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MLHopeful

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Everything posted by MLHopeful

  1. Top students from University of Toronto should be able to get into top-notch PhD programs (I say this having come from Waterloo, which I presume has comparable, perhaps slightly better, outcomes). Your courses/GPA look strong - hard to judge your research. You should have a shot at everywhere on your list, if anything you're not aiming high enough. I would, sincerely, suggest you work to improve your english, and your GRE score by extension. You're unlikely to be successful in grad school if you can't easily communicate with your english-speaking peers.
  2. For what it's worth, I was admitted to three schools that "highly recommend" the math GRE without submitting it (Chicago, Washington and Columbia), as well as Berkeley. I got ~70% and only submitted it to Stanford (where I did not get in), based on the recommendation of my undergrad research adviser. I also had a very strong math background which probably earned me the benefit of the doubt - multiple graduate level measure theory courses with all A+s, and a letter from a prof I spent a summer with doing research in abstract analysis. You can probably find my profile somewhere online if you want more context.
  3. I'm going to be a bit of a jerk here (hopefully in a helpful way) and say that you should really focus on improving your english, regardless of your GRE score. Forget about your personal statement, I can tell from three lines that you're not fluent, and that will hurt you a lot in admissions, not to mention the rest of your life in the English-speaking world.
  4. I would absolutely go to UMD. At GW, you wouldn't be a full-time PhD student and wouldn't get the resulting research experience. That is, the beauty of grad school (and really academia as a whole) is you can think about whatever problems you like, whenever you want - with as minimal limits as possible. Having to sandwich your research time around a full-time job is not going to allow you to even approach the depth of thought that you would achieve as a grad student full time. Yes, money is nice - I went through similar challenges when debating full time work versus grad school - but over your entire career, the difference in salary is a drop in the bucket compared to the benefits you'll get from getting to spend lots of time thinking about hard problems (far harder than you'll get in the GW job).
  5. Washington stats as a hole is certainly more prestigious, and between the two PhD programs there would be a meaningful drop-of in terms of prestige and caliber of student. That being said, Canadian masters are generally far more research-oriented then US programs, so UofT may provide a better opportunity to do meaningful research, if that's what you want to do. This would be better for a potential PhD (I'm speaking generally as I'm not too familiar with the particular programs). I met a few students who did their masters at comparable Canadian schools and got into top-5/10 American PhDs, so that can be done - although the one year degree may prove tricky. The UofT deep learning group, led by Geoff Hinton (how's now at Google part-time), is world-class, so if you could work with them I'd go there.
  6. If you think you may be interested in applications of ML, I'd take a close look at the research of the Chicago ML folks to see if there's work of that type that you find interesting. Chicago as a whole is a pretty theoretical department, and they have a far weaker CS department than CMU. Lafferty, for instance, seems to now be more driven by theoretical issues as opposed to developing new algorithms. Of course, I feel like CMU may be more applications oriented, although I'm not as familiar with their department. Of course, Chicago is perhaps a slightly more "prestigious" program, and in a better city (although Hyde Park is pretty dull). They're also a far richer department, which is nice, and not something I considered before viewing. They're both great programs though, so you can't really go wrong.
  7. Did you visit? You should absolutely visit both places, and ask these questions to currents students and professors. I'm sure they'd be able to talk in depth about things like recent academic placements, and what the job market looks like. I have visited four schools, and it was more than worth the time and effort.
