Grad student life at Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell

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Ninjagecko
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I'm interested to hear from Grad Students at these schools about anything they wish they had known when they were applying. How competitive/compassionate are the students? How is the weather? Are people happy? Is the town in complete economic distress? Do you like the whole department, or just your advisor? Does your department make an effort to be social, or is it all business all the time? Etc.

Anything you think is good to know is appreciated. Thanks!
 

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Have you even applied to these schools and if so have you even been accepted?
Even if you have been accepted where do you suppose is a better place to ask those questions the open house/visiting time where you know you are interacting with real grad students at that school or an anonymous internet forum?
 
No, I have not applied yet. I have too many choices at the moment, and I would rather minimize the amount of time I spend writing essays. The idea is to eliminate programs from my list before I apply instead of after. Obviously I'll need to make my own impressions from visiting before I choose a program
 
Ninjagecko said:
No, I have not applied yet. I have too many choices at the moment, and I would rather minimize the amount of time I spend writing essays. The idea is to eliminate programs from my list before I apply instead of after. Obviously I'll need to make my own impressions from visiting before I choose a program
If essay writing is the concern here, I wouldn't worry about it. You can largely use the same essay and tailor a paragraph or two towards the school.
 
Apply to all and see which you get into. If you had any reasonable chance in getting into those top programs finding a few safety schools shouldn't be a problem. You need a statement of purpose for those schools which is usually based off a template that you create and the message you want to convey.