OGTuring

UC Irvine: $29k including summer USC: $20,500 (not including summer)

hello_world and others with similar profiles (top school, good GREs, but no significant or impressive research experience), how did you fare? I squeaked into the top 20 with USC but no further.

Got an email this morning notifying me that I've been waitlisted. Was interviewed three weeks ago.

CMU is probably the best place for ML. They have their own Machine Learning department: http://www.ml.cmu.edu/ CMU is, IMO, only rivaled by Berkeley (since they have Michael Jordan, who is to ML as the other Michael Jordan is to basketball) and MIT with their AI Laboratory. UT Austin would probably be second on your list. Cornell, Columbia, and UCSD are, obviously, all great schools, but I think the only way to compare them would be to specify an ML subfield. U. Washington, Standford, and Georgia Tech all have outstanding ML research as well and are probably better overall in ML than the above three. In fact, look for UW to climb towards the top in the coming years; they recently poached some big names (Ben Taskar, Carlos Guestrin, and Emily Fox) from CMU and Penn. Lastly, don't overlook UMass Amherst. Although they are not generally regarded as an 'elite' CS department, their AI/ML is very strong and ranks higher than Cornell, Columbia, and UCSD in US News' AI rankings.

UT Austin is almost certainly the best place for M.L. on your list. UT has a prodigious research output and labs that cover a great range of AI subfields: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~ai-lab/lab-list.php While I'm not familiar with every school on your list, I know UC Irvine has a vibrant ML culture as well. Their ML point-man, Padhraic Smyth, advised Netflix on their million dollar competition. Similarly, I've seen some cool reinforcement learning projects come out of Rutgers.

I've heard that the reason they make you do a Masters there first is that they are financially risk-adverse: since each group takes no more than a handful of students each year, they don't want to make a PhD commitment before seeing your work as a masters student. They also prefer students that already have a masters (before coming to the Media Lab in the first place) for the same reason. They want to know that you're mature and serious. Yes, all students are fully funded. I've seen offers >2000/month.

I have an interview next week with Macro Connections.

Hello_World, I don't think you were too 'arrogant.' That profile definitely seems good enough for a top-20 program. I have a similar profile as you (3.96 GPA, 329 GRE, some research but no pubs) and am essentially in the same boat: no admits (or even word from) top 20's. However, I do have an admit to UC Irvine, and the prof I talked to there is doubtful that I will attend, even telling me, "You'll definitely be getting offers elsewhere." So it's still early; don't lose hope yet. But if worse comes to worse and you don't get in, I would recommend seeking out a research project. I see that you are in San Jose. There are several good CS schools around there. Keep knocking on doors of professors until one agrees to let you help with a research project (even if its totally unguided, solitary work). If you make sufficient progress, I'm sure the professor will be willing to write you a good recommendation or even accept you next Spring. Best of luck.