Back in the USA, Time for PhD Admissions Decisions
I’ve just landed in Detroit, just one more short hop to get home. The visit to Taipei was both productive and fun. Lots of CMU faculty members were there: Lujo Bauer, Ed Clarke, Christos Faloutsos, Virgil Gligor, and Adrian Perrig. All gave great talks at the iCAST symposium and held up well for the review panel. We also had several great meals, including some, um, challenging Taipei street food (including, notably, deep-fried chicken anus). I also made short half-day visits to the computer science departments at Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University.
Later this week, I’ll be in the Bay Area for a meeting of the NRC’s CSTB at Google. But the major focus will be on admissions for our PhD program. This is the crunch week. Like the other top programs, we’ve been inundated with applications this year. The graduate admissions committee has made their first pass over all the applications and is now soliciting input from the entire faculty. We’re hoping to wrap things up within the next two weeks or so.
One of the reasons graduate admissions is on my mind is that I had the opportunity to learn more about some of the very good students in Taiwan who have applied to our PhD program. There are some very good prospects in Taiwan, and of course they are benefiting from training by faculty members, many of whom have received their PhDs at top US schools (like CMU, Stanford, CalTech, etc). Meeting with one of these students, I was struck by the incredibly strong desire to come to the USA. While it is true that we are starting to see some serious competition for the top asian prospects, not just from other US schools but also from asian schools, I would say that many of the best and brightest still see schools like CMU as the absolutely best opportunity for doing world-class research.
Sustaining this, through more and better government funding programs and streamlined visa requirements, seems absolutely essential if we are to maintain this competitive edge. On this topic, a good read is Norman Augustine’s recent testimony to the Democratic House Steering Committee, on the topic of US competitiveness. A quick read, well worth your time.
Peter Lee @ January 11, 2009