ssk2

Yes - they should. They did so for me.

Purdue all the way!

ab2013 - Have you tried contacting your other schools? Cornell is pretty good at responding to messages. Brown too.

I've not received any response although I did send them a message last week saying that I'd heard back from nearly all of my other universities and asking when they would let me know. Two days later, I got my admissions decision. Possibly just a coincidence but that might suggest someone is reading your messages!

Really? That's almost too late to consider them seriously. What a waste of an application fee!

What sort of work do you want to do afterwards? Berkeley's location looks like it will be massively beneficial if you want employment in the technology sector / in California. That's one of the primary plus points for me. I imagine it is pretty lucrative for EE graduates as well as CS graduates. Do you have work experience already? I think internships are less useful if you do have significant work experience in the same or similar field - both because you gain less experience from them and because employers don't really need the positive reinforcement that having an internship adds your resume. Definitely useful to help differentiate your application if you're fresh out of undergraduate though.

It'd be worth mentioning to them once they do give decisions out that it's really not in their best interest to leave it so late! I'm planning on doing the same.

I'm still waiting to hear back from UMich. It has been mentioned a couple of times by people who've asked that they'll be sending out their decisions next week (although I don't see how it can be any later really).

The world is your oyster with computer science degree :-). Obviously depends on what your undergraduate degree was but computer scientists are useful in almost any field. Computation biology does seem quite specific - what overlap does it have with computer science? If there are a reasonable number of decent CS courses then I don't see it being a problem - but it probably won't be as useful overall as doing a pure CS degree and might put you at a disadvantage relative to other applicants.

I've heard it is possible at Stanford but it is very competitive to get RA/TA positions. On a pure numbers basis, there are 200 Master's students each year - so you'd be competing with a LOT of other students for a limited number of RA/TAships. They probably go to the most qualified student. Wisconsin is very well regarded in academic CS circles, possibly as much as Stanford. People outside of academia are unlikely to give it so much weight though and will probably rate Stanford above it. It sounds as if you're not planning to do a PhD though - in which case Stanford may have more weight with employers. I wouldn't spend money on the online program. Not when you've got two other fantastic offers - the people you'll meet (both studying CS and in other subjects) are going to be worth it alone. Have you tried contacting Stanford admissions? Perhaps don't ask them about the assistantship question but it's valid to ask if many students do move from the normal course to HCP.

Do you have any publications? They help massively. Looks like you have a decent profile - if you boss the GRE (which isn't difficult to do) and write a good statement of purpose, I think you have a great shot! Don't worry about the CS GRE - they're discontinuing it in April (http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about/content/computer_science).

Commiserations zyiyong!

That's probably a worse position to be in...I was caught relatively unaware! Good luck!

What's your GPA like xGeek? I've got one publication in a decent conference, a three years of work experience, five internships and a decent GRE score so I reckon my undergraduate grades sunk me. I did pretty poorly in my first couple of years at university.

The most annoying thing is that for $125, we're not going to get any feedback. Life is unfair!

Good going! Looks like a waste of an application fee for me! Ouch.

Out of your choices I'd strongly advocate going to Cambridge for the following reasons (assuming that all other things are equal - such as funding): The CS department is extremely strong there overall - it's probably ranked higher than Georgia Tech. Cambridge is a beautiful city. Depending on what you're into, you may enjoy living there for a number of years more than Atlanta. There's a LOT of culture in the place, the university celebrated its 800th anniversary a few years ago - approximately 7 times as old as Georgia Tech. Extra curriculars at Cambridge are fantastic and the college system is great. It's a shorter course, the opportunity cost of studying is much less. You'll save yourself two years. Depending on your funding situation, you're will probably have to do less teaching while you're at Cambridge which gives you more time to focus on your research. Employers all over have heard of the university. It has consistently been in the top five universities worldwide. I know people who have graduated from Cambridge to go into Google / Microsoft Research. In fact, there's a large Microsoft Research department in Cambridge. By the time you graduate, Google's new London headquarters will have been completed and they'll no doubt be sucking up as many computer scientists as possible.

I've heard that employers treat both the same. Obviously MS degrees are longer so there's more chance you'll cover more relevant coursework during your degree (or specialise in something useful for your employer).

In the meantime, I had an interesting idea - which I thought hard about implementing (but decided against doing so because it'd be a magnificent waste of money). Thought it would be quite neat to have a little Python script running checking my inbox for a decisions email from Stanford which triggers a socket on a smart power switch (e.g. this, they've got a command line utility in Windows here and there's a community developed Linux utility here) hooked up to a small electric oven. I could put a tray of cookie dough in and leave this thing running. Since the email is most likely to arrive at night - I'd be sleeping. If it was a rejection - I'd wake up to disappointing news but a fresh batch of cookies to cheer me up. If it was an acceptance, I'd could celebrate with a fresh batch of cookies for breakfast!

Sorry dude :-/. It seems almost impossible to get into that!

Agree with you, pogopuschel. Historically they've not given out decisions over the weekend - always been a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday morning.

Hehe, yeah that's a fair strategy. Sounds like an amazing career path - albeit with a lot of studying!

Congratuations naijaba! What would you like to do afterwards? It's quite a hard decision - both are great universities. Life in Boston in meant to be great if you're the academic sort - there are TONNES of similar minded people around. I've no idea how true this is in San Diego. Also, the weather is a pretty serious consideration. A friend who goes to UCSD says the weather there is the best he's ever lived in (and he used to live in Singapore). Boston can be pretty harsh in winter I hear. Just to clarify - is the program you've been admitted to the one year course in CSE? It depends what your goals are afterwards. If I wanted to continue on into academia, I'd probably pick the two year UCSD program over the one year Harvard one - more choice, more opportunities to get research experience. (Actually, I see that you have the option of moving into the two year course at the end of your year. I guess then it boils down to what your academic interests are - whether you'd be a better fit at UCSD or Harvard.)

I was told last week that I'd hear the result of my UMich MEng application within one or two weeks - implying that I should hear by the end of next week at the latest.

I just received an offer - there was no interview. It says full details will be coming in an admissions packet, which I have yet to receive.