OH YEAH

I'll read it too. PM me.

Those reviewing your application know what mechanical engineering is. In my opinion, your very first sentence should talk about what you are specifically interested in studying. I thought my SOP was pretty good for CS, if you want to read it I'd be happy to send it to you.

What classes have you taken in CS? What do you want to do research in? My guess would be > 20, as you don't seem to have much CS background and you have a low GPA.

Instead of doing this, why don't you take a year to improve your application? You don't want to be stuck at a university below your level just because you didn't have the time to take the GRE.

You should tell everyone what program you are in so we can make sure to tell our friends to never accept offers from them

Why do you think Cornell and UT Austin are low ranking schools? They usually rank higher than Caltech, for what it's worth. It's hard to assess chances without any information on letters of recommendation and research experience. Your GPA, patents, and work experience are not as important, and your posts on this forum (as well as your statement of purpose) should make it clear that you understand this. Now: 1) WHERE exactly did you publish? 2) Did you have a significant role in the publication? 3) More importantly, do your recommenders think you had a significant role in the publication? 4) Have you worked on other projects (perhaps independently) that had good results, even if they are not ready for publication? 5) Do your recommenders think you have other projects that had good results?

DMIN is apart of WORLDCOMP, which, iirc, is a "fake conference". I just checked their website, and you didn't even show to give the talk? Furthermore, there has already been a paper published under that title: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1.3604 Unfortunately, I don't think your two publications count--in fact, they may count slightly against you. I can't even *find* these papers, and I was trying; don't expect an admissions committee to try harder.

Regarding Princeton--perhaps he wanted to work with Robert Schapire? I don't know much about ML, but he is listed as the #4 author in ML on Microsoft Academic Search.

At least for a CS PhD, the only part that really matters is your research experience. Of course this is only my opinion, but I'd say with no research experience you have no shot at getting into a top 10 university. I don't know what the admission process is like for engineering or MS programs, but since you said "EECS" and mentioned a PhD... That said, good luck and I hope you prove me wrong!

Depends. If you come from a non-research institution and not many of the grads go on to grad school, your professors may not know the best schools for you. Mine did not.

I don't know too much about areas other than PL, but here's what I know: If you're interested in theory: MIT has a gigantic theory group. Princeton has a very strong theory group. For instance, they have Sanjeev Arora, who came up with probabilistically checkable proofs, and Robert Tarjan, who invented splay trees and Fibonacci heaps and won the Turing award. Berkeley also has a very strong theory group, especially if you're interested in game theory--they have Christos Papadimitriou. NLP: Berkeley, CMU, Brown (Eugene Charniak), Johns Hopkins. If you're interested in HCI: CMU (a ton of people), MIT (they have Rob Miller and the Media Lab), Stanford (Scott Klemmer, some others I can't remember of the top of my head), I think GaTech? I'm not sure. I think the University of Maryland has a good program too. Category theory: I can actually give you competent advice about this because category theory fits under programming languages and that is my area. No one in the US is really doing category theory anymore. Your best bet would be the University of Pennsylvania (Benjamin Pierce). Some people at CMU might still be doing this as well. I know of a student who is interested in category theory at Princeton, but I don't think anyone is actively doing research there on it. Most of the work in category theory is being done overseas. As for other areas: you might be interested in programming language semantics or type theory if you like category theory. A ton of groups are working in this area.

I don't believe a 1550+ is going to make a big difference. You need to meet a threshold, but besides that, who cares. For what it's worth, you can be below the threshold. I was. Here's what matters: recommendations, research, SOP. Graduating in 3 years puts you at a disadvantage because you will not have the recommendations or research that other students have (face it, they had an extra year to chum up with their profs and do research). The Argonne symposium is not competitive, and unfortunately it won't really count towards your profile. If you did good work, the paper will count for a lot (your recommendations and SOP will describe the nature and importance of your work towards this project). Spending some time working won't help your profile unless you get a job in which you do research. Nobody cares about your Java/.NET skills, and if you waste 2 years on that junk, you will be at a disadvantage compared to your peers. The other exception is if you are unsure about what you want to do, and your job would help you figure that out (again, should be a research-y job.) Personally, I think you've got a good shot. But please--when applying to the University of California, spell it BERKELEY in your SOP! Can I ask what field you want to go into? For example, UNC's reputation is mainly in graphics, and that doesn't seem to be what you are doing. For all of your schools, you should have your potential advisers picked out.

