timuralp

computer science, not that PhD in CS has given it away or anything

Each essay is to be no more than 2 pages, 12pt font, 1 inch margins all around. References, figures, etc, count toward the length of the essay.

By the way, if you guys are using latex (probably not many), use the savetrees package. It's great for packing everything in 2 pages. I found that my research statement was getting a bit too big otherwise.

Man, I'm 21 and just gotten through the first 2 months of it, so in the same boat pretty much. I definitely went through a slump where I was questioning if I came to the right school, if I'm doing the right thing with my life, if I chose the right advisor... and at the time the best I could come up with was "I don't know." I think for me the deciding factor was that eventually research started to click and I got into it a lot more, so I enjoy the work... Once you feel good about the work you're putting in, I think things will turn up for the better I definitely agree with the whole "at least get an MA" bit. If you don't give it an honest shot, you might find yourself wondering down the road what could have been. Just stick with it for a bit, try to make your way through it; at least if you quit after that there'll be no regrets. And the lonely part, well, I can't help you there. I'm yet to make any friends in the two months I've been here, but I think it's related to the fact that I'm in computer science - not the most social field, and spending all day in the lab doing research is not contributing... but if you figure out how to solve that one, let me know. Good luck.

Err, that is precisely the response I would expect most (if not all) professors to give. Very few of them have any effect on the admission decisions and expect to speak with students when they were admitted, not before then, precisely for that reason. I've talked to a few that I've worked with when I was applying and they mentioned how many emails of the same sort they get and they don't have the time to actually respond to any of them. Here's a sample general statement that you might get: http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/prospective.htm, although you got one already As to what to do for the 3 months, maybe wait for the admission decisions and focus on your studies or read more papers to figure out where you'd fit better, etc. good luck!

All right, so having been frustrated by the fact that it's impossible to find any #gradschool channels for, well, grad students, I made one on freenode. It's #gradschool (yep, creative). Anyway, I'll probably idle in it on somewhat regular basis. Y'all should join and keep me company or ask questions, etc P.S. don't make me think the absence of such a channel was for a good reason!

When I applied last year my SOP was about a page and same for the personal statement. I only applied to 2 schools that required personal statements: Cal and Michigan, so I just wrote one for each I think, which wasn't a big deal. Not sure if that helps at all. Cheers. P.S. I found their personal statement prompt to be complete BS. Oh, and I also didn't get in Berkeley, so you might not want to follow what I did

Well, so here's the real deal and most places kinda frown up on it. If you get into an MS/PhD program (i.e. combined), you can check if your MS is awarded after 2 years and if you have the option to leave the program. So, as you can see, often times it's not actually the kind of commitment you think it is and you're more likely to be funded, whether it's through TA or a fellowship. On the point about applications vs theories, I'll just give you an example project at UMass (I graduated from there, hence the reference). Professor there, David Jensen, applied Machine Learning techniques to help SEC identify stock brokers who were breaking the regulations. Here's the paper: http://kdl.cs.umass.edu/people/jensen/p ... dd05b.html. This seems fairly practical The point is that you can often find research work that is more applied than other work. I'll just say pick your advisor wisely and that'll help you also figure out the school you're more fit to attend. Finally, as far as picking schools, advice I got was apply in 3s: three that'll probably be a stretch, three that you have a good shot of getting into, and three safety schools. When I applied, I applied to only 1 safety school because I knew I would get in and it was a good school. So, adapt the advice to your circumstance. Also, as I found out grad admissions is a lottery: I got into WashU (ranked 5th in what I'm interested in), but didn't get into UCLA or UCSD (13 and 15 respectively I think), so you always have a shot

Hey, thanks for the link! I figure my verbal score won't be too important, which may or may not be true. I wish the comments I got actually explained why I got the Honorable Mention and not the fellowship. I need to get going on my future research statement... By the way, if anyone cares to see my last year's application which apparently was good enough for honorable mention, it's here: www.eecs.umich.edu/~timuralp Anyway, good luck with the applying!

Well, after doing some digging around it seems they actually don't matter as much. Here is some stuff I managed to dig up http://jxyzabc.blogspot.com/2008/08/cs- ... ships.html. Also, I suppose it's a moot point now anyway since I'm not paying $120 for the stupid test, seeing how I'm on some sort of a fellowship already. This just would be a nice resume boost

Hrm, most professors I know would not reply to any emails/ways to reach them until you're actually accepted at the school. The idea is that perusing the recent publications will give you a good idea of their work and if you want to consider coming, you should talk to them after you're accepted, since before that it's a waste of everyone's time. see here for examples of what I mean: http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/~yihchun/faq.html or http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/prospective.htm. Maybe this is field specific...

The only thing I'd say is that you should apply for a PhD, since it's easier to get funding this way. Also, a lot of programs may let you transfer after obtaining your MS in the MS/PhD track. Have you looked at WashU and UMass at all? Those could be some other schools to consider, albeit the climate will be colder than every other school you listed (maybe barring Columbia)

Hey guys, Well, I'm sure people are working on that GRFP application. I'm reapplying this year and was wondering what other reapplying people are doing. Are you recycling the older stuff with some polish? Starting completely from scratch? My personal dilemma is that the critique I got from NSF can be boiled down to "this project is awesome!", which of course does not explain why I didn't get the fellowship. So I was thinking of expanding my project, including more references, new research work, etc. Any advice on that? Side note, how important are the subject test GREs and should one submit a somewhat low score (750 - yea, cs theory killed me on it) or not submit them altogether?