Rbcc

Hi~ I was accepted to the PhD and offered guaranteed TA for two years w/ fellowship. However, it seems that once you find an advisor, you can change to RA immediately. I also heard that UMD is generous to MS students also. Good luck!

Thanks a lot for all your inputs! Actually I already decided to go to UMD, but then the UCSD MS came... Its location is a big attraction to me (I always want to go to cali..), plus the possibility to go to a better school or work in industry later. Fortunately, now I feel it's just kind of a crush. Anyway, thanks again and best wishes to you all~

But I think California is an awesome place for CS, isn't it? Also, I'm wondering if it is worthwhile to give it a shot to the top 4 schools after finishing the MS..

Hi there, I was just notified that my PhD application at UCSD was downgraded to MS admission. I also got an offer from UMD. My interest was in machine learning and computer vision. My concerns: For now, I want to pursue a PhD even after a MS, which means it will take more time if I choose UCSD.. but it seems UCSD has better prof. in my interested area ( is it?) If I get a CS MS at UCSD first (my undergrad major is not CS) and manage to get some good recs there, it should increase my chance to get in schools like UCB etc. Is it easy for MS students to get TA/RA at UCSD? I can afford the cost but it is a large amount for me..I also heard many prof. at UCSD now do not accept any more PhDs (probably because of funding?) Really appreciate if you guys can share your thoughts.. Thanks a lot!

hey guys~ I major in EE but plan to apply for CS. Thus most of my research experience is not in our own department .. Now I have 5 potential recommenders, all professors that I have been work with and they replied that the letter will be a strong one. 2 from US whom I worked on a project with during the summer, 1 from Canada who is the co-author of one paper and one in my home school but from CS department. The last one is my final year project supervisor in our department. First, I heard that rec letters from north America may count more. Second, I just started the final year project and the prof may not be impressed by me much. My concern is that he's the only guy from my department. If all my recommenders are not in my department, will that be a problem? Thanks a lot!

Hi, chocolate, I have been thinking of sending them my SoP so that they will have a better understanding of what I'm up to, but I'm not sure if this will look like rude.. Also, you could talk about his research/paper if you really got some insight. Good luck!

I have seen people writing like: .... worked with prof. X (see RL) ... I'm wondering if this is a good style? Also if I say I worked with prof. X who is the general chair of Conference XX, does that look like bragging? Thanks~

hi UnlikelyGrad, thanks for your suggestion. but how current is current enough? my problem is that I just started my final year project and am yet to do some experiments, so there may be not much insight...

another question: will that be ok to use acronym of a certain algorithm in SoP? (prof. in related field should definitely know that)

I didn't ask current research. (most profs have listed their 2010 papers; do you mean to ask if they have any potential project in mind?) I do talk about my past research and brief direction in the future and how that aligns with theirs, however, no reply seems interested in the "academic" stuff ... don't know what's wrong (maybe my point is naive for them..)

Hey guys~ I'm an international student so it's really hard to find anyone in US on adcom before to look at my SoP in advance... Hope here you could help me~ 1) My current version of SoP is >1000w and I'm hoping to cut it down a little bit. There is one para. about a conference paper based on one course project. Basically I explained how I took a different perspective and found out the solution. However, first it's just a tier-2 conference; second it's in the big field I'm applying to but not closely aligned with the specific interest I indicate in my SoP. Originally I hope to use that to show my research potential. Do you think I should keep that para.? 2) The main part of the SoP is like research experience during a summer workshop, then in junior year, then current, then future, but the current and future part is relative short compared to the past. They are more like outlines. But I just read some topics saying that future plan should be the main part... any suggestions? Thank you very much!

hey guys~ I'm wondering in the professor's reply, what did they say? I have received several replies from schools like upenn and caltech, but the professors just said that please do apply.. So I only know that they are going to take new students, but really no idea if they are interested in me or not ... How about yours?

Hi all ~ I will apply for CS PhD 2011. Most of my research experience is in the area of Computer Vision (object recognition) and Machine learning (graphical model and bayesian methods). I'm most interested in statistical machine learning, probabilistic graphical model and probably their applications in CV. I will apply Berkeley(ML) and MIT(CV) (just give a try . Then maybe Caltech (CV), Upenn (CV/ML). Could anyone suggest more schools/groups/professors? Perhaps less prestigious schools which are more practical for me? Thanks a lot~