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I don't think it'll hurt you much , if any. The admissions committees will be a lot more interested in the paper that you ave published, your SoP and your letters of recommendation.

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Oh yeah. I know exactly how long it will take to walk from my apartment to my department's building thanks to Google maps!

Hey MoJingly, we all go through that, especially in STEM fields. As you said feeling stupid is normal for a beginning grad student and I'm imagining that feeling ignorant is just a part of the process as well, since if we weren't ignorant, we wouldn't need school, would we? Just don't allow it to get to you and you become like the brilliant student in this article who just couldn't deal with feeling stupid or ignorant so she left grad school. If you want my opinion, I think you'll do great in grad school!

Yeah, the example he gives is a bit daunting since that email would be from the *perfect* candidate, which no one is. So just use it as a guide. I would think that you could start contacting them between now and the summer. The summer might be the best time since they wouldn't be as busy with classes. You should try to contact them before October since then it might be too close to the application deadlines. So you have some time. PS. Putting up your own webpage is easy with google sites. Here's an example one applicant from last year did: http://www.ashwinisy.co.cc

I agree with the poisoned pawn. There is no need to email professors a research proposal - most applicants don't as this can be risky (What if the prof isn't interested in your narrow research proposal?) What you can email profs about, is if they are looking to take on new students in their groups/labs or as the poisoned pawn says, about their research. Prof David Evans from Virginia gave a good outline of what you can say at his page here: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/advice/prospective.html The example he gives is a bit intimidating I think, since most applicants wouldn't be able to write something as specific as the email he suggests, but he also gives some advice on what you shouldn't do.

Welcome Sandipan! I think you have a pretty strong profile. Of course, getting your paper published (especially if it is at a well known journal or conference) will help your application a lot. I'm not in vision, so I'm not 100% sure on the strengths of those programs in computer vision, but my best guess of the schools you have listed in Ambitious: UT-Austin CalTech UW Madison UCLA UMCP Moderate: UCSB JHU - they might have a very low admit rate though (I'm not sure) UCSD UC Davis Duke OSU Rutgers NCSU Northwestern Safe: SUNY - Buffalo I don't like calling schools 'safe' because there is no sure thing with graduate school admissions and you could easily get into your 'ambitious' school without getting into a 'safe' school. If you put together a good SoP and have good letters of recommendation, I think you should be able to get into at least a few of those schools that you have on your list. I would suggest that you trim your list a little since 15 schools can be a lot to apply to. Good luck!

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Hey Kitkat, Ideally you want to be more specific than broadly describing a field or even a sub-field, but you don't want to be as specific as a thesis topic (that may be so specific that it might appeal to only one professor at the department, plus you don't want to tie yourself to a thesis topic before you even start). Keep in mind that admission committees don't expect you stick exactly to what you write about in your SoP. What they will expect (at least for STEM fields) is that you can conceptualize and describe generally an interesting problem to work on. They won't expect that you will work on that exact problem, but want to see that you have the capability and interest to be able to adequately describe what you want to work on. Doing more reading is an excellent suggestion. That will help you to find out more about where your interests lie. Good luck!

Hey President, I concur with your conclusion that the CS GRE wouldn't necessarily be a wise investment of your time. FWIW I'm from a not well-known international school and I will be going to a top 20 school in the Fall and I didn't submit a CS GRE subject score. I would think that in your case it would be better to spend the time you would have spent preparing for the CS GRE on research or on improving your SoP. If you are sure that you can score very highly on the test (perhaps you could try the sample test in the ETS booklet) then it would be worthwhile to get that high score, since that would help your application. Otherwise, focus on research and your SoP. Good luck!

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That sounds good then to me. I'm not in your field so maybe someone in your field could give advice as to how much it would help your application.

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Hi hahahut, I do think you need to bring a photo with you to the interview.

Hi Kitkat, I'm guessing it really depends on what it is that you would be doing while you're volunteering. If you would be doing things that are related to research, then I'd imagine that it would help your application quite a bit, if you'd be doing things like tour leading then I don't know how much it would help your application. In either case though, you'd get a hands on experience in an environment that you'd like to work in at some point, so that would likely be a plus for you personally and professionally.

I would think that you would say yes - is there a space to say why the visa was cancelled? I'm in this situation as well as I have had B-1 visas that were 'Cancelled without prejudice' when they expired/were replaced.

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I think if you end up working 24/7 then you're doing something wrong. Sure grad school will require us to work at odd hours but we still have to make personal time for ourselves/our family. Otherwise you'll burn out.

Peterson's has profiles of graduate programs here: http://www.petersons...te-schools.aspx Just search for the school and department that you are interested in and they have information such as the acceptance rate at that program. Keep in mind that they seem to combine the Masters and PhD programs, so if they say that 30% of applicants were accepted, that means 30% of Master's and PhD applicants combined were accepted. It's not perfect, but can have some use.

That would be a good problem to have! Profs expect that we will be choosing between different programs so when that time comes, you can just send them an email (or phone call), thank them for the opportunity they gave you, let them know that you felt that X school was a better fit and that you'll be attending X university instead. They won't take it personally and will probably wish you all the best. This could be awkward, but it really depends on the department. When I was being recruited by the school I chose, more than one person (including my PoI) told me that there would be no hard feelings or problems if I decided I wanted to switch groups later on. I would imagine that's not the case at all programs, so that's something you can ask about when you have offers to consider. I just notice that you had asked about the Peterson's acceptance rates. Did you find them?

This question reminded me of this series of blog posts from a post doc. Basically, the author says that profs evaluate us during campus visits (the author writes about pre-admission visits, but profs definitely do evaluate our potential before admission even if we don't visit). I also would imagine that already attending students would be at least curious as to how potential lab mates among incoming students would work with the existing group.

Hey fumblewhat, keep in mind that there are taxi services arranged by UMich that are available after 10pm. See here: http://pts.umich.edu/taking_the_bus/special_services.php So the early stopping bus lines don't have to be a social life killer. Good luck with your decision!