kalhown

Princeton, PHD in EE. (Whew, was a tough choice but I'm incredibly happy to go with Princeton!!!)

wasleys, here is the link. http://www.britishairways.com/travel/fx/public/en_ru?depDay=1&depMon=Sep&retDay=15&retMon=Sep&from=MOW&to=New%20York

From the British Airways site: If you are travelling one-way, wants to make a stopover in either direction or wishes to return to another airport, then please click here. WANTS!!!! WISHES!!!! What is this? Have Brits finally gone out of their minds and stopped talking English completely?

Dear scheng! I'm very happy for you and I admire your courage and decisiveness!! I dare suggest that I understand you very well... My entire life I'm fighting between the two sides of my nature: one that likes something and the other that demands more intellectual and respectable activities. I think you've been in the same situation: feeling that you like something but at the same time trying to be some other personality... Your post really touched something inside me and sure as hell inside many others. Your deed (inscribed for eternity in the archives of TM) may become an inspiration or eye-opening revelation for hundreds of would-be grads. Thank you, Scheng and be happy! I think I wouldn't have started application process if I had thought of these matters deeper 1.5 years ago. But for now I'm not as strong as you to reverse the road...

Hm, I worship A. Oppenheim but hasn't DSPG got almost defunct recently? I personally would say that LIDS is the power of MIT's Comm, plus Wornell's SIA. However, it is funny and a little bit dreary to understand that I will never ever touch any of these holy grails... Not as a student at least maybe as a professor LOL ;-))))

I was notified of admission by e-mail March 4, today received hardcopy letter. However, there's no ultimate info on fin.aid, only the clause "You are guranteed fin.aid in the form of Fship, RA or TA with stipend no less than ...".

CONGRATS, DUDE!!!! I'd be drunk for the next pair of months ;-)))) Congrats, IVY at NYC is a gold-coins-jingling admit!!!! They rejected me btw, has anyone in Comm/DSP been admitted?

Stanfordian, thanks a ton for your explanations! (Although I'm in no way interested in Stanford, it is of great interest to read your thorough explanations). I came across an interesting talk given by a Stanford alumni Professor Tracy Larrabee: ...I knew that I wanted to go into academia, but I knew that I didn't want to go into academia at Stanford. They are into the little fish are eaten by the big fish are eaten by the bigger fish at Stanford as far as I can tell. It's important to try to learn as much as you can, accidentally or on purpose. Conferences that you get sent to talk to your fellows at other schools. For instance, it was a big shock to me when I found out that CMU grad. students all really liked CMU. I don't know about Berkeley students, but Stanford CS students all hate Stanford passionately. Stanford manages to get really good students and then they ignore them. The way that most of my friends felt who were getting Ph.D.'s was that the way it was taught at Stanford was that you would find the ocean, throw the kid into the ocean and say, "OK, if you make it over to the other continent, then I guess we'll give you a Ph.D." Every once in a while you'll get lucky and you'll get thrown in with an advisor in a way that you could not have known ahead of time unless you're more sensible and well-rounded than the average graduate student, who helps you out a lot. Stanford doesn't necessarily allocate time for dealing with grad students in the professor's schedule of the day. That's one of the problems. When I say that my advisor ignored me for two years, I meant he was working his butt off the entire time and it was easier to just continue paying me and not talk to me if I was going to push it. He was much richer in money than he was in time, and that's not all that unusual. Different schools have different philosophies. Things are really different at Santa Cruz than I think I would have been at Stanford. It doesn't mean I could have gotten a job at Stanford, although I did get a job offer from a top 10 place, or even a top 5 place, but my graduate students, I don't have very many of them. I have three graduate students and I meet with them all a lot, I work next to them, I sit next to them. We sit in a room together and work together and I treat them like colleagues. I don't tell them what to do, we decide together what to do and I like working like that. I like working with equals. I like being honest. I prefer to speak straight, whether in a classroom, or a talk like this, or to my graduate students. I am not into the artificial barrier of "I'm wise and you're not." I can't deal that way. A lot of people told me that I was going to have a lot of trouble because I wasn't going to get any respect because I wasn't demanding it. For instance, all my students call me Tracy, undergraduates and graduates. I prefer it that way...

My terrific congratulations!!! These are wonderful admits!!!! I think that most Engineering profs/grads wouldn't ever estimate Caltech higher than the real-big-3 (Stanford/MIT/Berkeley) by any means. And considering the brilliant explanations by Mr. Stanfordian, Stanford is not as intimidating as it seemed!

Oh I'm sorry for being obscure. I didn't mean PhD students fund themselves. I meant, 50% are intentionally get kicked out in order to equalize profs' funds with the number of eaters (aka grad.students).

Dr.Watson and Mr.Stanfordian, I want to stress that besides the statistics on quals pass rate there is an equally (un)supported rumor that Stanford accepts TWICE the students it can fund (what I heard is: profs sum up how many students they can feed. Normal schools accept approximately this number of grads, while Stanf accepts TWICE that number). Stanfordian, it'd be nice to hear a comment on that too. However, I think the most sucking part in this 50/50 policy is not the substantial chance of being expelled, but rather the general atmosphere among students... I have a very close friend studying at top-5 grad.program with the same 50% dropout rate. She says it was unbelievably shocking for her to enter this cutthroat society where everyone treats you as a rival and works hard to discredit you in the eyes of the faculty (as I understood quals are graded in a personal way, so you must be a straight-A and a profs' favored fruit to successfully pass).

Wow!!!!! These are not MEGA ADMITS!! THESE ARE GIGA ADMITS!!! CONGRATULATIONS DUDE!!! You're must be a future Shannon! Concerning an advice: I think with such admits you're much more clever and educated than I. But I would not even think of any university if MIT admitted me. (I'm a fan of LIDS ;-)

WOW!!! GREAT ADMIT!!!! Finally your long wait paid off!!!! CONGRATS!!!

BigRed! More congrats on this FANTASTIC admit! And I believe you're right about not taking rankings too seriously. I think that ranks of huge departments are always overrated. That's the gravest problem of the "peer review" system as you may know. And it's so wonderful you can take a tour of UIUC and compare to the others ;-). However, in UIUC vs OSU comparison I would 100% vote for UIUC. Since by any means UIUC is better (peer review, recruiter assessment, etc). And UIUC is famous for its industry connections. And hey, John Bardeen was there!!! You can't go wrong ;-).

TokaBoy: You're talking about aid or what? I've received my admission (e-mail) 2 weeks ago. The letter said I'm guaranteed fin.aid, but since then no additional info. I presume faculty have a hard time splitting students between them ;-).