My son has been accepted to the PhD Computer Science programs at UCLA, U of Maryland College Park and U Minnesota Twin Cities. All have excellent Computer Science programs, and he’ll visit all of them to get a better idea of his fit with professors and current research projects. We’re still interested in feedback, especially from anyone who has experience in graduate CompSci studies at any of these universities. His research interests include bioinformatics and machine learning. Quality of life is certainly a factor in addition to research opportunities. Thanks!
Congratulations to you and your son.
This is what I learned from my D’s experience as a Ph.D. student: “Experience in graduate CompSci studies” (or any study) is very personal. What good for someone may not be good for another. I don’t think anyone can generally claim “such school is better than such school because…”
I suggest your son to do research on the professors at those institutes, especially the ones who potentially become his advisor. When my D chose from 5 admission offers, she made a point of reading at least 2 papers from each professor who she would choose as advisor.
Sometimes the sheer number of professors in the field/sub-field your S is interested in can be an indicator. My D turned down the offer from a top university simply because there were only 4 professors there in the field, and 2 of them were about to retire.
Thank you for your feedback, Pentaprism. Your point about the number of professors in the field or subfield at each university is valid. He has been in contact with several of the professors and is following an online course taught by one of them. Unfortunately we found out that all three universities have their open houses for admitted students on exactly the same days, and as geographically separated as they are, he can only attend one of those events. Fortunately one of the colleges is close enough to visit on a different day.
Hello @bookmouse,
If your S can’t make the open house, the school may arrange a visit for you S. Two of the schools that admitted my D virtually “bent over backward” to invite her over for a “private” visit. The schools too have to compete for good candidates.
You were right, Pentaprism. The two that he can’t attend during their open house days offered to host him on other days instead. This sure is a different process from undergraduate admissions.
One of the universities is offering a “non service” fellowship - basically the same stipend as the others are offering but he wouldn’t have to provide TA or research assistant hours in exchange. Any comments on how worthwhile that might be? Being a TA can be good experience, but one can also get bogged down grading a lot of papers. One of the universities said to expect about 20 hours a week of TA/RA work, but the other only mentioned that he’d be expected to teach one class for one semester. How much time do grad students spend on TA/RA work generally? Thanks for your input.
You can always volunteer to TA (for free or for extra money). But having a non-service fellowship means that you control the amount of time you spend TAing. It also means that you have more control over who is your advisor - you aren’t funded by any specific grant, and you can always take your money to a different advisor if you want to. (He’ll probably spend the same amount of time on research regardless of whether he’s on fellowship or an assistantship, so it’s not about that. It’s more about what and with whom.)
So while I wouldn’t let that be the final decision-maker, it’s certainly something to take into account. This is especially true if computer science is a large major at the school (which it is for all three of those) and he’d have to help out with huge intro classes.
One thing I will say is that UCLA and Maryland are both ranked about evenly - both are top 10-15 programs. Minnesota is great, but it’s more top 30-40. Obviously fit with the department and reputation of advisor should outweigh that, but it is something to consider particularly if your son’s goals are academia. He should also consider whether he has non-academic aspirations at all, and if he does, which program has decent placement in that, too. My guess is that all three schools are excellent in this area but UCLA and Maryland might get the nudge.
Thanks for your input, Juillet. Yes, UMN has a good program and some excellent professors but is not as highly ranked as the other two; however that is the university offering the non-service fellowship, which is a nice perk.
Money, fellowship, TA or RA is just one of nice things to talk about. Your potential advisor should be the most important deciding factor. The number of (well known) advisors in your research area in a department is not meaningless if all has already more than enough Ph D students under them. Please make sure to get his/her ok to be your son’s advisor. Also check number of potential students asking for your potential advisor.