GeorgiaTechPhd

@Rtg8055 is this the interview that is conducted through a software, where you are asked a few questions, and your answers get recorded into the software?

Yeah it can be really unsettling. Have you guys seen any historical pattern when people received a kind of second wave of results? It won't help much with the wait, but at least you will know the timeline, and for how long will the torture continue?

There are multiple threads on it, but basically GeorgiaTech has a rolling process, people continue to receive admits till mid-late March.

If you generally looking for other people to travel with, there are avenues such as communities on Reddit, where people post about their travel plans and try to see if they can find someone else with similar plans.

I think they are really good. I particularly liked the Issue Topic one -- how you have structured the essay, with an initial introductory paragraph, then 2 paragraphs to expand on your argument, a final paragraph that notes the limitation of your argument, and then finally ending with a quick summary of the entire essay. I don't see how I could have come up with a better structure to it. The language you have used is not 100% GRE language (for e.g., using some standard words from the GRE vocabulary) like the kind you would see in essays that get 5 or above, but overall, I'd say it would be 4.5 for sure, or even more. I am not too sure about the argument one, one of the things that struck me is how they initially talk about 'sidewalk rage', but the reference to Middletown talks about 'sidewalk crime'. I wasn't convinced that they are both the same things, although in your essay you have chosen to interchange between them. So depending upon whether the evaluators see that as same as different, you might lose some points, but nothing wrong with the rest of the arguments that you have presented.

Yeah, I still remember, while applying I had to navigate through a whole bunch of different of college websites, and some of them were so awful that I felt like not applying there. Also, I don't know which school you are talking about, but my school has been notoriously famous for some of these data breaches (including student GPAs, their ethnicity and email IDs)

The answer to your question will depend on the field you are applying to. One thing I can tell you is that for some programs (like CS), you have to be a Master's to enter into a PhD program (that's unlike US), and as a bachelors you will be admitted to the Master's program before the PhD program. While most PhD programs tend to be funded, most master's programs are not, but I think the UK ones are much cheaper than their US counterparts.

No it is not mandatory, most of the funded PhD admits I know of (including myself) only showed their i20 and acceptance letter as the proof, even though the i20 only says it for one year. Also, if you are finding that weird, it's probably taken care of by the fact that every time you enter US, your i20 needs to have a signature from your college within the last one year. So that signature essentially acts as the proof that the funding status is continuing for you.

I don't know how to interpret the 'no-visits-from-GT' thing, but I have said this in other places as well, GT does its admissions on a rolling basis, and different students often get admits at different times. So hang in tight folks, and best of luck!

Keep in mind 2 things -- 1) Not all posts on the results page are genuine. There are instances when someone has posted something on the results page, without any confirmation of the same from any other source. So take any information that appears only in the results page (as opposed to some of the forum topics) with a whole bunch of salt. 2) Many universities have a rolling admission cycle, in which they take students in batches, so different students get admits at different points (being an international student could very well be a contributing factor here). Finally, even if you are convinced that all your options are over, not getting into grad school is not the end of the world. I know you'd be very devastated if that were to happen, and why not, but remember that most grad programs have a notoriously low percentage of acceptance, which means most people actually don't get in. There are many who learn from their mistakes the first time, and then apply again with all their experience, and also others who often find alternate career paths that are well suited for what they wanted to do anyway. Depending on your program, I am sure you will find many such students within the gradcafe community itself, who can help you out in realizing your options and not losing all the hope.

@BlakeWhite I can understand what you are feeling right now. It is already very hard to stay calm when you are just waiting for decisions, and on top of that, seeing others get some admits only makes it much harder. However, remember one thing, often the rate of success is over represented in forums such as this. The people who get admits are more likely to post here than people who don't get anything. Most people who don't have an admit are probably just staying out of the discussion. It's great you have put it out here what you are feeling, and I am sure you will find many others who are like you, but just aren't coming out yet. Also feel free to start a new thread, if you think getting support from others might help you. Lastly, just stay strong and believe in yourself. I am sure you still have a few schools left in the pipeline for you.

I personally feel that a 'thank you and look forward to working with you' mail is more than enough. I can totally relate to where you are coming from. When I valued something too much, I would also spend a lot of time trying to come up with something really nice, but overtime I have realized that a simple email with no extra information is really the best response in such situations.

Oh yeah, that is unfortunate, but I wish you all the luck for your remaining applications

Oh I am so sorry to hear about that. And that sounds quite weird to me because in most cases that I have seen, the interview doesn't get that technical. I apologize if you got carried away because of my advice. I hope you have other options to look forward to. Don't give up yet, and stay strong.

No problem. Happy to help. Regarding github, it doesn't hurt to do it. But for it to have an impact, it should be part of a story (like how you built a solution and then made it open source for other people to also use it etc., or if you could show the stars/forks or any activity in the github page that confirms that you have actually built something that other people are interested in. )

No problem. Best of luck for the interview and let me know how it goes.

