Gatech_ST

I didn't follow the guideline, I went on my own (fast) pace through the videos first with some notes on things I need to memorize and then spend the majority of the time solving practice problems and looking at video solutions when I got something wrong or sometimes to see if I their solution is faster etc.

awesome, I truly wished I did learn more basics before joining and used my commute and free time here and there to expand on it. Go for it! Also, since I'm Arabic native, HelloTalk was awesome to talk to Spanish natives that are trying to learn Arabic, try it out!

Great! Yeah, generally it is true that top researchers and labs end up being in top schools but perhaps that is not the case on every sub field, or at least their order differs for your specific interest. For example, in computer science the top 5 schools doing research in Game AI, security and privacy and medical imaging are not necessary your top 5-10 schools. NYU has top lab in game AI but it is top 30 ? UCSD and UCSB has amazing security researchers but they are top 20-30 in CS. John Hopkins would be my number 1 school if I intended to do work on medical imaging but it is ranked top 20-30 in CS, and so on. I recall after doing some literature review and looking at who publishes at top conferences in my sub field, I did my own top 10 ranking schools and applied to many of them.

That is totally fine, and beside, you can simply walk into the school and check the campus yourself and the area around it yourself if they couldn't arrange something official for you (assuming it is legal hah )

It is really an exciting time ahead, you already know what you want to do and you have a year to improve your profile for a better chance. One thing I would like to add is that since you have a long time until the next season, you can actually dig deeper into your search and do a literature review. What papers do you like? look it up and see what works done to expand it (e.g. see the paper that cited that paper). Instead if you like one lab's work look at their publication and see how it is now. The more you read recent related paper, some names will become more familiar to you, note these name down and look up their school and possibly apply there. You will be surprised that many of the exciting work is not necessarily in the "top x" school that everyone is aiming for simply for the name. Wish you the best of luck!

I would love to hear from people who are learning a new language and how they incorporated that during PhD.! I found myself pushing my lessons to the bottom of the stack, but I try to get into tandem.net and iTalk at least once a week. How to motivate yourself to continue and how is it working for you so far?

I knew some people who negotiated their offers that way and they were able to extend the deadline set by the two schools they got accepted to after they hear from the third schools. I guess, it the schools you are hearing from is high in your preference? I would definitely email them and get the deadline extended I'm still surprised that some schools have their deadline much earlier than April! Good luck!

I would like to add that If you are applying for PhD I would say the lab/professor is much more important than the actual rank of the university. Also who they collaborate with within and outside the university and where they publish.

Research Research Research, and network! I would highly recommend doing research during the summer and at any opportunity you can. Getting publication is not necessary but it will really help getting into good schools and with research hopefully you can collab with others and get them to recommend you! As for GRE, I highly recommend Magoosh, it was my only resource and I got high grades from it

Magoosh was the only resource I used for my GRE and It helped me tremendously to get a good grade. Totally worth it, I would say quickly finish up the videos, take notes of the most important things to reference (E.g. formulas etc), and then spend the majority of your time solving questions. Every question you got wrong, note it down and write down the formula/trick that was used to solve it. You will end up with 5-10 pages reference. That what worked for me!

You never know if they are really busy that they didn't notice your email or you're are bothering them. If I got accepted in that university I would be simply visiting their office. Otherwise, if you feel like you got nothing to loss, email them in 2-3 weeks.

I would check the results section and see the pattern of acceptance from last year and if there are any acceptance sent now. You can get clear idea of your situation from that. But generally, Jan/early Feb are the first round of acceptance and Late Feb/early March is a second round, but it really differs between schools.

Congratulations! Hope you find fellow students here with similar situation to share their experience. I would like to add that I know a colleague with a 2 kids and she treats PhD as a full time job 9-5 and free herself afterwards. She is definitely more structured than your average student.

It is very hard to tell without knowing your goal from getting masters. Professional masters usually emphasize technical training and in-demand skills in the industry while master science is more theoretically-oriented.

Deep work was one of the most influential books I read from last year. It really helped me cut out many distractions and focus on task in hand, my interaction with social media changed drastically after reading the book.