newms

Definitely follow up with her tomorrow. Perhaps they will allow the recommender to just email the recommendation letter rather than use the system which seems to be having difficulties.

Careful in the use of the term 'Writing Sample' because that refers to a specific thing in other fields such as English. Computer Science applicants are not required to submit writing samples that Humanities applicants speak about so be careful that you are not confusing the requirement of a writing samples for other fields.You can however send in samples of publications you have, or better yet, in your SoP put a link to a page where your publications can be viewed. As for the paper that is not yet submitted, you could list it on your CV as being submitted and have your paper on a website available for the adcomm to view.

blind spot

US embassy

puppy love

I'm not a grad student (yet, hopefully) but from what I've read, your research is much more important than your grades. You'll need to keep up your grades for funding or an assistantship, but I don't think that anyone (at least not in academia, maybe in industry) is going to care if your GPA was 3.3 or 3.9 if you produce great publications from your research.

software release

bad romance

I'd stick to the stated deadline of the Saturday.

perceived slight

flow rate

inflection point

cover charge

You can search the self-reported results from last year on this forums survey to get an idea of when the schools you applied to will send out interview requests and notifications. For Computer Science, admission committees typically meet around mid January or later and they send out notifications after that. Most CS people from last year got acceptances in February I think, with a few in January and some in March/April.

I'm into reinforcement learning and unsupervised learning algorithms.

I'm interested in Machine Learning as well and applied to Michigan as well. As you probably know MIT and Princeton are extremely competitive so it would be very difficult to get into those 2 in particular. UCSD, Purdue, UMCP, Michigan and Wisconsin are top 20 schools so they will be difficult to get into as well, though not as hard as MIT and Princeton. You have research experience, which is good, so I would guess (depending on how good your SoP and LoR are, and how well you fit) that you should get into a at least a couple of these schools. Ohio State and NCSU are not as highly ranked as the others so you should stand a pretty decent chance at those two. Your verbal GRE is a little low, but that isn't too important for CS GRE. Is your ToEFL score ok? Btw what areas in machine learning are you into?

They should be able to put together your SoP just fine especially if they didn't mention putting your name on it. Chances are the online application system will add your information to the pages at the top. If those application systems allow you to preview what you sent in, you can do that and see - in a few of my cases it automatically printed my name at the top. With the one that explicitly said to put your name at the top, they may not be able to change your application materials at this time, but you can always email or call the admissions people and ask. I'm thinking that you should be ok as the admissions people would likely be able to put your stuff together ok. I'm guessing they said to put your name just as a backup to make sure it doesn't get lost, but as I said, you can always contact them to find out.

To prepare for an interview, make sure you are very familiar with everything on your application - your statements, writing sample (if any), resume/CV etc, since that is what they are most likely to ask you about. Also read up on the latest research of the profs who will be interviewing you (you won't know who they are just yet, but chances are at least one of the profs (if its a panel interview) you mentioned (if you did) in your SoP would be there). Finally be prepared to ask questions about the program and what you would be doing, who would be advising you etc. If they invited you to an interview, there's a very good chance that they are going to accept you so don't be too worried about an interview.

stop sign

I agree with sending a thank you note for all 4 situations - in fact after an interview don't wait for their decision to send the thank you, just drop them a thank you email after the interview.

I'll be 29. I finished my undergraduate at 20 and looking back, I probably wasn't ready then to do my PhD. It's taken longer than I wanted to go back to school and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't take any longer!

pickup truck

Last year there was a thread where people posted a Wordle of their SoPs. It was a fun idea so lets start a thread for this year. Head on over to Wordle and post your SoPs! You can remove identifying words from the graphic (if you want) by right-clicking on the word you want to remove. Wordle allows you to post the image to a gallery where you can download it. I just took a screenshot of my wordle and put it in MS Paint to get the image. Upload the image to a photo storing service like photobucket, and you can post it here. Mine is below.

My username is a nickname that students used to call me when I was a high school teacher. They'd call me that to themselves sometimes and I kinda liked it so I used it as my username. I chose my avatar because of my interests is artificial intelligence.

Yeah the 1500 isn't just for my program as from the email addresses I can tell that some people are in different programs, but it definitely is some breach of privacy, and it is possible to identify some applicants by their email address. Not to mention that there is the thought if this happened, then what other kind of accidents could happen with our info. I'm just a bit peeved and I think they should have apologized in the second email having realized that there was a problem with the first one. Honestly though, I have more important things to worry about at this time, like the one prof who still hasn't sent in my letters:(