ahug030

Berkeley... thanks for the support all

Purdue cause the name sounds so good

The Duke acceptance was all online. Berkeley is saying that a letter has been sent from the graduate school... Im crossing my fingers for you eh

Yeah I got accepted to Duke and Berkeley, I've decided to go with Berkeley because of the living environment basically. Any good news or decisions on your end?

Yeah I went to the Duke thing and really like the research going on. I also won an extra fellowship. But to be honest I can't see myself living in NC, the university is beautiful but the surrounding area holds very little excitement. I managed to get a look at the REAL Durham - I would suggest that anyone ready to go there take the number 6 and 7 buses around the area. I guess if you're married (like many of the grads there are) the slow life might be in order but I think I'm too young for that at the moment. If Berkeley gets back with a yes I would accept immediately.

Haha. Yeah I got rejected by Stanford too. But whatevs.

Btw sony nice to see you have acceptances already - how did you gather the patience to apply to all those schools, it was hard enough getting 6 apps together for me!

Im also feeling bummed about Stanford - I didn't get an email so I guess that rules me out too :cry: . Luckily I have Cal/SF and Duke interviews... but is it wrong to crave the brand name? I always thought it would be cool to have a degree from stanford or harvard or caltech or...

Hi anon, thanks for the inside info. I was born in Oakland and lived in the Bay Area for 10 years during my childhood and also have fond memories. Luckily I'll get to see Berkeley again when I visit and appraise it from a new perspective. The only reason I'm leaning towards Duke is because of its more structured campus. I did my undergrad at Auckland University (New Zealand), which is in the middle of the city - nice initially but tends to grate on the nerves with traffic noise and smoke, and the general bustle. That's why I long sometimes to go to university in a place where the focus is the university itself. But we'll see - I'm sure I would be happy at either. Yeah it's summer down here so I've been surfing and spearfishing like mad, just been away to Australia for a little holiday too. Nothing like a little adventure to keep you from going crazy :wink:

I have just been communicating casually with the prof - no formal emails or letters...

Just wondering how you managed this, i.e. how did you go about asking? I'm flying in from New Zealand to Berkeley, Duke and hopefully others. The prof I've been talking to mentioned the cost would be shared or something... not sure if I should push for more. Btw when are you going? Maybe we'll see each other there... Im leaning towards Duke now just because their demeanor seems much more personal - plus the campus looks amazing. If anyone wants evidence of this, check out Stanford's intake for 2007-2007, I think there are two students from international schools vs. ~ 20 from U.S. ones. I can see the difficulty - the number of Indian and Chinese students out there that could embarass me on the academic front is surely in the thousands (if not hundreds of thousands). Thankfully I'm a U.S. citizen and my having spent time overseas is more likely to be seen as a plus.

In my experience America = Red-tape = 8-10 weeks for everything... y'all should try living outside of the U.S. for awhile and feel what true freedom feels like :wink: Guess I'm gonna have to get used to it again

By the way, anyone heard from Caltech yet?! They were supposed to get back a couple days ago... :|

It went OK... it was a bit difficult talking myself up on the phone and I'm not sure I made that good of an impression. We talked for some time about his research and my interests. He seemed reasonably enthusiastic but didn't give too much away about my chances... will have to wait and see I guess.

Ditto :wink: . I have a phone interview in half an hour... so nervous. I've read enough to do some major ass-kissing though

I will, it's coming up in an hour. I'd rather not say who it's with though just for my own privacy, but I will post some details later. I think if the prof really wants you then he'll get involved in the admissions process. You have to remember these departments aren't really that big, so everyone knows everyone... i.e. all the prof really has to do is mention you to someone with more influence on who is admitted. So I'd say keep at it and hopefully he'll pull some strings behind the scenes.

NICE, I'm surprised you got word so quick. You must be uncrossing your fingers as we speak :wink:

Yes and no... Im a U.S. citizen but have lived in New Zealand for the past 10 years. The professor is supposed to call me on Friday to talk further about my app. Looking at the Duke website I would probably then still have to go for an interview in person...

I can see your viewpoint now that you have qualified it in this way - yes this is all familiar to me too. Also a good point. Unfortunately, even 3 years of latin in secondary school didn't help me much - it's those damn anglosaxon words with no roots that screw you! :wink:

Not sure where you're coming from, but as an engineer, I personally would be more comfortable with a peer that can solve complex, relevant problems than one that can show he is competent in high-school level math. I imagine this would apply for humanities students as well, if you consider a slightly different context (i.e. knowledge of specific topic X over knowledge of obscure word Y). To say that the GPA should be less important than GRE scores... I'm sorry but are you kidding? 4 years study towards the GPA versus, say, 2 months study (in the most extreme cases) for the GRE - please!

Granted, but here's hoping that the admissions committees see the GRE results as a fallible indicator rather than attribute 'holy grail' status as some seem to (particularly international students, presumably as they feel the need to validate their degrees?). For the record my cynicism is not because I got bad scores... :roll:

Good news all - I just received an email from a professor at Duke saying I'm on the shortlist!

Not really sure... don't have anything specific, seems like each professor is working on their own thing. Probably something more to do with modelling than imaging, nanotech etc. though

I think this line of thinking is plain backwards. Studying hard gives someone a good GPA, why should the GRE score provide another measure of this? Is that the point of the GRE in the first place? To me a standardized test score should not reflect the amount of 'study' (read memorization) that someone has done, by definition. Good research isn't robot-style regurgitation, it's making connections between ideas, and then using writing skill to communicate new results to others.

I found the section on the 'standardized tests' interesting in the article mentioned earlier (http://gking.harvard.edu/files/PS93.pdf) - especially the bit about how high the uncertainty is in the GRE results for individuals (+- 80 points at 95% confidence). A good point is "...all students who receive scores of above 688 are indistinguishable (statistically)". But then the article backtracks a bit and claims that on the whole the GRE does provide a good way of distinguishing between students... so I guess the bottom line is, the GRE is the worst way to judge aptitude, except for all the others (to borrow a turn of phrase).