smmmu

You're very welcome! I should add that my experience is based solely on science degrees; humanities and social sciences etc. might be slightly different. E.g., there's some degrees that are a bit in the middle between taught and research, e.g. MPhils at Cambridge and Oxford seem to be a bit of both. I'm guessing it's similar at other universities. These seem to be fairly common in humanities and social sciences, and I think the "often not a proper degree" warning does not apply.

Hi there, I've done both a taught as well as a research masters in the UK. These were probably at pretty much the opposite ends of the spectrum; the taught one had only a very minimal optional essay, but no thesis or project, while the research one had only a negligible coursework component. Often it's actually somewhere in the middle - in particular, most "taught" courses I've come across would include a project or thesis to be done over the summer. For research masters it also depends - there is degrees that have more of a coursework component or structure, and there is some that have close to none. In my case what little coursework I had to do was furthermore regarded solely as a formality. In particular, I was told quite explicitely not to waste any time on it beyond making sure I passed them. That may well be different in other programmes. Firstly, since you ask, I highly doubt that any university would take issue with a research masters being used to fulfill the formal admission requirements for a PhD programme. If anything, a research degree is a step "above" a taught course. But it probably couldn't hurt to ask, just in case. That aside, which one is better for you really depends on your situation and what you want / need out of it. Basically I think "wouldn't I need to take a whole lot of courses when I get back to catch up with a "regular" MA/MSc?" is the right question to ask yourself. If you feel that you have a sufficient (or nearly sufficient) background in your field to start research, then a taught masters might be waste of time and money. Better to get started on research sooner rather than later. Even if you have some gaps in your knowledge, but know enough about your field to know what those gaps are and how to fill them yourself, you may well be alright in a research degree. If you don't know exactly where you want to go, or don't feel that you have anywhere near the necessary skills yet to get there, then a taught masters may be a good way of getting a better overview of what fields might be interesting, and getting the skills and knowledge you need. As for applying for a PhD afterwards, I think that in principle a research degree could be better in that respect - Having demonstrated potential for research (i.e. research experience and ideally publications) is a big bonus for PhD applications, and a research masters could give you just that. (It depends of course, a very well-respected taught course is still worth more than a research degree from a mediocre university.) Also, since you'd be working with your supervisor quite closely, you should hopefully be able to get at least one very detailed letter of recommendation for your application, again a key criterion. In some taught courses, academics might not get to know you that well. That said, if you want to do the PhD straight afterwards, this doesn't make that much of a difference. Almost all masters in the UK are one year long, meaning that if your desired PhD programmes have december-ish deadlines, you'll be applying for PhDs pretty much just when you start the masters. A supervisor in a research degree might still be able to write a slightly more detailed letter for you, but you almost certainly won't have any publications out yet or anything like this, so in terms of how much it helps your PhD applications, it's not a huge difference between the two options. Lastly, I don't know if this is very obvious if you're not familiar with the UK system, but taught masters are (I think) by far the more common option. Pure research masters are extremely uncommon, as people would usually go straight into a PhD if they wanted to do research. Even if you see a research masters degree buried somewhere on a department website, this is often not even meant to be a proper degree per se; Some universities / departments have these programmes solely for "failed" PhD students, who aren't quite good enough to proceed with their PhD, but not bad enough to get kicked out entirely either. It may be worthwhile to check with them if you're even meant to apply to a research masters programme even if you see it on their website. Hope this helps!

My comment about Stanford was based on a conversation I had with a professor in that area, who told me that their students had been significantly more successful in getting into the Linguistics program than into the CS program and that overall there doesn't seem to be that much interest in NLP from the CS department there. That aside, it may be that generally CS programs are more competitive than Linguistics programs. -edit: Oh, and take that with the usual grain of salt of course, as I said it was one conversation with one professor, so about as anecdotal as it gets.

Cambridge also has what I think is a decent NLP group. From what I've heard (purely anecdotally) it is advisable to apply to Stanford Linguistics, not CS, if one is interested in NLP.

Haha, yes, I received that email too. Frankly at this point that's simply bizarre. Has anyone heard from them since they sent that out?

I don't have any more information than anyone else does, but for what it's worth I also haven't heard back about my UCSD CS PhD application. (Quite frankly it's getting a bit ridiculous, I mean it's less than a week until April 15. Not that I haven't long made my decision anyways.)

Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever done this with a UK university? I would assume since it's mainly research council funding and such over here, it would be moot to even try to negotiate, but perhaps I'm wrong... Any thoughts anyone?

Unless you really have too much time on your hands, I wouldn't bother retaking the GRE. As long as your scores aren't abysmal, chances are no one will care too much. Don't bother with the CS Subject Test. You'd basically have to do it in a month from now (like ssk2 pointed out, it's being discontinued after this April test date), and in my experience really it does not make that much of a difference. Try to get as much research experience and publications as possible, at the end of the day that trumps pretty much everything else.

Same here, I'd be happy to have a chat via PM if it'd help you out, just send me a message.

I assume by "Cambrige Forums" you probably mean the graduate union's forum - this indeed used to be a decent resource a while ago but has been closed due to lack of legitimate users and excessive spam postings. I don't know of any other (publicly available) forums from Cambridge itself. There's a British website called thestudentroom though, that might provide some more UK centric advice. Generally my (limited) experience with UK interview would suggest that they are slightly more focused than their US counterparts, but still usually in a fairly relaxed atmosphere.

Hrm, good question, I could only guess. Here are some very general thoughts: - At Oxford you would be able to get to know potential supervisors in maths relatively easily (the masters is based at the maths department), this might make it easier. But get in touch with the department and ask about staying on for a PhD after the MFoCS masters. - Generally from what I've been told by someone who did the MFoCS course, there is a fair amount of interaction between faculty and students, take-home exercises during the year, etc., so I assume you would be able to get to know faculty (i.e. potential recommenders) relatively well relatively soon. This might partially offset the relatively late schedule for the research part of the course. Generally I wouldn't worry too much about the relatively late research project - this is the format of most "mostly-taught" masters courses in the UK, so UK universities will understand that. - Generally in the UK getting admitted is relatively easy, but getting funding is hard. This might be especially true if you're not a UK or EU citizen, but this is obviously independent of what Masters you do. But take all that with a grain of salt - I only know about the MFoCS course second-hand. Also I'm not comfortable speculating at all about how other universities will view the masters, as my opinion there would necessarily be heavily biased, plus having moved away from maths I simply don't know the community that well. It might be worthwhile for someone more familiar with the field to weigh in.

This is mainly about the UK, can't say too much about the US (yet). UK has the advantage that Masters degrees are usually only one year long. Oxford has a Masters called "Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science", that might be appropriate. If I recall correctly there were some Algebra courses on the curriculum. It's mainly coursework based, and I think there is a research project / thesis to be done over the summer (so if you intend to apply for a PhD straight after, this might no help you in terms of admissions though). Cambridge has Part III Maths, and I think with a decent level of preparation (i.e. coursework) on the maths side that might well be an option as well (I don't think they look too much at research experience for admissions, but then it's also a purely coursework-based degree). If you're looking mainly for research experience in maths, rather than coursework, things might be a bit trickier. You might be able to find a research-based Masters at another UK university (google e.g. "MRes mathematics").

I think it doesn't even depend just on the university, but sometimes even the department within the university. But yes, some programmes let you check the status online, and plenty don't. You can always try emailing or calling the admissions people at the department, but in many cases they might not be willing or allowed to give you any information. One of the most annoying university out there is probably Harvard, which only sends official decisions via the postal service, some time in mid or late March, and usually won't tell you anything via email or on the phone.

I think it really depends, some schools do "visit days" in February, before they make decisions, but I think you would have been invited already. Generally I think even if they do have specific dates, they are often flexible about that - they might prefer if you come then and would be able to offer more of a formal programme, but I don't think they wouldn't also let you visit some other time. I'd just make sure the professors I'm most interested in working with are available, but other than that I don't see any big issues with visiting when it suits you best. (But of course I can't speak for all schools and departments.)

Do they have specific dates where they would like you to visit? If not, then why not wait until you have heard back from more programmes, and visit them all in one trip? If you get three or four departments chipping in $400 each, that covers a much bigger chunk of your plane ticket. Also as far as I know, some (maybe even most) departments might be able to help you out with accommodation during your visit (e.g. have current graduate students host you), so the plane ticket may well be your only significant expense.