newms

So I applied to this one school, which I would be very happy to go to btw, and two days ago the Graduate School director sent an email to the applicants advising us that our application status would be updated soon as they were processing our materials and we shouldn't worry(at least not right now) if thing were still listed as missing. Unfortunately the email was cc'ed to almost 1,500 applicants - it looks like the email was sent through the application system and someone didn't configure the settings correctly. About 10 minutes later the same email was sent again, this time addressed to me only with no mention of the previous email. I don't know what to make of this besides being a bit peeved that my email address was sent to almost 1500 strangers. I'm only glad that since that time I haven't seen a flood of spam.

I don't think its corny at all. I'm at a conference in my field and there are lots of grad students with shirts and other stuff from their schools.

Some schools allow you to replace your SoP (by email) if you have submitted it already as long as the deadline hasn't passed. Some are strict and don't allow any changes. Perhaps you can find out if they will allow you to replace it, if so it will ease your mind. If not there's nothing else you can do but hope for the best, so don't worry about it.

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bloody Mary

Waiting is the hardest for me for sure. That's the only part of the process where everything is out of your hands and all you can do is hope for the best.

Is it possible for you to call the prof?

Awesome. Great news!

broken engagement

pizza dough

Ok, well what you do is make sure you submit the online application by the deadline - they probably won't forward your application to the adcomm until the TOEFL scores get there, but that still might not be a problem, as it is quite likely that the adcomm won't meet until after the holidays. When your TOEFL scores get there, your application will be forwarded to the adcomm and as I said, its quite likely that the adcomm won't have considered any applications yet. It is still quite possible that your app will be considered with all the others, so don't give up. Perhaps you can look up on the gradcafe's survey to see when admissions were given out last year. That would give you an idea of when the admissions committee met last year.

So it's that you won't be able to submit your application UNTIL your scores arrive? Or can you submit your application before the deadline and have the scores arrive after?

Don't give up! A lot of programs don't even begin to look at applications until after the Christmas break, some time in January. If you do the TOEFL on Dec 11, it should get to the school by the end of Dec? If so they may have it before they make any awarding of places.

Hi geekman, As starmaker said, most places don't have a separate machine learning department, but have it as a subfield of Computer Science, or some even have it under Artificial Intelligence within the Computer Science department. As for the schools you listed in terms of reputation, CMU is probably the most highly regarded or machine learning, with MIT close behind. Keep in mind that those two will be very competitive - MIT got 2700 applications last year for Computer Science and gave around 100 admissions. Columbia is very good in statistics I think, while Cornell and Amherst both are highly regarded in machine learning. Stony Brook, while still well reputed, is probably less so than the others. As starmaker said though, your rankings of those schools will be determined by a lot of factors that you will have to consider.

stuff happens

You could also insert the images in MS Word (if you have MS Word) and then saving it as a pdf (If you have a version of Word prior to Word 2007 - you can freely install cutepdf to do this). The resulting file should be smaller than the jpg.

engagement ring

I contacted the admissions people and explained that I was a native speaker who did my undergrad at a school that teaches in English. I just asked if the TOEFL was necessary and all the schools I had asked said no.

Try to contact the admissions people and explain the situation you face with ETS - I'm international as well (though not from India) and the TOEFL has been waived on all my programs. It really would be beyond stupidity for them to stringently require the TOEFL when you are a native speaker and can demonstrably prove your facility with the language.

You seem to have a pretty good command of the English language, right down to common idiomatic expressions - are you sure that you need the TOEFL? Many schools have waivers for the TOEFL if you were educated at a school that taught in English or if English is your native language.

Never use Mr or Ms or Mrs if the person has a PhD. You could generally use Dr. or Prof (if they are an assistant prof or professor). So to answer your questions: 1) Dr. or Prof. is acceptable. 2) Dr. or Prof. is acceptable, it doesn't make any difference if the person is male or female. 3) Dr. or Prof. is acceptable. I've never seen someone addressed as Assistant Prof.

Those that cheated got a pretty good deal - fess up and just take a 4 hour ethics course and face no disciplinary proceedings and have no record of it on your transcript. I would not have been so generous at all had they cheated in my course

A resource I use to determine information like this is thegradcafe's survey of past application seasons. You can search and see when people got interviews and acceptances. Sometimes people post how much funding they got in the comments. It's very useful

The rankings are just a guide. There will be lower ranked schools that are excellent in one particular area and generally, when you have a situation like this, people in the field know that a school is better in that area than its ranking would suggest. That said, there could be implications for future job prospects with a degree from a lowly ranked school that isn't well regarded in the area of your research. Of course, this is just a generalization and you really have to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the departments in the area(s) that you are interested in.