NickZ

In my opinion, you can try some much better schools since you have so many publications as an undergrad. Go for phd.

Hi, all: I'd like to discuss hot research fields, or subfields, with you guys interested in applying for CS phd. Everyone, to his/her best knowledge gives 3 ~ 5 hottest research fields in Computer Science, and I believe it will not only help me, but also everyone else to get some idea about it. The criteria that occurred to me when defining "hot" are (no implication in ranking of importance): 1. has a future for advancing current technology to a next level within 10 ~ 20 years; 2. has wide application in industry so that having sufficient funding; 3. has larger group of researchers active than other subfields of CS I understand that there can be conflicts since the technology seeming promising in academia does not usually attract industry's eye for the simple reason that academia leads the industry for quite a few years. But look, we're all humans and not machines that can only rigorously follow rules in a mathematical way. Subjectivity is allowed and don't worry about it. So start from me (no implication in ranking of importance): 1. VLSI and its replacement (such as quantum computers) 2. computer architecture (particularly for data center) 3. language semantics (including the combination of computational linguistics, machine learning, etc) 4. database

Many thanks for the response. Those are indeed reasonable answers. Any other inputs, guys?

Hi there: I'm an international student from a small European country. I'll be applying for a phd in Computer Science in a reasonably good university in USA in Fall 2011. Basic info about me: Currently doing a MSc in Computer Science at the University of Oxford. Grades unknown yet. Undergrad was also in Computer Science, with GPA = 3.3 after transformation into the US system. It's low, I know. I had one publication, as the third author (and the last author) in one of the CS conferences in my country. It was not in English, so many of you might not even know it. GRE: verbal:510, quant: 800 Toefl: 110 I've got other experiences such as working in non-profit organizations in quite a few places like Africa, etc. But those really have nothing to do with the field (computer science) in which I'm applying for a phd. So what are the universities that I should consider applying for? Assuming I get good grades, and do well in my thesis (like 10% at Oxford). It will be great if you could give me a few EXAMPLES(just an example: U of Washington. Possible?? Impossible??) so that I'll know my position when I apply. In addition, I've got the following questions: 1. If I do well(get good grades) in my MSc at Oxford, can it make up my poor gpa for undergrad? I know admission committee will look at many aspects of an applicant, so here I'm talking about making up the low undergrad gpa with my MSc grades. No other aspects (like research, recommend letter etc ...) get involved in. 2. Oxford University is, at least in Europe, a very famous university. Does that help when I apply for a phd in USA? I know USA has quite a few famous universities as good as Oxbridge, if not better. Will they buy the brand of "Oxford" when considering applicants? 3. Recommendation Letters: does a letter from Oxford carry any weight even if it's not from USA? I'm assuming that, for the worst situation, my recommender has NOT been heard of by a particular school I apply to. Thank you very much for your time, and I really look forward to hearing some advice from you.