University of Massachusetts Amherst vs. University of Maryland College Park

[giantfox]

Hi Everybody. I had been accepted into the University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Maryland College Park and now that April 15th is coming soon I need to make a quick decision. My interests are in Artificial Intelligence involving Machine Learning with applications for Natural Language Processing and also a bit of Human Computer Interaction (These are fields I have done research in as an undergraduate). Both offers are funded. I have visited UMass and talked with professors I would be interested in doing an RAship with there, but I have not visited UMaryland or spoken to any professors there as I was recently admitted there. Does anybody have any any advice on how to choose at this late stage or have any comparable information about the two departments? Thanks!

Edited April 12, 2011 by giantfox

[newms]

Those are two really good options - congratulations! Is it possible that you could talk with profs or students at Maryland before April 15 so you have more information to make your decision? UMass is well known for its strength in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (it's a top 10 school in AI), and UMD isn't far behind. Which school do you think is a better fit for your interests? Did you think that you'd be a good fit at UMass when you visited and spoke with the profs there? If so, then that may be your better option. Good luck with the decision!

[giantfox]

Thanks. I am really happy with both acceptances. I don't know if I have time to actually talk with members of the faculty at UMaryland, but I do know people who have graduated from the program, and might be able to connect with students currently in the program. Right now, the problem is that the two programs are both really good that the decision is just about a toss up, I'm looking for any sort of information that might make the decision easier... It might come down to whether I am more interested in the Machine Learning aspect which UMass seems to be very good in or whether I am more interested in the NLP part which UMaryland seems to be better at. Any additional comments would be appreciated!

Edited April 12, 2011 by giantfox

[csperson]

UMCP is ranked higher than UMass in CS overall, but if you look at the rankings for AI on usnews.com, UMass is 8th in the nation, but UMCP is 13th.

[the poisoned pawn]

When you say machine learning, you should be more specific about whether it is applied or theoretical machine learning. Technically, machine learning is everywhere in computer vision, nlp, robotic, etc. If you just want to work on the more theoretical aspect of machine learning, I would say both schools are roughly the same. I'm not sure if it is true that Maryland is better at NLP since UMass has a lot of great professors on information retrieval from text data.

Overall, UMD is a bigger name and is in a more interesting location compared to UMass. I would pick them over UMass based on this factor IF the research opportunities are the same at both schools.

Edited April 12, 2011 by the poisoned pawn

[giantfox]

Thanks for the response. My interest was with Machine Learning with applications to NLP. I know that Amherst has great Information Retrieval and Information Extraction professors and I have met them all and like them a lot. I think that Maryland has a better NLP in general in all NLP sub-fields (including Machine Translation, Speech etc..) and they also collaborate with Johns Hopkins making them a much larger group, although the UMass professors really seem to be at the top of their fields. This is going to be a reallllly hard decision!

[BKMD]

I think your intuition is right that UMass is probably better for machine learning generally while UMD would be better for NLP. That being said, UMass has hired some NLP people recently (David Smith last year, Aria Haghighi this year). Conversely, the NLP people at UMD are certainly strong in ML, and they recently hired Jordan Boyd-Graber who is more ML-oriented, and Hal Daume who is very strong in both fields.

That probably won't help your decision, and honestly I'd say it's a toss-up in terms of the quality of the programs. Instead you might want to consider other factors such as the location, the job placement of alumni, the type of computing resources that are available, and who specifically you might prefer as an advisor. It's unfortunate that you can't visit UMD since honestly I think the people you'll be working with (both your prospective labmates and advisor) is the most important factor and it helps to actually meet them. You might want to see if you can have a phone conversation with UMD faculty you're interested in; I was able to do that when I was choosing schools. Get a sense of their personality and how the program is run, to see how you might work with them as an advisor. You might also consider emailing grad students in each program to ask about the lab, the faculty, the program in general, etc... see if you can find a reason to prefer one over the other.

[giantfox]

Thanks BKMD. Your response confirmed what I already felt. I met with David Smith and he seemed to have some really interesting projects going on and for some reason I don't remember if Aria Haghighi was there that day, but that may be because he just got hired and might not be taking on any students... I was thinking Hal Daume as being one of the better fits for me research wise and placed his name as one of the few professors in my application to Maryland, but I didn't consider Jordan Boyd-Graber at the time because he was located in the iSchool and not the CS department, which I am realizing was a mistake. Mostly, I am thinking that I would probably be happy in either department research wise. I am going to try and talk to the department over the phone tomorrow and perhaps an adviser that would be available to speak to me. Location though is a big factor, and I have no idea where I might be happier, although a lot of people seem to like the Amherst area, I am a bit worried of the rural location as a big city guy myself.

[BKMD]

Well, if you prefer an urban location, College Park has the advantage of being a very short metro ride from DC, if you wanted to live there. It's also somewhat close to Baltimore as well, like you mentioned (and collaborations with JHU as well as UMBC and even APL seem fairly common).

[garura]

Congratulations, giantfox! As you know, both of them are great schools! If you want to more focus on researching AI or applied machine learning, U Mass Amherst would be a great choice! If your research interest is theoretical ML, both are quite good. BTW, U Mass Amherst is not that far from Boston, so you don't need to worry about the location. Some of my friends are PhD students of U Mass Amherst, and they often spend their weekend in Boston. Also, some of them actively interact with guys at MIT or Harvard. Consider your research interests and make a decision for it. Good luck with your decision!

[garura]

BTW, if you decide one school to go, please decline the other ASAP. April 15th is coming and your rejection will save some people!