arcturus

Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply. I do not wish to say 'We published it...' because I feel it kind of breaks the flow of my essay. You also raise a valid point- you say that if I do have to cite a paper, then I am probably going too deep into the topic in my essay. However, isn't the SOP (for a PhD application) supposed to be a statement of my research interests? I am citing papers because I want to talk about current results and how I propose to work on them. Is this no-no?

Hi, I am applying to PhD programs for Fall 2014, and have the following dilemma while writing the Statement Of Purpose (SOP): I am structuring my SOP as a sequence of some research experiences (either projects or industry stints) that are relevant to the program I am applying to, and also proposing the questions I would like to further explore in my PhD. For example: "... I investigated A and we found B. I would like to see how this would generalize to situation C; can it perhaps benefit from the recent results in D theory?..." Questions: MY OWN RESEARCH: I would like to know, when I talk about my own research, should I cite my paper like this: "...I investigated A and found B [1]..." and in the end give the link to [1] (like in all standard citations)? OR, Should I not have any citations in the SOP, and leave it up to the committee to figure out from my resume which publication corresponds to which research project? PAPER THAT'S STILL IN PREPARATION: If the answer to previous question is yes (i.e., yes, I should cite the papers), what do I do for a paper that's still in preparation? The coding/algorithm etc is done, but the paper is still being written. I do not want the committee to think that the project is not good enough, and was just left incomplete, but I want them to know it's in prep. How do I do this? Cite at the bottom, saying 'In preparation'? Or does this look too desperate? CLASS PROJECTS: What about citing class projects? So yes, there ARE some class projects I worked on that we didn't even think of publishing, but they were good research projects because we implemented ideas that were new to us and we learnt a lot. Anyway, can I cite these as 'Class projects, not published, but can provide report'? Or something like that? CITING OTHERS' PAPERS: Finally, if I am referring to 'some recent breakthroughs' in the field and talk about using some of those results to answer research questions I am proposing, should I cite them, even if they are by professors from other universities and departments ? I mean it's obvious that all the major breakthroughs wouldn't be from every uni I am applying to. Would it look bad if I am applying to, say, UWashington, and cite several recent breakthroughs by professors in UWisconsin, UMichigan and Columbia? Thank you all very much for reading!

Hi ssk08, Thank you so much for your reply! Actually UCLA is where I got my Master's from, and I also took Ali Sayed's Adaptive Filtering. I have asked the EE grad admin people at UCLA, and they very frankly told me that with a GPA < 3.5 (even if it's as close as 3.48), the department won't even look at my application. So I guess UCLA is out. Otherwise I would have of course loved to go back there- they also have the amazing Vandenberghe and a really awesome Math department.

Hi, This is my first post to thegradcafe, so my apologies if this isn't the right place/right format to do so. I want to pursue a PhD in optimization- this falls in many departments in different universities: signal processing (EE)/ operations research( IEOR)/ computer science. My background: Bachelor's in Electronics: from top 25 school in India, GPA: 8.78/10. Master's in EE from top-15 US school for Electrical Engineering, specializing in signal/biomedical image processing. Master's GPA: 3.48/4. Got A's in all relevant classes, screwed up (got B's) in two not-too-relevant classes. Publications: 1. A 2nd author publication in a biomedical image processing conference (not relevant to optimization, but relevant to signal processing). 2. A 7th author publication in a biomedical journal, project in biomedical image processing (again, relevant to signal processing) 3. Currently working on a publication directly tying optimization and signal processing (very relevant to desired PhD area) Patent: One patent corresponding to the first publication listed above. GRE: (taken in 2009, scores still valid): Quant: 800/800, Verbal: 690/800, Essay: 5/6 Recommendation: 1. Top professor in optimization, whose class I got an A in. No research experience with him, but I have kept him in the loop about my research. 2. Grad school adviser. He is a biophotonics/signal processing professor, and it was in his lab that I got publications # 1 and # 2 and the patent. 3. A post-doc in a good school in my city, with whom I am working on publication # 3. Work experience: 1. One and a half years, algorithm engineer in research team of a medical device company. 2. I am also currently working on the research project with the above mentioned post-doc, and hoping to get a publication by app deadlines. 3. Interned (in 2008); at a space research organization for three months. 4. Interned (in 2009) : at a research group in a top engineering school in my country. No publication. GRE Subject Test in Mathematics: Taking in October. Desired PhD area: Optimization in signal processing. However, optimization in any other context (finance/OR) is my next choice, and one that I would gladly take up if I don't get anything in signal processing. Shortlisted schools: (school name-- some of professors shortlisted) 1. UMichigan Ann Arbor, EES-- signal processing group (Professors: Balzano, Fessler, ...) 2. UWashington, Seattle , EE-- they have professors in optimization and machine learning with whom I'd like to work (Professors: Fazel and Bilmes) 3. UWisconsin, Madison, EE-- Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery in this school has a great optimization program. (Professors: Novak, anybody else in CS) 4. UChicago, Toyota Technological Institute--- Professors: Nati Srebro, and lots of stats professors. 5. GeorgiaTech, ACO program in ISYE. Lots of optimization professors. 6. Columbia, IEOR 7. Cornell, ORIE 8. Northwestern, IEMS--- lots of optimization professors (Dolinskaya, Nocedal, Klubjan, ...) 9. UCSD, EE --- COSMAL group, DSP group. 10. Univ of British Columbia-- OCANA group. 11. John Hopkins University-- Professors: Vidal,... 12. Rice University: they have a big compressed sensing group. 13. EPFL, Lausanne-- LIONS lab, BIG lab. Can you please tell me which of these are too ambitious, which are moderate, and which are 'safety net' schools, given my background/profile? As of now, I greatly fear that I wouldn't get into any of these programs at all, mainly owing to my rather average Master's GPA. I am also having a hard time finding schools that aren't too highly ranked, but have good professors/research programs in optimization. Can someone please recommend a few such schools too? It's hard because these professors are scattered across EE, IEOR and CS departments in different universities. Finally, I am taking the GRE Subject Test in Mathematics, because Northwestern, Cornell, Columbia and GeorgiaTech clearly say that a GREAT score in that test will be looked upon favourably- any comments on this? Assuming I do get an outstanding score in this, will it kind of balance my low GPA? Thank you very much for reading through this wall of text, and for any advice at all!

Hi, I can only talk about UCLA, because that's where I just graduated from. UCLA has an excellent EE program, and they have very good researchers in some areas of operations research like convex optimization (Vandenberghe), control systems (Tabuada), game theory (van der Schaar). It also has a fantastic Math and Stats department, ranked really high (and also extremely hard to get into) where I am sure you will get professors doing operations research. I am myself also looking at applying to a PhD program in convex optimization/operations research, but UCLA is out of my league because I screwed up my GPA while doing my MS there (3.48/4). They are very strict about it, and if you are below 3.5, it's highly unlikely that you will get in. UCSB has an excellent signal processing program, and though they seem totally different, I think the math in the two fields (sig proc and operations research) is quite similar, so do look into that too! All the best!