DezB88

This is the part that you can laugh at me LOL And there is nothing I can do but embarrassingly bow down and retreat I have not got (which realistically means 'will not get') admit from my top choice schools (Rice is one of them) The other school has a taste for near perfect GPA, and top of the class (or close to it), so my sub-3.9 GPA was enough for me to be tossed away. They would probably admit you if you applied there. To make it less embarrassing, I have not got any reject though I emailed the prof at my top choice but my email was ignored, so I imagine I do not fit into his taste, being no where near competitive area I withdrew my application right before they unleashed their tidal wave of rejects. LOL. Still perfect scores at the moment I guess I have to go to my safety school now, so Rice and Stanford with fellowship.. you ARE the man!!! (and I mean it, no sarcasm intended)

Since other people have been viciously attacking me in other thread, I don't care to speak out about this anymore. There are two easily observable trends: - US nationals tend to get a lot more money (especially when the offer comes from public school) - The more your research interest steers to Math and theory, the less money you get. The more it steers to Engineering and application, the more you get. 27k, in my opinion is average for graphics if you are US citizen

Not to act like Sheldon Cooper and brag about this. But I got 800 twice. The second time last month with no preparation for quantitative, I hastily registered after a few comrades here said many profs do look at GRE verbal (anyone remembers the thread about some one with his father a famous prof and he wants to use it?). I had to retake soon so those 'smart' profs who want to see high GRE verbal wouldn't toss my application to the trash bin when they see my sub-500 verbal. And believe it or not, the first time I took it I was sick. It was a week with bad weather in the Northeast. I still remember that week when the Metrodome in Minnesota collapsed because of the snow and they had to move the Vikings-Giants game to Detroit. I never took SAT, so I am not used to this kind of speedy test either. I am also out of school and working for more than 2 years, and had little exposure to Math during the time. In addition, I am also double major in Math, took a lot of Math courses to feed up my GPA as I am no good at programming courses like 'System programming' or OS. So I am not sure about the part when studying a lot of high level math makes your basic math bad.

please help me if I misunderstand these "I’ve been fortunate to find good advisors who have helped me to develop and contribute a few theoretical approaches that apply to a broad variety of applications" and "If much of the CS research community is focused on implementation and if I have to fight to find “real research questions” to study, is this a warning sign?" the way I see it: only "theoretical approaches that apply to a broad variety of applications" are "real research" is what seems to be implied here. I also don't think that people " have to fight to find “real research questions” to study" I am not in system are, but I am sure there are a lot of real research questions out there, saying you having difficulty 'finding real research questions' is what I don't agree at all.

I don't want to be rude, but I just don't like this kind of whining in public. Whatever they do, let them do. Whatever you do, do it. If you can do something great in whatever ideology that you have, do it and have the result. Once you have ALREADY made original 'real research' with good results, come back and complain about people doing 'implementation details' Right now, you have no authority and no 'right' to criticize others people in public (you are welcome do do it in private with your friends or your advisers, it's a free country ) Having said that, I would tend to agree with what you said.

A day has passed, I still cannot believe you got 660 GRE quantitative and got in Stanford and Rice with Fellowship!!! To be honest.. 660 is the kind of score that most of us here get when half of our brain is in a coma. Would you care to give some explanation why you got that low score? - Power went out in the middle of the test? - the mouse stopped working in the middle of the test?? - the monitor was not functioning properly? How did you explain the low score in your application?

I got into U Penn, but the prospect of living in Downtown Philly scared the hell out of me. My cousin studies at Villanova in Philly and told me all sorts of horror stories in Philly West City, and U Penn is like in the middle of Philly's 'Harlem'. The problem with me is that I want to live near campus so I can walk to school, so imagine I have to move a bit out of University City and moving into the war zone is just too scary. I am not sure if I am misinformed here. Does anybody else have any insight about living near U Penn campus??

how is that even possible??? is your GPA very high and from good school? Did you do something noteworthy in your undergrad?

Well, all 3 profs in NLP of Columbia came from U Penn. I am telling you, U Penn is very very highly regarded, especially amongst profs They have a shrinking size because they only let in very high quality faculty. They could have added profs like some other schools, but they choose to stay with the quality. To be honest, I don't like Stanford either. But the text book has really become a standard, and I just cannot ignore them. If I do other people think I am ignorant

I have a different way of seeing benefit, so I ranked differently. I notice that all of the schools you mention have a large number of faculty and students in the NLP group. So I believe you see the benefit as having a lot of people doing work in NLP. I on the other hand see the benefit as having people who produce work that has high quality, it becomes the standard of the field. Number of researches, the number of people and citation do not really matter to me. Also, I completely left out JHU because I don't do stuff in speech. I am not sure that they are that highly regarded in text, My prof did not even mention them when he told me a few schools I should be looking at. (He did mention USC though) Anyway, for personal reason I have zero interest in any school in California I only put in Stanford because of the text book :D

