Minutes from the GAC meeting 1/14/2011.
  • Summary action items:
    • Done: March 11 confirmed Beth to get the Stanford date and confirm March 11, or proposal an alternate date. 
    • Done: Nick to mail faculty reminding them to start reading.
    • Done: Nick to check with specific faculty on rejects of under-represented groups.
    • Done: Nick/Beth: If any rejected candidates are from under-represented groups and reject is based on 2 2's, convert these to AD and send to the sector.
    • Beth to change the fast track letter to the sectors to remind them to express willingness to advise student
    • Beth to contact faculty on fast-track accepts
    • Beth to convert from FT to AD on fast-track non-decisions
    • Done: Nick will take the 3rd review on Rahul Goel but very wary of opening an exception case.
    • Done: Nick to send mail to GAC reminding that it's not a good process to assume any candidate is an SM-only student.
    • Done: Nick to move the final GAC deadline from 1/24 to 1/28.
    • Done: Nick to talk to Dave about Wenhai Dai
  • Summary of future action items (Also added here):
    • Revisit the issue of 3rd reviewer and number of reviews total
    • Visit issue of applicants with two quals failures
  • Discuss Open House date
    • Confirmed with Dave Darmofal that in the future, the GAC decides the open house date. The goal is to put it as late as possible before Spring break, and to try and avoid an overlap with Stanford if possible.
    • The current proposal is March 11, the last Friday before Spring Break. We need to confirm the Stanford open house.
    • Paul pointed out that putting it after Spring break is a bad idea because it runs into undergraduate events after Spring break.
    • Beth pointed out that we also told applicants that final decisions will be made by March 1.
    • Action: Beth to get the Stanford date and confirm March 11, or proposal an alternate date.
  • Discuss sector target numbers and sector admissions meetings
    • Dave sent around the sector targets
    • We expect to have 10 fellowships, 15 students with their own fellowships.
    • We expect enough RAs for about 72 students.
    • Final analysis: we have room to grow, especially in Info and Systems.
    • Nick reported that Beth has started co-ordinating with Jean (vehicles), Melanie (systems) and Sophia (info) on the sector admissions meetings. These are planned for the week of Feb 14-18. Each sector meeting needs to have a rep from the GAC. Dave will also attend all meetings if possible.
  • Schedule: Action: Nick to mail faculty reminding them to start reading.
  • Review any problem cases/problem rejects
    • Hamsa asked us to consider stopping the 3rd review, based on the fact that we're taking the average of 5 or more scores. This seems like a lot of work to make a decision.
    • We decided to continue with 3rd reviews for contentious cases because it will probably be only about 13 more folders per GAC person, and changing process in mid-stream may be considered unfair.
    • Action item: revisit the issue of 3rd reviewer
    • Manuel asked us to strongly consider expanding size of committee, and possibly consider expanding to the whole faculty. Dave agreed on the need to expand GAC, and also to have full representation across the fields.
  • Under-represented minorities
    • Action item: Nick to check with these faculty to ensure that these are rejects.
      ======================
      Jose Andres Franco – Check with Paulo, maybe Manuel?
      Lucas de la Garza – Check with Brian Williams
      Kathryn Gordon – Check with Zolti
      David Manosalvas – Check with Manuel
      Emerald McKinney – Check with Manuel, Hamsa – Randolph's letter is now present
      Christian Sulton – Check with Manuel, all letters present now
      Kristen Uhmeyer – Check with Dave Miller, who wrote her a letter
    • Action item: Nick/Beth: If any of these candidates are rejected based on 2 2's, convert these to AD and send to the sector.
      Won't consider further
      ======================
      Lauren Bowers
      Afshin Chaharmahalian
      Shelley Chan
      Yunior Cruz
      Clark Davenport
      Erick Fuentes
      Edwin Gomez
      Victoria Guentcheva
      Manal Habib
      Clarah Lelei
      Thuy Miller
      Juan Prado
      Wei Wei
      Ying-Ju Yu

  • Review fast-tracks, make potential admission decisions
    • Dave suggest that the review request letter that goes to the sector reviewer for fast-track points out the need to identify a supervisor for fast-track green light.
    • Action item: Beth to change the fast track letter to the sectors to remind them of this.
    • Fast track accepts: Action: Beth to contact faculty. The contract at this point is advising, not support.
      Daniel Araya, Bayard Gardineer, Carla Perez Martinez – Martinez-Sanchez/Lozano
      Ingrid Beerer – Cahoy
      Sebastian Eastham – PFU
      Joseph Starek – Miller
      Hayden Burgoyne – Brian Wardle
    • Potential fast-tracks sent to sector, not fast-tracked: Action: Beth to convert from FT to AD
      Daniel Asselin (potential advisors are Martinez-Sanchez/Lozano, they already have higher-ranked people)
      Anthony DeGennero (no obvious advisor)
      Whitney Lohmeyer (faculty review did not fast-track)
    • Paul asked that we remember that we sent Asselin to sector because Manuel + Paulo have already higher-ranked people, not because the GAC decided.
  • Review any needed changes to process
    • Hamsa brought up the case of Rahul Goel. Failed qual twice, accept from Jeff Hoffman. Unclear what to do. Action: Nick will take the 3rd review, but very wary of opening an exception case.
    • Manuel asked: do we even consider folders from people who failed the quals twice? Paul suggests that if there is a significant difference since the last failure, then we might want to seriously consider. The issue should be the delta. Action: Nick to take this to the Grad committee during the summer.
    • Hamsa asked: is there anything different about dual-degree applicants? The answer is no. We evaluate them just as any other candidate.
      We currently differentiate between applicants direct to PhD and applicants direct to SM. Some students are SM with intent to apply to PhD, and some are SM only. Should we be differentiating between these two kinds of SM students? Currently no, because we have no way of enforcing the fact that you are SM only. Action: Nick to send mail to GAC reminding that we don't have a way to enforce it, and it's not a good process to assume any candidate is an SM-only student.
  • Nick moved to change the final deadline for the GAC from 1/24 to 1/28. All agreed. Please review higher-scored 3rd reviewer folders first.
  • Moe asked about a fast-track for Wenhai Dai. Action: Nick to talk to Dave about this.
  • Not discussed: 'Complete' tag WTF
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