University of Illinois, Chicago (The Flames)

This is one university that will keep reminding me of the painful shades of apping. They took me for a real ride – lost my application thrice!!! I DHLed them twice, faxed it once and finally few angry phone calls and e-mails did the trick; they found my old application, shish!! By the time they found my application I had already lost out on the fellowship deadline. The CS dept’s policy now is to fund all PhD students with at least a TA. I applied for MS, need I say more. The CS dept does some research in natural language processing, virtual reality, AI and databases. Most of the research is sponsored by NSF and other governmental agencies. Top corporate sponsors include Motorola, Sun Microsystems and Hughes aircraft. The research funding when I applied was close to $9 million. UIC is located in Chicago metro and this is absolutely great for living where you get all Indian groceries, restaurants, modern facilities, entertainment and most of all some 60,000 fellow countrymen (that includes women too, don’t despair ). The prime location also translates to very bright job opportunities and the flip side of all of this is the higher cost of living. Many people I know from the UIC CS dept are telling me that getting funded after coming to the university is almost certain and there are plenty of part-time on-campus jobs. This year I think the admissions authorities have been struck by some plague which manifests itself in extreme generosity. Yes folks, there has been an unwarranted increase in the number of admits to the CS dept this year and this is down right unhealthy for the school if it continues selecting people with just about mediocre academic background. I would advise juniors to keep this school as one of the safest apps considering its easy admissions, great location and financial aid opportunities. Anybody with CGPA 7.5 or above can consider apping to this school.