Timeline of the US Graduate School Application

Instead of giving out an "ideal" timeline for the application, I would like to make a table according to my own experiences. Of course, the timing of some event may not be controllable (e.g. exchange period). I hope this will be good as a simple reference.

Periods	What to do
1st Semester	Attend briefing on exchange programs
2nd Semester	1. Study and play 2. Apply exchange programs
1st Summer	1. Travel 2. Got selected for exhange in US next Spring
3rd Semester (Sep-Nov)	Visa, housing and ticket stuff
3rd Semester (Dec)	Departure
4th Semester	Find an advisor for research
2nd Summer	Research and Travel
5th Semester	Research and going back to own country
6th Semester	Find an advisor for final-year projects
3rd Summer	1. Continue your research projects 2. Register for GRE General, Subject Tests and TOEFL 3. Research for schools you are going to apply
7th Semester (Sep-Oct)	1. Start to find recommenders (at least three) 2. Prepare GRE and TOEFL
7th Semester (Oct)	Take the GRE General Test
7th Semester (Nov)	Take the GRE Subject Test
7th Semester (Dec)	Finish up your online application and essays
8th Semester (Jan-Feb)	Continue to apply schools according to their deadlines
8th Semester (Feb-Apr)	Wait for the letters
4rd Summer	Visas, Housing, Ticket and all stuff that need to be done before departure
4th Summer	Have FUN =)

Statistics, statistics and statistics...

The following link is very useful if you are thinking about your career path in physics.
AIP Statistical Research Center

Remembering M$ windows

After years of very good experience with Ubuntu Linux, there are somethings that I miss M$ :
1. Film scanning (a Konica Minolta Scan Dual IV)...as there is no (free) driver for linux. I know Vuescan, but it's not free...
2. Mathematica
3. Form filling features in Acrobat Pro
4. TV recording (I can still watch tv, but can't find a program for recording yet...)
5. VPN (yes...becoz' my school is using M$ VPN. There must be some clues and I have to find it out..)
Actually the first two is not a problem if he pays or he is still living in the age of pirate softwares and bt.

Taste like fresh

Studying graduate school is a very important investment, so as the application process. It is like betting, but for many aspects it's not. There are many approaches to get into some good graduate schools. However, as time goes on, the chances and choices are both getting fewer. In my view, freshmen are like plain papers. They do not have any GPA and research experience. Professors do not know them. The only thing that has been chosen is the name of the university. For international students, even the name of the university doesn't matter, since the American professors have rarely heard of it anyway.

10 Reasons to try Linux (a grad student perspective)

1. Linux is FREE
2. Easy to do programming (e.g. Fortran, C)
3. Easy to generate plots (e.g. gnuplot, xmgr)
4. Same terminal interface with the servers and/or supercomputer used in school
5. Easy to generate Latex documents
6. Your Boss uses it
7. No blue screen
8. Low hardware requirements for eye-candy (e.g. Beryl)
9. Better security
10. 95% of jobs you do on windows can be done on Linux too (e.g. watching movies, typing Chinese)