drighanchu

I liked the part.

yea, I got them all anyway, but too late

The subject says it all, will one of my recommenders' tardiness ruin my app? I had two deadlines on 1/15 and he agreed with me about a month and a half ago. Is there anyone in similar situation? and why do they need exactly 3? not 2 or 4 ? Really frustrated.

the best way to verify is to write a journal/conference paper and submit, and get the community feedback. like here -- 1. http://www.journals.elsevier.com/information-processing-letters/ 2. http://link.springer.com/journal/453

Actually due to some personal problems/issues (and, who doesn't want to go to a reputed school?)

yes, UMBC is obvious (even I don't need to re-apply), so I left it from the list. But I would like to go to other places as well, and yes, other schools (espcially the last 4) are a bit low ranked, but they have better labs than my current one.

200 views without a single reply ?

Specialization: AI (Machine Learning/Data Mining) Fall 2014 GRE Old: 1350 (Q: 780, V: 570, AWA 3.5) [took during MS admission] GRE New: 321 (Q: 163, V: 158, AWA 3.5) [no idea what it actually means, but this is what my-gre account says] MS: University of Maryland, Baltimore County MS GPA: 3.49/4.00 UGrad: some insignificant school in india UGrad GPA: 3.8/4.00 [if that helps] Research Experience: Worked with a group in UMBC as an RA, did two pubs (one in ACM SIGKDD Conference, best paper award nomination), will get most possibly good recos from my supervisor/professors. I want to move to a new place/better school -- 1. UMD, College Park 2. Georgia Tech 3. Virginia Tech 4. University of Virginia 5. UT Austin 6. George Mason University 7. University of Central Florida 8. Colorado State University 9. University of Wyoming Probably the last four are safe for me, what about the first five ? Suggestions are greatly appreciated (avoiding risky schools may save my app money). thanks in advance.