  8. Undergrad Institution: Top math/stats/CS school in Canada Major(s): Stats, Pure math and C&O Minor(s): GPA: 91.4% (90% and above is an A+) Type of Student: American citizen GRE General Test: Q: 170 (98%) V: 166 (96%) W: 5.0 (93%) GRE Subject Test in Mathematics: M: 750 (71%) (only submitted to Stanford) Programs Applying: Statistics, one CS Research Experience: 2 full-time 4 month terms in pure math, machine learning, 4 months part-time in applying ML to HCI, 4 months full time at a top tech company in ML research Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Grades honours, fellowships for research, nothing particularly exciting Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 16 months of full-time intern experience, all in statistical jobs. Letters of Recommendation: 4 letters - one from each prof I worked with, plus my research supervisor at the tech company (who also had a PhD from a top school). All the profs are senior, although not overly famous. The letters, I believe, were quite strong, I suspect the one from the ML prof put me among his strongest students ever (grad or undergrad). Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: Taken ~5 PhD level classes, many more cross-listed masters classes, have a first author paper submitted in ML. Applying to Where: (Statistics PhD unless otherwise noted) Berkeley - Accepted Stanford - Rejected CMU - Waitlisted, immediately removed myself from consideration (there were some complications here: ) Chicago - Accepted MIT (CS) - Rejected Washington - Accepted Columbia - Accepted
  9. I don't want to get into a flame war or anything, but that was a more toned down version of how I feel about this. Basically, they took my money to look at an application they told me was complete, but would have never actually looked at it if I didn't bug them. And they didn't apologize or even admit that they had done something wrong. Yes, I've gotten into better schools, and this won't really effect my life. But if CMU were my first choice and I didn't think to email them, this would have really sucked.
  10. You got the same message about your application only being completed, not submitted? When did you email them to check on your application?
  11. My applications for a Stats PhD at CMU is in a frustrating situation, so I thought I'd reach out and see if anyone else is in the same boat. This may also serve as a cautionary tale for future applicants. Long story short, their online application went down before the posted deadline, so I had to email the admin lady, have her upload the missing pieces of my application, and mail them a check for the fee (which they cashed). After having sent everything, I asked if my application was now complete and received the response "your file is complete". On Feb. 19, after having seen multiple acceptances, rejections, and waitlists on the results search, I decided to inquire about the status of my application via email. I received the below response: "You never officially “submitted” your file; that is the last step in the process. However, your file will be reviewed by the committee, and I will get back to you in a few days." Today, I received a generic waitlist letter. Given my record at other stats schools (accepted at berkeley, washington, chicago and columbia, rejected at Stanford), I wouldn't accept an offer from them regardless, but I can't help but feel that they had already offered all their places to other applicants before even looking at my app due to what appears to be a clerical error. So, was anyone else effected by the application being taken down early? If you haven't heard anything, you should probably email them.
  12. Excellent, thank you! It looks like we'll be at some of the same visit days (UCB, UW)
  13. They do, but only up to some dollar amount, which isn't always sufficient for those of us flying in from Canada. Plus, I'd really just like to get my plan settled - it looks like it could end up being a 10 day long trip in the middle of term.
  14. Does anyone know when the visit day for CMU is? I haven't heard from them yet, but I'd like to start booking flights for other schools before prices go up.
  15. Working with David Blei at Columbia would set you up very well.
  16. Yep, UCB offered $20k for 9 months, with some optional summer support. No TA/RA work in the first year either, which is nice.
  17. Yes, well I don't deal well with stress, and having the results search, though useful, can easily add to the stress when used too much.
  18. I got into Berkeley!!!! They sent my letter out at 12:40 last night, which was pretty late. Visit days on March 9+10. This is really spectacular.
  19. I haven't heard anything from Berkeley, although I was accepted to Columbia - with a fellowship for up to 5 years. No mention of a visit day though, which seems odd.
  20. I got into Chicago! Bonus 4.5k 'mccormick fellowship' for the first 2 years, very exciting.
  21. This is really something you should be talking to your adviser about.
  22. Formally rejected from Stanford... but I didn't hear anything from CMU so that's good. @Ranger, I chuckled at your perspective - it is a good one.
  23. Just rejections, it would appear: http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=statistics+carnegie+mellon&t=a&o=&pp=25.
  24. Bummer for those who didn't get in. I'm also still waiting to hear, not sure how long it takes. It seems odd that they are sending out rejections before acceptances too, I've never seen this before.
  25. My bet, based on historical patterns, is on CMU coming out. Maybe Berkeley as well, depending on what's happening there...
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