Take the offer or not?

vts
Sat, 13 Dec 2008 10:43:07 +0000

I am an international student who’s applying for graduate school (Ph.D. Computer Science), and I just submitted a couple of applications to some US universities; a couple of weeks back I also applied to Monash University, Australia and I’ve just received news from them that I’ve been accepted with a full scholarship. They want me to accept it before 9th January, which would be long before I can hear anything from the US universities.

While a full scholarship sounds nice, the fact that the Australian Ph.D. is only 3 years bothers me. My guess is that an Australian Ph.D. would be looked down at in the US. I applied to Monash in the first place because a 3 year Ph.D. sounded nice, but now I am beginning to worry about the quality of a 3-year Ph.D. I would like to end up someday doing exciting research, and the US seems to be the place where the best research is happening.

Any advice?