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In terms of descending significance: Strong LORs (coupled with the fact that the admission committee knew my letter writers) Relevant research experience Publications Good personal statement High GPA I'm not even going to bother placing the GRE in that list. Honestly though, the first 3 items can be put under the umbrella of "research experience" since research experience generally culminates in publications and good recs I agree with the poster above that (unfortunately or maybe fortunately) luck has a lot to do with it as well.

Nope, no word on detailed funding information yet for me either. And yes, I too received the exact same email as well outlining the fact that no one had to drop out of MIT due to funding, etc. I can't give you any advice on which school to pick since the information you provided is very limited. But in light of last year's events and from posters here, MIT should relay funding info around late February/early March i.e. perhaps next week so you can probably make your decision then.

It goes without saying that you should obviously pick Harvard after CMU's egregious blunder with its false-admits of ~800 MS students to their CS program... On a more serious note, it's hard for me to find a logical reason to pick Harvard over CMU for a CS Ph.D. program especially after you stated that "[CMU] has a whole department dedicated to my field." My impression is that you want to go to Harvard just because saying "I go to Harvard" sounds sexier.

I was accepted this morning, but then received a correction email outlining a rejection: "Earlier this morning, we mistakenly sent you an offer of admission to Carnegie Mellon's MS in CS program. This was an error on our part. While we certainly appreciate your interest in our program, we regret that we are unable to offer you admission this year. ... Again, we are sorry for our miscommunication earlier today and we apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this has caused."

Not with detailed info, but it did specify RA. Not sure whether it was a general email

Last week, I got an email mentioning funding as an RA for the first year from CSAIL.

I recently saw a couple CMU and UIUC accepts on the results page, so it seems that they are still admitting people. Not sure about UW, but MIT is supposed to release its admission decisions on its website late February/Early March, so I would say there's still a non-zero probability for MIT.

I would choose UW because of aforementioned reasons by other posters.

I don't know how to cope with it, but I definitely know what you're talking about. Last week, when I received an email concerning admission to my top choice school, I was hesitant to even share the news with anyone because I thought they had made a mistake and sent the email to the wrong person. I've received a couple more emails from the school since then, so I think I'm finally convinced that I actually got in...

Yeah I bet that's what it is since I had applied for CSAIL. I wouldn't worry about it. Congrats on the admission.

Frankly, I made the thread before I heard back from *any* schools so I hadn't received such fortunate offers at the time. You could say that I had considered Duke as a "realistic top choice". Besides, my POI at Duke has research interests that align really well with mine, so Duke isn't out of the consideration yet and I'll definitely visit there.

Good question, I was wondering this as well. I haven't received amy further information either.

Yesterday (Saturday) I received an email providing more information about the visit day.

Just to clarify: I don't have any qualms about visiting Duke and never did. I was just trying to gauge whether an invitation to visit Duke was an indicator of a high probability of admission, but I guess the thread got derailed a little bit. I applied for AI, so it seems that I'll definitely see you around in related presentations during the visit

I applied for AI and was accepted last week (the 4th). Also, I should mention that I did not have an interview before I heard back, but my POI did email me right after I received the acceptance letter. Good luck to everyone!