I know that but I applied for MS anyway, since I believe it increases my chance congrat But I hope Yale accepts you and Stanford gives you funding so you reject Rice, and they have to admit someone else More chance for me jk

You forgot one of the best and most important (if not the most important): U Penn I would re-rank them all as following (instead of size): List of NLP schools that you will benefit the most if you get admitted and enroll in: - CMU - U Penn - Stanford - Columbia USC, UMD, Berkeley are pretty much second tier

Thank you for that info!! No interview request for me until now.. But curiously, did you apply for PhD only? I applied for the Master with thesis option, and stated that I intend to do a Ph D eventually. I hope it's because they don't waste time interview Master applicants Otherwise, I am gonna take another self-reject for me... Lone Star Dreams over

Still not a single sign coming out of Rice What is happening this year???? Anybody has anything more on Rice???

I hope Professor Shewchuk do not reply to question about EE. And please, Engineering people, you have your own forums, please refrain from posting non-CS-related content here. Some of you have grown up, and I am sure many of us here are having difficult time waiting for results. It's quite obnoxious going here bragging about your Engineering interviews, admits, or whatever you get. Most of us are just too polite to say anything, so it doesn't mean we are not annoyed.. so please!! Your posting will be much more appreciated in the Engineering forums. I personally have no problem seeing people being so proud about their achievement in CS here, they have earned the right to do that. But please, put it in the right place. Thanks!

isn't ECE for Electrical and Computer Engineering and not Computer Science?

To be honest with you, I think you stand next to zero chance to get into a Ph D of any of the top 30 schools. The work that you work on might be very good, but there are high risk factors written all over your profile. Your gpa is too low, your reputation seems to come from 'local source' as you mentioned, you graduated too long (the 80s) ago, and how would a study in Ph D help you if you can do well in the current situation that you are already in? Lastly your GRE is just way too low for the quantitative part. Most schools don't look at your application if your quantitative GRE is below 700. (at top schools, it's probably 750) Having said that, I don't want to discourage you and if you can get to 750+ on GRE quantitative, you will have some chance at some school in the 25-35. People that I know judge applicants when they see application with sub780 on quantitative part. You are kind of in my situation since I have done work that has way better results than that of people in the academia and industry, it played considerable part into making a few people becoming multi-millionaire (but not me ) so I want to do it myself now and the sole purpose of my graduate studies is to be able to do my independent research. PS: If it makes you feel better LOL I still got rejected from my top choice even though my stats, undergrad school's reputation and other things are quite good. Well, they still think I am not good enough sigh.. Just to show how very important it is to get a text-book style profile with near perfect stats..

I didn't miss the part that your sister is famous. It's because you said so that I assumed (incorrectly) she's old enough to have not taken the GRE test. Anyway, points made, let's not make this into a heated argument here Cheer..

Well, GRE verbal is a non-issue for all top schools. (of course you should still have more than 400, this is U Penn requirement btw) The quantitative part is too easy and the verbal part is basically a joke, designed for memorizers (well, good for them) When I did the test, I got through it as quickly as possible as I didn't want it to cause me fatigue and make me screw up on the more important quantitative part coming after it. You can check a research done by UT Austin http://www.utexas.edu/academic/mec/publication/pdf/fulltext/TOEFL Report.pdf They found that there is low correlation in GRE verbal and TOEFL score Asian applicants (no racism intended - I am Asian myself) while having lower TOEFL score did way better in GRE verbal. This just confirms that the test basically tests how much vocabulary you have memorized and how accustomed you are with quick reading. It has little to do with language proficiency Many people in admission committee have never taken a sample of the test to see what it is. Ask your sister if she has actually taken a sample test. Once they did, they will realize how useless it is.

My plan B is the same as plan A, just with different schools. I stupidly applied to only 3 schools because I was again (stupidly) overconfident about my chance. One has unofficially rejected me, One I didn't know is too small and very often rejects good people because research interest is not compatible. And I haven't been interviewed by them yet, so ... sigh.... The other one, I'm still waiting with all chances still intact. I've already proceeded with plan B by applying to schools from places I dislike as long as the schools have good reputation To my surprise, many good schools still have Master program deadline open. My favorite school is now the most hated one, I have already started cheering against them last week in the basket ball game (sadly they still won.. sigh..) Sooo anxious to get an admit from one of the other two schools, so I can start burning jersey and stuff from my formerly-favorite school that I have already (stupidly) bought >_< I have a pretty well-paying job right now, and I raked in enough in the last 2 years to fund my entire Ph D myself, so funding is not an issue for me at all. The only reason I go to grad school is because I can still keep the IP right of my research, and the profs can probably help me doing research. Well, if it has to be another year applying to more schools, if it has to be through 2 years of Master.. so be it!!! I will not give up, harakiri is not an option, I will continue applying to all schools that still have deadline open!

Did you get informed about the Master program? Would they give out decision about that as well or they are only finalizing about Ph D

Question answered Mod, please delete the topic thanks