last (pre-) grad school post

[nibot]

I found another graduate school ranker. It's based on a survey distributed to current grad students.

It says I should go to Rochester. Just ranking over "overall satisfaction," Rochester comes in second, after UC Santa Cruz and tied with Cornell. UNC is lumped in the third quartile. CMU did not respond.

I suspect this survey has a huge amount of self-selective bias in it, though. We should all sign up to take part in next year's incarnation. (There were 32 responses for Rochester and 28 for UNC — far more than for most departments, so the results should be statistically significant. Rochester has 135 physics PhD students, and UNC has 64.)

But I liked UNC so much!

Comments

[nibot.livejournal.com]

1 PM EDT !

[philonous815.livejournal.com]

1PM? where did you get that from?

Wow. I might have less time than I thought.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

The CMU letter specifies: "You may consider this offer until 1:00pm (Eastern Standard Time) on April 15, 2004." I think the agreement is just that programs can't have a deadline before April 15. On and after that date, anything's fair game.

[philonous815.livejournal.com]

So, have you decided?

I'm down to OSU and Minnesota now.

[heike.livejournal.com]

Carolina doesn't seem to fair well in that survey. But look how Berkeley fairs. Or some other top ranked programs. On the other hand, it's probably just as meaningful as the US News rankings.

[ephermata.livejournal.com]

I don't know how much I'd trust these sorts of rankings. What matters is how you'll like it there, and these surveys may not predict that well. Of course, if a place is WAY down there or WAY up there, that may be a sign. So I'd put this as a positive mark for Rochester, but wouldn't worry about UNC.

[rebbyribs.livejournal.com]

My program ranked "worse than average" in the survey. I think there used to be a lot of disgruntled grad students in the program. I think it's better now, but it will take a while for the scores to reflect this. And it ranks against students' expectations of their programs - so students at very good schools may be really critical of their schools.

Also, your individual happiness is going to depend a lot on your advisor and research group. There are good and bad choices at all 3 schools, I suspect. Fortunately, your interests are pretty broad, so you'll be able to choose a lab where you're comfortable instead of picking a narrow field where the only prof. doing research is a real jerk to his grad students.

[probablevacancy.livejournal.com]

The survey takers ranked Houston as an A- climate and Berkeley as a B climate.

If that doesn't completely obliterate this ranking system, I don't know what would.

[heike.livejournal.com]

That's program climate, not geographic. I almost fell for that myself, then I realized they decided we could decide for ourselves what climate and geographic locations suited us best.

[svino.livejournal.com]

Hey there, you don't know me, but I'm a graduate student in optics at the University of Rochester. I followed you here from your post on the RIT community board. Have you decided where you are going yet? Anyway, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the physics community or the city.

Oh, and sorry if I'm too late to be helpful.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Coolness. Looks like I'm coming to Rochester! Guess I'll see you there.

Questions of rather immediate import:

- Where should I live?

Stuff I'll figure out eventually but pointers would be nice:

- Where are the good places for cheap/yummy food?

- Coffee houses for studying?

- Fun places to explore?

- What are the surrounding towns like?

[nibot.livejournal.com]

On the 'where to live' question — in Berkeley I lived at a co-op (http://www.usca.org/), which is a big house with students living in it who together arrange to do all the various house chores — cooking dinner, cleaning, etc; and there is collective food buying and all that. Do you know if anything similar exists in Rochester? It's sort of like a frat but coed and generally attracts a different sort of person. Also, is there any Rochester equivalent to craigslist (http://www.craigslist.org/)? Actually, I wonder what it would take to start a craigslist for Rochester (since they have a bunch of other cities already).

[svino.livejournal.com]

Where should you live? / Are there any co-ops?
Tough question, depends whom you ask and what your priorities are, I guess. I haven't ever heard of anything like a co-op around here, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist. I live in campus housing in a spartan little place called the University Towne House. It fits my own needs perfectly, but most people prefer to find something with (say) a kitchen. Goler House is popular for grad students, but the lack of air conditioning is a drawback I hear. University Park is pretty decent too. I think you'd find most non-university apartment complexes won't be in walking distance of the campus, though there are some houses near the med center that are often rented out by a handful of students.

Cheap / Yummy food?
I'm rather familiar with Rochester's restaurants (see lack-of-kitchen, above). For "cheap", Rochester has some decent diners. One called "Mel's" on Mt. Hope Avenue, is a favorite of mine. (Not to be confused with Jay's or the Mt. Hope Diner, also on Mt. Hope.) There are some Chinese buffet places that can be a good deal if you're hungry enough. For "tasty", the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que (http://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/) is worth a look (the problem is getting a seat.) "The King and I" is a decent Thai place, and I've become partial to "Mykonos" for Greek food. "Plum Tree" is probably best for Japanese food and "Thali of India" for Indian. Also, "Philip's European Restaurant" has the best selection of desserts in town.

Coffee houses?
One called Cibon on Park ave is good and popular. I like the cafe attached to the Little Theatre, which is Rochester's only real Independent Film Theatre. There's one called Java's that's a big hit with the Eastman students, but it tends to be a little loud for working.

Places to Explore?
Well, Toronto is pretty nice really. Rochester? Ehh.. it's OK, but not really the most exciting city in the world. Despite having UoR and RIT, it really doesn't have the college-town atmosphere of Ithaca or Berkeley. The downtown is mostly a business district, which makes it depressingly vacant on weekend afternoons. The Eastman House Museum is worth seeing at least once, I guess. If you're willing to drive a while (1 hour?) Letchworth park (http://ecojb.fiu.edu/letchworth.html) is a nice trip.

Surrounding Towns?
Well, Ithaca is a pretty cool little town about two hours southeast. I can't seem to stay away. (I keep going back to use the nanofab facilties at Cornell). If you happen to have academic interests in glass science, Corning and Alfred aren't too far. And of course there's Buffalo and Toronto.

"Craigslist"?
Nothing quite like that that I'm aware of. Just in general, a couple of websites with decent information about Rochester life are the big guide> and rochesterdrinks.com (http://www.rochesterdrinks.com).

Finally, you really might want to check out the Student handbook for first year med students (http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/smd/student/docs/handbook.pdf). Just skip the med-specific stuff.
(http://www.thebigguide.com)

[svino.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot to ask, do you know what field of physics research you're looking at specifically? Or what professors you might like to work for? I work in Bob Boyd's Nonlinear Optics group myself.

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Well, that's funny. I'd like to get into quantum optics, and Boyd's group is one of the ones I'm looking at... (-: I haven't written to him or anything, though.