be hard to find a house to rent in that area (is everything for sale)? Thanks in advance!

Received official notification from the Grad School at Purdue that I was admitted! I had a good feeling after the Skype interview.

If you find a school that publishes their admissions data in a format similar to UNC-Chapel Hill, then you can actually compute the acceptance rate for US citizens vs. International applicants. For instance, Computer Science in 2010: Total Applied = 432, Total Accepted = 114 (Total Acceptance Rate = 26.39%) Int'l Applied = 352, Int'l Accepted = 69 (Int'l Acceptance Rate = 19.6%) Therefore: US Citizens Applied = 80, US Citizens Accepted = 45 (US Citizen Acceptance Rate = 56.25%)

My wife and I were able to take a 1 day detour while on vacation this summer and check out the Chapel Hill campus and then we drove around Cary for quite some time (it was recommended by my boss who is from NC, but not Raleigh-Durham). I think my wife is set on an area like Cary, if not Cary itself. If I get accepted to Duke or NCSU, then I think our choice of a place to live will be much simpler. It seems like I'll only have trouble deciding if I get accepted to Chapel Hill. Would the commute from Cary/Morrisville to Chapel Hill be a killer? I'm okay with a drive, but I don't want to spend my whole day in traffic. They all seem like great schools, so if my quality of life would be better with the shorter commute, then I'm willing to make that call.

Gellert, if I get accepted to Chapel Hill (fingers crossed), I'd be all about a suburban neighborhood. Are there any neighborhoods near campus where I could rent a home for $1300-1700 a month? If there isn't anything nearby in that range, where should I be looking? Thanks!

I'm putting my money on characters... which would mean that your 200-300 word paragraph would fit nicely; however, you might want to summarize even further so that the two paragraphs aren't exactly the same. (If the space allocated for the 1000 characters is a field within the application, rather than a place to upload a document, then I think that they're looking for something very brief.) Drum roll please....

Rejection: UIUC Coin Tosses: Purdue, UVA 2 out of 3: UNC-CH, Duke, NCSU Accept: CU-Boulder We'll see... I have a sinking feeling that any response to this thread is bad luck... I will now receive nothing but rejections...

Weninger: Would you consider the Microsoft site useful if it were used as a starting point? For instance, take the schools that appear high on the Microsoft list for Machine Learning and then see how well those schools rank on PHDs.org for criteria such as grants, awards, and student outcomes?

I think PHDs.org does a better job explaining the measures: Survey-Based (similar to S-rank): "The survey-based quality measure is one of two estimates of overall program quality prepared by the NRC. Both measures use the same data on 20 key variables, but they use different methods to determine which variables are the most important predictors of program quality. For the survey-based measure, the relative weight of each variable is based on input from about 50 faculty members in each field. Each faculty member was asked to identify the most relevant variables in assessing program quality and to give each one a numeric value according to its importance." Regression-Based (similar to R-rank): "The regression-based quality measure is one of two estimates of overall program quality prepared by the NRC. Both measures use the same data on 20 key variables, but they use different methods to determine which variables are the most important predictors of program quality. For the regression-based measure, the relative weight of each variable is derived input from about 50 faculty members in each field. The faculty assessed a random selection of graduate programs on a scale of 1 to 6 without specifying the their assessment criteria. Those variables that were most often associated with highly regarded programs received the most weight." I feel that these measures are best used together. PHDs.org allows you to toggle the weights to see how they affect the rankings. Edit: That being said, I tend to weight the Regression-Based score higher than the Survey-Based. To me, it sounds like it would rank schools based on how similar they are to the "leaders" in the field. But, I can see how this might allow for more bias based on 'prestige'.

I saw Microsoft's Academic Search referenced in a post the other day - it's pretty interesting (I'm sure some would disagree). Here are its results when you search based on "Machine Learning", "Last 10 Years", and "All Continents". Hope it helps!

If Computer Science and I ever had a falling out, then I doubt I would have gotten involved with EE (they're BFFs). So, I probably would have settled for Math or Physics. Something like English would have been fun, for awhile... but I just couldn't see us lasting for the long haul - too free-spirited for me.