Icydubloon

Also received a decision as well. Congrats to all.

Ivy

"Why are you going to grad school when companies pay you 6 figures out of undergrad now?" Not in it for the money, man. But money is nice.

It's interesting how highly people view Stanford. Even when compared to MIT...

Johns Hopkins already had visit days and sent out acceptances. They do visit days before admitting you.

$10 says March 31

UCSC

Cornell. It is more research focused which will help with PhD admissions, plus you have friends there. Also Cornell is a good school overall; you should be able to find a job afterwards if necessary.

Never contacted or talked to my POI before acceptance.

I have never heard of Silicon Alley...

If you send 4, that increases the chance of one letter being generic or weak.

I read Chicago. Then I wondered how you were ordering them. Then I read the last part. 10/10 would read again

Berkeley

+1

Berkeley. That's a lot of money they're giving you.

Was watching a movie

They are not interested in research. Some jobs/software engineering positions may have a research focus such as Google Ads Targeting but she doesn't (nor do I) consider these straight research jobs. I'd define research job as a scientist at MSR/Google Research/academia which is something she is definitely not interested in.

I was having a discussion with a friend who is very interested in entrepreneurship and is interested in pursuing her own startup somewhere down the road. She is debating (assuming admission from Stanford) between Stanford MSCS and MIT PhD EECS, specifically with the LIDS group. She refuses to create an account on GradCafe so here I am making this post instead. She only applied to MIT for the heck of it and at the time of applications, was primarily interested in an MS. Is the Stanford name worth it? What if the MSCS was funded with TA/RA positions. Will 4-5 years at MIT and distance from the valley cause some missed opportunities? The PhD is a degree for life and opens doors in academia, both in the future and now. It could be possible to do a PhD at Stanford after the MS. What are your thoughts? I've already exhausted my arguments and would like to hear what GradCafe has to say.

University of Washington is another good one. http://db.cs.washington.edu/

One of my letter writers recommended I reach out to schools (specifically POIs) who are slow and tell them I've received acceptances from other schools. It's just like when you have a job offer and are waiting for your top choice to get back to you. You say "Hey Google, Facebook gave me a job offer recently. I'm very interested in your company (school). When can I expect to hear back?" Note: this is not about negotiating (which is an entirely different thing). Since you're trying to squeeze a decision out of the schools rather than flaunt your current offer in an attempt to increase your funding, for example, I'd say it's okay.

Berkeley. More companies = higher chance of someone hiring you.

In order: Prestige of overall university Location Strength of actual department Funding

I think you would get in.

If the MOOC led to a project you did then sure mention it. If you took the MOOC and that was it, I wouldn't mention it.

I wouldn't include it.