The answers to most of your questions have changed based on the field that you have mentioned. ML/NLP is literally the buzz topic in most of the CS community right now. Almost everyone wants to do that. So consequently, the bar for admissions is much much higher. And more so for PhD. Some of the things that can make your application stand out -- a direct contact with the potential advisor (like someone from your undergrad school or a contact from industry who could introduce you); a publication at a top-notch venue where the topic (which is usually quite niche in the ML/NLP domain) relates to the work of some faculty members; the quality and relevancy of your prior experience (for e.g., i can imagine that experience in cloud computing could be useful for doing systems research within ML) Most students in ML/NLP apply with a good publication record (peer-reviewed publications), so your papers by themselves might not add much value. But the thoughts that you express and your writing style can sometimes impress some folks, so doesn't hurt to put them out. If you have a website, that would be the best place to put them, otherwise CV should also be okay. But you shouldn't mention it under 'publications' or something, coz that's misleading. It never hurts to reach out to professors. But you should know that the response rate is going to be very low. Your email should be very polite, something that doesn't require much time to read, and there's a clear question at the end for the professor, so they know what you expect. Anything that requires additional effort is only going to reduce your chances of getting a reply. I used to write a simple email -- 'I read your paper X, and had this idea/question Y about it. Would it be okay if I share my views with you via email?' And then at the end of the email, I would also mention what i am doing in life right now and that i plan to pursue a phd in this domain. Some profs have a separate page on their website on how to reach out to them, so make sure you follow anything that you find there. You can also find some generic advice from good faculty members who have written from their personal experience on what works and what doesn't. Just google about it. If you don't already have a direct contact with potential advisors, you should definitely reach out to faculty members via email. A good time to do that might be during the summers, or the start of the fall term, so you have enough time to build some rapport via email exchange, before you get to the admissions deadline. Another good way to get in touch with potential advisors is by attending conferences, so that's another option that you can explore. CV is probably not that important. Your statement, recommendations or any personal references will make most of the difference. About bragging/egotistic, it requires multiple cycles to get it right, the idea is to write whatever comes to your mind, as extensive as possible, and then iterate over it, while collecting feedback from others. About individual research/studies, ideally you should write anything that relates to the area where you are applying. But practically, the point of writing anything is either to show that your work had a very tangible output (for e.g., a publication, or a real world deployment), or you learned something from your experience. An independent study might satisfy the second condition. Whatever you write about it should not be something trivial or generic, but something that shows that you indeed worked hard which allowed you to develop this understanding.

I somehow feel that academia has it's fair share of people who carry that attitude and feel there is not wrong with that. And then treat students like subordinates.

That seems very weird to me. In most cases, the point of the visit day is to help students choose a program for themselves. I think you should definitely reach out to them -- doesn't hurt to try. If you don't mind sharing, which program is that? Because most funded programs stick to the deadline of 15th April, ie, you have until then to make a final decision. if nothing works out, reach out to the college/some faculty member -- ask them to connect you to other faculty from your area or just students and alumni, if its a master's program. Try to find out as much as you can from current and past students of the program.

Hey Guys, I am from the CS background, and I just came here to tell you that I love looking at this thread. There are so many of you out there together, helping each others out -- well mostly sharing anxieties I guess? And it seems like this thread is one of the longest ones on the forum. Keep going guys, and I wish you all good luck, hope you all get in.

I don't why most people are projecting it as a binary choice -- to complete it or to give it up. Have you considered the possibility of a middle ground? A colleague of mine was an international Ph.D. student in the US, got married in between, partner couldn't travel because of visa issues, so the colleague wrapped up their course requirements and moved to their home country to live with their partner. They found a nice job back home -- the work aligned with the broad theme of their Ph.D., and they continued to work on their thesis, interfacing with their advisor and their lab through skype, etc. They were still enrolled in the Ph.D. program, but their advisor was no longer funding them so they had more freedom and continued to work at their pace. Of course, their Ph.D. was in computing, so it was possible to work remotely as you don't need any fancy lab equipments or apparatus for your work. Based on what you have described in your post, you might be able to work out something similar. Instead of spending all of the next 3-4 years, you can also break it down into chunks -- spend the next year or so gearing towards your goal, and becoming more independent, so that you can easily move to your home, and then work remotely from there. And since your partner already has a job in the home country, I believe that is not your major concern, and you could also just focus on completing your Ph.D. while also being by their side.

Another book that is not quite about starting your life at the grad school, but will definitely help you in your research is -- they say, i say The book is about the importance of knowing the prior literature in your field, and how to connect your work with the existing work. It offers specific tips and examples on how to engage with the references and citations while writing research papers and other articles.

I think the answer depends on your personal preference as well. For e.g., the one usual distinction is hands-off, hands-on. Most busy people tend to be hands-off rather than hands-on, and if you prefer a more hands-on working style, you might not like it. Simply being busy doesn't tell you too much and you might wanna know more about the advising style, and other expectations from the current grad student. A positive way to look at it can also be that you get to learn from all the senior PhD students around you. Many labs have this environment where senior students work more closely with the juniors, (sort of like their mentors) as the professors tend to be more busy.

In addition to that @Dryad said, if you have a website, make sure you update it there so if someone decides to look at it, they see it updated there. Also, did you mention about the submitted publication in your statement/resume? If you did, then anyone who cares about it will automatically try to find out as to what happened. I had the same situation, and I had mentioned about it in my statement. In fact, one of the PIs who had already interviewed me actually reached out to me once they knew that the acceptances were out.

I know that some people were admitted last year without any interview.