leogk

Sorry I'm not a RI student so I don't know what's going to happen. But I guess it is not going to be later than this week based on the schedules of previous years.

The decisions of CSD and MLD were over about 2-3 weeks ago. Unfortunately, no news means rejection.

Hey kryoneri18. You may need to read the rejection email carefully. As far as I know, no matter how many programs you applied to, the rejection notification is send out by scs in a single email. I think the email may mention both of them.

I think so. I applied to Caltech CNS, but had no interview offer. Someone who applied to the CNS last year said that they admit about a half of people who are invited to the interview.

That's caused by the fact that CMU SCS has some interdisciplinary programs such as robotics and HCI. A lot of people with other engineering backgrounds (even art,too) apply to those probrmas (ex. ME, EE, BME, or Physics majors to Robotics, and art, or design to HCI).

Hey, fanta. If I could have JM and MJ as my adviors, I wouldn't consider any other options.. You can see the details on CSAIL webpage, but it looks like there is a huge number of robotics people here. The whole second floor of Stata center is assigned to robotics... it looks like a factory.. Anyway, I know it's gonna be one of the most important decisions in your life. Take time and think hard!

I'm now a visitor at MIT vision group and finished MS degree at CMU. The MIT vision group is one of best places... really friendly atmosphere and looks like everybody enjoys his/her life here. Another good thing here is that there have been a lot of very strong fresh PhDs as post-doc, so you may be helped out a lot by those guys. Personally, I was rejected in MIT and plan to go back to CMU, by the way... CMU is also good for CV, but the profs I'm interested in said the funding situation is very unclear, so may not hire a new student... (So, I'm now trying to apply for some fellowship programs these days... ) For ML, I think if you could be one of MJ's students, you'd better go for Berkeley. But in the fact that CMU has more than "20" ML profs, CMU may be a "safer" choice. Tommi Jaakkola is the only guy I konw in MIT, but it's true that MIT machine learning group is not that big.... Above all those kinds of things, ML and CV are really competitive areas.... full of geniuses and extremely difficult to survive in academia after PhD graduation... Welcome to the Jungle !!

I guess Tommi Jaakkola is one of famous profs at MIT. But I think ML of MIT is not that strong compared to the other Top4.... The professors bernard listed out is quite accurate, but it may be a little bit outdated. Some of them are now seniors and have some duties in the organizations, so maybe not that active in research now...

For Machine Learning, I would go for CMU. I know Berkeley and Stanford have extremely famous ML guys there. But CMU has a much bigger program and faculties, so it would be a safer choice. What if you go for Berkeley but MJ hires another guy or has no openings? And the job score of last-year CMU PhD graduates in academia was pretty good - one Stanford, one Caltech, and one GATech assistant prof... For Computer Vision, it would be a really hard decision. Top 4 except Stanford are almost equal, but the prof in Berkeley is slightly more famous in the society, in my opinion...... But post-docs of MIT in previous several years have been extremely good. (Many of them now become professors.)

By the way, if your future goal is professorship in academia, you'd better check what happened to the alumni of the groups (especially, most recent three or four people) and how many awards they've won in top conferences.

I don't see see any difference in reputation of two schools. Both of them are the best. No question about it... If I were you, I would look into your potential advisors... Every professor has his/her own sub-fields from a micro viewpoint (such as general approaches, applications, relations to other schools/industry etc.) even they are in the same research society. You need to check which would be better fit to you. Also, chemistry is a really important factor.

The admission is notified by each department but the rejection is done by SCS in a single email no matter how many programs you applied to. That's the reason why the rejection is not yet out... apparently some departments have already made out their decision. (It looks like RI and HCI may be blamed for the delay of this process... I'm pretty sure that they will finalize it very soon.) Last year, the rejection notification was around last week of Feb.

Take it easy, guys.... These days the number of extremely well-qualified applicants far exceeds the number of slots in all sub-fields of CS. No question about it. I would say the decision looks like a random sampling. Really tiny difference may be a critical point of the decision. And, no one can say that the one who gets admission are always more qualified than one who gets rejection. Life is not always fair to everybody .....

In my opinion, I'm not the kind of person who the admission committee like most. The prototype of top candidates is (1) fresh undergraduate from prestigious schools (good US schools, some well-known foreign institutes like Tshinghua and IIT) (2) very close to the top in the class (3) promising research experience (a couple of papers is enough). You can see several examples in this forum. I may have better research results than those guys for example, I have a lot of first-authored papers including an oral CVPR (acceptance ratio ~4%), but I may be beaten by those kinds of people. I am older and have more experience than those guys , so it's not advantageous to have more research output. Otherwise, the oldest applicants would get best admission scores. The admission committee wants to see your "potential" (I mean who you are gonna be after PhD) not your "current output" (Who you are now.)

Another tiny recommendation i want to make is.... Don't dive into the "computer vision".... It turns out that it's so competitive.... (even in thegradcafe.com) The opening is just about 1-3 on average each school... (no CV professor in Stanford)..