US Universities Handing Quick Decisions - MS CS

Hey people! Its been a long time since I blogged! I was pretty busy with getting my application materials ready! Had to run to my college for nearly 4 months just for the sake of recommendation letters and was made to run for 2 weeks just to get my certificates attested by my college principal. One advice to VTU students. If you want your docs attested it better to board a train to VTU, Belgaum and get it attested by the Registrar(Evaluation). All it takes is one day for the work and max of two days if you consider travelling time. Its better than watching your college officials making you run for a week or two.

Sorry for digressing and now to the point. From my personal experience and watching the admit/reject patterns of a few people on a forum, here are the list of universities that hand out decisions within a month. Note that this list focuses only on Computer Science Department.

1. University of Texas - Dallas - Applied in Oct 2011. Decision in Nov 2011.
2. Syracuse University - Applied in Oct 2011. Decision in Nov 2011.
3. Northeastern University - Complete the application well before mid-December. Then the decisions start rolling my mid-Jan.
4. University of Texas - Arlington - Complete the application well by mid-November, then the decision would be handed before the Christmas holidays start. I completed just before the Christmas holidays. So have to wait till March 1st week for the decisions to start rolling.
5. Texas Tech University - Lubbock - Same as UT-Arlington.
6. Rochester Institute of Technology - Decisions start rolling from November from what I have heard.
7. University of Pennsylvania - Decisions start rolling from November end.
8. Carnegie Mellon University - Decisions start rolling from Jan end.
9. Georgia Tech - Decisions start rolling from mid-Jan.
10. University of Illinois - Chicago -  Decisions start rolling from December.

The reason I have provided this list is so that you can plan your safe univ and apply to maybe one or two from August or September itself and see if you get an admit. Now if you do get an admit, you can try for more moderate and dream universities. Hope this helps. I had paid a lot of money for some stupid consultancy in Bangalore who have never heard of planning I guess. Thanks to seniors and reject decisions I had learnt to never trust consultants! Hope this post is helpful to the ones who need it. Cheers!!!

TOEFL Scores

Hey everybody... I am back! Just received my TOEFL Scores today - 111/120
Satisfied with the results.

Here are my sectional scores:

Reading - 30
Listening - 28
Speaking - 24 [Maybe because I was speaking in a low voice. Not sure. Surprised with this.]
Writing - 29

Anyways overall I am pretty satisfied! :)

AWA Scores

Well.. I received my AWA Scores - 4.0 ... The minimum required by most top universities. I am satisfied with it. Now have my TOEFL Exams this 23rd. I am sure The Lord will help with that. And if anyone out there needs any advice, I am all game :)

GRE Scores :)

Wanted to let all you know that The Almighty GOD has blessed me with a GRE Score of 1350 [Q-730, V-620]. The Quants is bit on the lower side as I had allotted only a week's time for it. Should have allotted atleast a months time. Anyways I am very happy with my verbal score :) Waiting for my AWA score. Its been more than a month now. Anyways will keep you updated.

GRE Verbal - Government Types

Hey there!

Here are the different types of governments you might get confused with:

1) Autonomy - Self
2) Autocracy/Totalitarian - Dictatorship [A person or political party]
3) Democracy - People
4) Gerontocracy - Elderly People
5) Monarchy - Kings & Queens
6) Oligarchy - Few
7) Plutocracy - Wealthy
8) Theocracy - Religious Leaders

Have fun! :)

GRE Vocabulary Tips & Tricks

Mugging up the 3,500 long word list can be a big pain especially when we come across words which would not seem relevant to our domain. Professionally I am a Senior Software Engineer and when I come across words like "Scuttle" which means "Sink", I wonder who would actually say "My ship 'scuttled' "! or may be "We just 'scuttled' the enemy ship!" I wouldn't go through the pain of actually mugging up such a word and then present it to a person who would only be seeing stars unless if he is some verbal scholar! I was trying to find out some solution to this. Here is my observation.

1) Mug up the root words [about 300 roots, suffixes and prefixes] before getting into any words.

2) On the first attempt, don't waste more than 2 minutes on a word. Believe me, 2 min. or 10 min. would not make much difference after 15 days. The focus should be on categorizing the difficulty level.
a) Have you come across the word? If yes, can you recollect it? If yes for the former two then it should be in the easiest category.
b) You have come across the word but cant seem to recollect it even after going through it for 2 - 4 min. It should be a difficult word. Move on! Don't be stuck on to it. Note it down in a separate pocket book or something and name the book as Difficult Vocab.
c) You have come across a word you think would never stick into your memory for a lifetime. Categorize it as Insane and have a look at the word and meaning and think why GOD why! Who would use it and move on! :) Similarly note this down in a separate pocket book or something and name the book as Insanely
Vocab.

3) So now once you have gone through the entire 3500 Master Word List, study the entire list for the 2nd time. Now see if the easy words were actually easy or was it your short term memory playing tricks on you! If yes, then place that word in your Difficult book list. Next go through the difficult word and just
for fun the insane ones. Believe me you would remember the insane ones better than the difficult ones!

4) Once the 2nd iteration is over you know for sure, the "Easy", "Difficult" and "Insane" words! Now try to split the difficult words into roots, suffixes et al and see if you can find a pattern. You can also use Mnemonics to help yourself remember these words. You can go through this site which might be of help for
mnemonics - mnemonic dictionary

5) Now after the 2nd iteration, your confidence would be low! You might start wondering that your going nowhere. Just a handful of those difficult words seem very easy now. Don't worry, you are heading the right path!

6) Now for the 3rd iteration! Research has it that you need to read a new subject a minimum of 3 times to actually start feeling comfortable with it. The 4th time, you start recollecting it and the 5th and 6th time you start singing the words as though you were born with a Dictionary in your arm pit!

7) But for a 6 time revision schedule, if you are a working professional, make sure that you have at least 2 years ahead of you! If you are a student, you should have at least 1 year. Remember, even if you complete the 3500 word list in 3 months that is not the end of it. You will have to start experimenting with it.

8) Start using it with your friends or colleagues. Start showing it off to your Boss! If he keeps nagging shoot out some explanation with these words. The next time he would be like carrying a dictionary when he speaks to you >:] Believe me such experiences help you retain these words for a lifetime!

Enjoy learning new words! Hope you can crack the GRE verbal analogies and antonyms with some hard and smart work!