AJAX isn't a scripting language... it's an acronym for Asynchronous Javascript and XML. Plus, I don't think masters programs are impressed with laundry lists of languages learned.

I'm not sure what the point of this thread is

I would pick the first one, and that seems to be the advice given by most professors I've seen. You can always get one recommendation from IMPA, and two research related recommendations?

"Did well in class" recommendations count for nothing, and plus, they already know you're good at CG from the guy you did actual research with. What about the math research? Can anyone attest to your skills?

What's the point of learning C programming? You aren't going to be writing systems software. You should be focusing on fundamentals if you're new to CS... Also, you might lose your "elite undergrad" points if the majority of your mathematical education is at the University of Houston. Not critical, but be aware?

I'm not sure why you would fear MIT and Caltech with Berkeley/Princeton/Cornell on your favorites. If you like MIT and Caltech, by all means, apply. If you contributed novel work (and weren't just a grunt) to those 2 papers you have a good chance of getting in. Here are my recommendations to you: - Get to know your professors better. "Moderate" recommendations aren't worth much. - In your SOP don't talk so much about your Olympiad junk, or your 3 year program, your GPA, or whatever. Emphasize the research you have done. Period. - If your math research went somewhere, I would hype that up--computer graphics is all math. - I don't think taking the Math GRE matters too much... I'd take the CS one if you really care about doing this. After all, you have a masters in CS--taking the Math GRE to me just makes it seem like you are afraid :/

I'm not sure why you would fear MIT and Caltech with Berkeley/Princeton/Cornell on your favorites. If you like MIT and Caltech, by all means, apply. If you contributed novel work (and weren't just a grunt) to those 2 papers you have a good chance of getting in. Here are my recommendations to you: - Get to know your professors better. "Moderate" recommendations aren't worth much. - In your SOP don't talk so much about your Olympiad junk, or your 3 year program, your GPA, or whatever. Emphasize the research you have done. Period. - If your math research went somewhere, I would hype that up--computer graphics is all math. - I don't think taking the Math GRE matters too much... I'd take the CS one if you really care about doing this. After all, you have a masters in CS--taking the Math GRE to me just makes it seem like you are afraid :/

You're a computer scientist: http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/

It appears to me that your background is in CS. Is there any reason you don't pursue any PhD programs in Computer Science? For instance, I would think that Stanford's CS program would be more appropriate than the one you selected, especially if you want to work with their HCI group.

Not all of your LoRs will be equal, because you will have grown as a student throughout your college experience. My first LoR writer could not have done as good of a job as my latter two, because I had matured greatly as a researcher for my last two research experiences. Concentrate on a good job, so you have something good to talk about in your SoP. One great project is better than two half-assed ones.

Hard to say. Were those 6 semesters spent fucking around? Did you make real contributions to the group? Did you just follow what everyone else was doing (or what you were told to do), or did you show initiative? Do your professors know and like you? Do your professors think you are an independent thinker, or just another drone in a lab? Do you know what you want to do? Does your prior work give sufficient evidence that you are good enough to study whatever subject you picked at a top university? Grad admissions aren't (totally) about numbers, there are a lot of human factors (and luck) that play into the equation. If you're a top research student at Cal (read--this isn't about you getting good grades in class), then you have a good shot at a top university. I do have one suggestion--don't read thegradcafe, or testmagic, or any of these other stupid sites. They are timesinks, and not everyone has sound advice (it's up to you to decide if you think mine is or not). I spent a lot of time reading other people's applications, obsessing over other people's numbers, etc. I can safely say now that I've completed the application process that all the time I spent on these activities did not help my actual application. Work on your research, get to know your professors, draft up an SOP and definitely apply for fellowships like the NSF and Hertz. It doesn't matter if you get them or not, because all top universities will fund you, but the experience is valuable for getting you to clarify your thoughts and forcing you to write an extended SOP that you can condense for the real deal. Good luck!

Don't worry about the GRE... what matters is your research and what your SOP and recommendation letters have to say about your research. Edit: In other words, use the time you would have spent for GRE cramming to work on your research instead!

I'll be joining Princeton CS.