intirb

If MIT has more professors that you liked, I would choose MIT. Having a good choice of potential advisors is extremely important, and it seems like the department would be a better fit in general if you thought you could live with 7 of the professors (vs 4 at Stanford).

For engineering, that sounds about right. Obviously cost of living is pretty cheap in those areas, so that's a huge bonus. Nice! You can find baseline MIT graduate student stipend information here, for comparison: https://gsc.mit.edu/programs-initiatives/col/ It's a range from 25k to 36k, though admittedly in a much highest cost of living area.

I don't know this, but I agree this would be difficult. In theory I guess you could skype interview with multiple professors. As long as they get a chance to compare you to the other students, it should work. But I have no idea, personally, how they handle this situation.

The UPenn interview is pretty serious as well. You meet with several professors, and afterwards the students and professors both rank their preferences. If you can't find a professor willing to fund you, you don't get accepted. P.S. I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has about the HST interview or the program in general. Feel free to send me a PM.

Hey AxyC, If you haven't seen it already, you should definitely check out the results page! That would be the primary place to get up-to-date information. I did the RISE program when I was an undergrad too! It's always awesome to see a fellow RISEr. Last year I responded to some questions about the so you might want to check that out. Alternatively/also, you are very welcome to PM me with any questions. For everyone else, I should also add that I interviewed at UPenn, UW, and Brown - so if anyone is interested in how those interviews worked or what interview weekend was like, I can try my best to recall the process. Good luck everyone! I know the waiting is a very anxiety-inducing, ego-crushing experience.. just consider it emotional practice for your PhD .

Are you from the New York Metropolitan area? My experience everywhere outside of there has been that the Jewish community was very small. You'll usually be able to find one or two temples (in some big cities, a handful). In Cambridge MA, you can't even find a good bagel (but I've recently gotten a recommendation for a place in Boston). The Boston JCC is not even in Boston, and you can't get there by subway. There is a Chabad House though. Most Jews I've met here were atheist, but there is a secular Jewish congregation, so that's pretty cool.

I did a mixture of both. First, I explained my overall vision for my POS, how the courses all fit together, and how I chose them. Then I went into more detail for each class explaining why I thought it was a good choice.

Huh. Well I never bothered to list any "other planned courses", personally.

You can apply to CSGF in the same season you're applying to grad school. That's what I did! Edit for clarity: if you're applying to PhD programs in Fall 2014, you should apply for the program in Fall 2014 (/Winter 2015). If you're applying to grad school NOW (like, you already sent out those applications or are sending them out in a few weeks), then you should apply for CSGF this cycle. Edit again, because I realized it might still be confusing. If you want to start graduate school in Fall 2014 (as in, take your first classes, enroll) then yes, apply for CSGF this cycle.

1. As a first-year graduate student, you only get two years to complete your POS. So if you got the fellowship, your first semester would be Fall 2014, and you'd have until Summer 2016 to finish your POS. 2. You need to take math courses in the math department and CS courses in the CS department. It's alright to take theoretical classes or application-based classes, as long as they fit in line with the spirit of the POS. 3. I would read DEIXIS, the computational magazine for the national labs. It's linked on the CSGF homepage, and they sometimes feature fellows. Plus, it'll give you an idea of the kinds of things you could do for your practicum. I didn't have a lot of HPC knowledge when I applied either, so don't worry too much about that. Just try to think about how much more you could accomplish, if computational power weren't a limitation.

Yep, I saw that too. Whoops! Definitely post there

Yes, I would definitely recommend getting a research job at a lab first. It'll be pretty hard to get admitted to a PhD program without any research experience. There are lots of labs out there that could use some math expertise, so I'd start emailing professors or looking for job openings in labs, especially those nearby. Assuming you want to work with Hugh Herr, you're probably a lot better off applying to HST MEMP than BE, since the latter is more cells and molecules and synthetic biology.

By MIT BME, do you mean the HST MEMP program or Biological Engineering? Edit: also, what was that unrelated field?

Hello everyone. I'm a 2nd year DOE CSGF fellow. Applications have opened, so I just wanted to encourage scientists and engineers who do or are considering doing computational work to apply! Feel free to ask questions (or check out last year's thread for an overview and some general tips on applying). Good luck!

I know some people who have deferred the fellowship - either because they got Rhodes or had some other plan for a year before grad school. Especially if you're on medical leave, I think Krell would work with you. If you're a fellow, Krell really has your back and does everything they can to help you succeed.