tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post114367442255801662..comments2024-03-18T23:13:09.570-05:00Comments on Computational Complexity: Choosing Graduate SchoolsLance Fortnowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06752030912874378610noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1323818050925118332009-04-10T19:38:00.000-05:002009-04-10T19:38:00.000-05:00UK CS PhD programs? How do they stack up?UK CS PhD programs? How do they stack up?Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01056721638714555967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-31521640404254284222008-05-12T07:57:00.000-05:002008-05-12T07:57:00.000-05:00what will be the best universities in US to apply ...what will be the best universities in US to apply for a phd in computational geometry?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1148313856811934472006-05-22T11:04:00.000-05:002006-05-22T11:04:00.000-05:00here is my suggestion:Algorithms - Princeton, Corn...here is my suggestion:<BR/><BR/>Algorithms - Princeton, Cornell, MIT<BR/><BR/>Complexity - Berkeley, MIT, Chicago, <BR/>Rutgers, Toronto, UW, Princeton<BR/><BR/>Computational Geometry - MIT, UIUC, Harvard, Stanford<BR/><BR/>AI - CMU, MIT, Stanford<BR/><BR/>Cryptography - MIT, UCSD, Waterloo<BR/><BR/>Combinatorics - MIT, Rutgers, Princeton<BR/><BR/>Logic - Toronto, UCLA, Berkeley, UIUCAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1144164242110777892006-04-04T10:24:00.000-05:002006-04-04T10:24:00.000-05:00As a related question: what's the best way to go a...As a related question: what's the best way to go about picking a thesis topic?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143874098716538872006-04-01T00:48:00.000-06:002006-04-01T00:48:00.000-06:00You forgot Poland.You forgot Poland.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143866054716855792006-03-31T22:34:00.000-06:002006-03-31T22:34:00.000-06:00Probably you are from Stanford. Come on, we all kn...<I>Probably you are from Stanford. Come on, we all know that we should not trust too much to USNews for these facts.</I><BR/><BR/>Not long ago the Oregon Institute was named #1 in DB by the USNews. This is a fine institution, but I doubt anyone outside the USNews would rank it number one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143865517392288242006-03-31T22:25:00.000-06:002006-03-31T22:25:00.000-06:00The funny thing is that neither the Hebrew univers...<I>The funny thing is that neither the Hebrew university, Tel Aviv University or the Wiezman institute are mentioned,</I><BR/><BR/>They were mentioned already as in "an untold number of universities and institutes in Israel". And by the way you forgot Technion, which is also very strong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143861610323846482006-03-31T21:20:00.000-06:002006-03-31T21:20:00.000-06:00One should take the exact details of US News ranki...One should take the exact details of US News rankings with a grain of salt. While they are generally not terrible they sometimes have major problems, such as highly ranking certain graduate programs at name schools when those programs don't even exist.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143861344035738012006-03-31T21:15:00.001-06:002006-03-31T21:15:00.001-06:00Probably you are from Stanford. Come on, we all kn...Probably you are from Stanford. Come on, we all know that we should not trust too much to USNews for these facts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143861323056540752006-03-31T21:15:00.000-06:002006-03-31T21:15:00.000-06:00The funny thing is that neither the Hebrew univers...The funny thing is that neither the Hebrew university, Tel Aviv University or the Wiezman institute are mentioned, and all three are arguably way stronger than some (if not most) of the places mentioned on these lists. And all three have strong complexity people. (Yeh, I know that these places are in Israel, but if you really want to do good theory, you have to go to a good place.)<BR/><BR/>In short, all ranking lists are stupid, but some lists are more stupid than others. Especially if they rank universities doing theory in CS and ignore whats going outside the US.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143848442548285102006-03-31T17:40:00.000-06:002006-03-31T17:40:00.000-06:00USNews theory rankings are pretty much worthless. ...USNews theory rankings are pretty much worthless. Polling people in the field (undergrad faculty and their contacts) is a much better idea...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143842842884423062006-03-31T16:07:00.000-06:002006-03-31T16:07:00.000-06:00Not really a surprise. With Goel, Saberi, Johari, ...Not really a surprise. With Goel, Saberi, Johari, Roughgarden, Koltun, Guibas, Plotkin and Motwani it's a strong department. Perhaps there're no complexity theorists, but there're two computational geometrists to counteract it :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143841573131218362006-03-31T15:46:00.000-06:002006-03-31T15:46:00.000-06:00Speaking of rankings, the new USnews rankings just...Speaking of rankings, the new USnews rankings just came out... The top 4 are of course the same, but Stanford has moved from 5th to 2nd in the theory rankings, surpassing Berkeley.<BR/><BR/>Surprise?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143831821064515062006-03-31T13:03:00.000-06:002006-03-31T13:03:00.000-06:00How possible is it to transfer grad schools? My pr...<I>How possible is it to transfer grad schools? My problem is that my current options are not as strong in theory as I'd like. Will getting grad course credits elsewhere strengthen an app? </I><BR/><BR/>It is certainly possible to transfer. However, graduate course credits on their own don't do that much since grades in graduate courses are often taken less seriously than grades in undergraduate courses. <BR/><BR/>What really matters is that you impress your recommenders, get involved in research, show promise of being able to do a Ph.D. and not just courses, and write a statement that shows you are knowledgeable about the field at a level beyond that of typical undergraduate applicants.