tropicalpunch

I’ve collaborated before with visiting Professors and students from Mexico. If you’re able to do research again in a university in Mexico there is a higher probability you can come do research in a southern school in California. There’s also no harm in just trying. It may not be a top school, but if you’re interested in just doing a masters at a school like UC Merced, you may be able to get in.

Hello, I am applying for PhD programs with a focus in Machine Learning and Robotics. The field is soooooooo competitive and I feel that I am not good enough. (I copied this template from another user, but this is my current profile) Current institution: top 10 BS/MS program (on the lower end) with somewhat well-known professor Domestic female applicant (US citizen) Current GPA: 3.8 Research Interests: robot learning, foundation models, reinforcement learning, 3D data, computer vision Research Experiences: 4 Publications (all accepted at top conferences) 1 first author (done as part of an internship with a research company) 2 second author (one spotlight) 1 fifth author Presented at overseas conference. Presented at Undergraduate Research Conference as part of my school. Also working on another paper (co first author) and assisting with another group's paper. Industry Experience: 1 research internship relevant to what I'm working on. 1 hardware internship with a big company when I was a freshman Other: I have extensive knowledge with working on robotic platforms. Familiar with PyTorch, sim environments, sim2real, cameras, RL, etc. One paper I was a part on got spotlight and those students that were co-first authors all got into top schools. I am worried that I do not have a similar first author paper with similar performance or scholarships or awards to distinguish me. I feel my application is quite bland. **Here are some reach schools I am interested in for PhD:** UC Berkeley University of Washington CMU MIT Stanford Georgia Tech Columbia University of Michigan haha ... not getting into these **Here are some safe schools:** UCSD UIUC USC Rutgers Penn State Rice Arizona State University many others.... I'm afraid even my safe schools aren't safe enough. I'm trying to be optimistic but I also need someone to give it to me cold on where I really stand. What are some lower-tier schools I should consider? Also I'm applying for NSF, let me know if you have any recommendations for that. tysm!