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143825631788379112006-03-31T11:20:00.000-06:002006-03-31T11:20:00.000-06:00How possible is it to transfer grad schools? My p...How possible is it to transfer grad schools? My problem is that my current options are not as strong in theory as I'd like. Will getting grad course credits elsewhere strengthen an app?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143811354040775912006-03-31T07:22:00.000-06:002006-03-31T07:22:00.000-06:00Anon 3:57 - Cornell has one of the best algorithms...<I>Anon 3:57 - Cornell has one of the best algorithms groups in the world, which makes the lack of a complexity theorist stick out even further.</I><BR/><BR/>Cornell is no doubt a good place to do algorithms, although I think is a notch below MIT's algorithms group of Demaine, Indyk, Karger, Leighton, Leiserson, Shor, Sudan and Vempala.<BR/><BR/>In terms of the need of a complexity theory person to be a top notch computer science department, currently MIT has no active full-time complexity theorist (granted, the complexity papers that their crypto group publishes on the side are as good as any's). <BR/><BR/>To be clear, I'm not arguing that not having a complexity theorist is a desirable state. It is not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143773803489973292006-03-30T20:56:00.000-06:002006-03-30T20:56:00.000-06:00By the way, if anyone is looking for grad schools ...By the way, if anyone is looking for grad schools in cryptography, I've got a little list:<BR/>http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~dmolnar/gradschools.html<BR/><BR/>No rankings, just schools and professors. I'm sure it's a little out of date, so I welcome corrections and additions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143766840451942722006-03-30T19:00:00.000-06:002006-03-30T19:00:00.000-06:00What makes the stoc/focs metric of achievement so ...What makes the stoc/focs metric of achievement so absurd is that the entries are given only the most cursory "beauty contest" reviews, and totally bogus papers are known to crop up from time to time, often without so much as a note of errata...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143766776496786782006-03-30T18:59:00.000-06:002006-03-30T18:59:00.000-06:00It seems to me that a public blog aimed at the com...It seems to me that a public blog aimed at the community at large is not really the place much of this discussion, especially with people throwing out specific, numbers, orderings, names, and opinions thereof. Even the original question might not have that much relevance here. I imagine students would be better off seeking personal advice from professors in the area at their undergraduate universities with whom they have a good relationship.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143765884536599232006-03-30T18:44:00.000-06:002006-03-30T18:44:00.000-06:00It seems that ranking always causes drastic argume...It seems that ranking always causes drastic arguments. Is this undecidable or decidable?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143763421258088102006-03-30T18:03:00.000-06:002006-03-30T18:03:00.000-06:00sadly, researchers are judged by number of stoc/fo...sadly, researchers are judged by number of stoc/focs papers. if this is all it matters, why waste time here? focs deadline is approaching...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143762915731482832006-03-30T17:55:00.000-06:002006-03-30T17:55:00.000-06:00Anon 3:57 - Cornell has one of the best algorithms...Anon 3:57 - Cornell has one of the best algorithms groups in the world, which makes the lack of a complexity theorist stick out even further. And to think that this is Hartmanis' school...<BR/><BR/>Comparing complexity theory to computational gemometry is absurd. Computational geometry is an important area in its own right, but if we're talking about theoretical computer science as a whole, complexity and algorithms are at the center. Algorithms is always going to be a more active area, that's fair enough. But let's not forget that the most fundamental problems in theory concern complexity. No department that is indifferent to foundational issues can claim to be a top theory department.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143762756809569242006-03-30T17:52:00.000-06:002006-03-30T17:52:00.000-06:00No, they did not disprove the UGC.No, they did not disprove the UGC.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143756445756881142006-03-30T16:07:00.000-06:002006-03-30T16:07:00.000-06:00Did Charikar et al disprove the unique games conje...Did Charikar et al disprove the unique games conjecture? There is a paper called "How to play any unique game" on his students' website but no actual paper ...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3722233.post-1143755852900201082006-03-30T15:57:00.000-06:002006-03-30T15:57:00.000-06:00Cornell and Stanford don't even satisfy the basic ...<I>Cornell and Stanford don't even satisfy the basic requirement for a top 5 ranking - neither has an active complexity theorist...</I><BR/><BR/>Are you talking about theory or "complexity theory"? A school doesn't need a complexity theorist to be in the top 5 theory departments any more than it doesn't need a computational geometer to rank that highly. Of course good schools would tend to have both the complexity theorist and the computational geometer, but this is not strictly necessary.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com