belowthree

I have anything but love for the GRE, but if you call up a grad school and claim you can't hack studying for a simple test while in school how exactly do you expect them to trust you to kick ass with research? And you haven't even done the research yet to see when the GRE is available at your location? This is just you not wanting to take the test, it has nothing to do with any hardship or lack of time. Sorry for being harsh, but you seemed like you could use a small reality check.

Didn't get a chance to publish before applying. Most of the research experience ended up showing up in LoRs. It was undergraduate research, though not really that standard because I was working on my own projects. I'm not sure of the relative ease in terms of PhD vs. MS. MS is supposed to be easier, but if you've got bad credentials and you're trying to claim you ought to be admitted because you're an excellent researcher, then asking for admittance into an MS program instead of a PhD program may make people think you're actually just trying to go into industry. But it really does depend, it certainly can be easier for a prof to get you slipped in as an MS student if someone does want you. That happened to me at one of the schools I applied to.

This an entirely unacceptable and unsatisfying explanation for not taking the GRE. You'd have better luck asking them to waive it simply because you don't want to take it. I dunno if you've noticed, but it's August which leaves you months to prepare before you'd even have to take the test. I myself started preparing for the test the night before, so you really have no excuse whatsoever.

As an international student it's going to be a lot lot tougher. Really at this point you'd need a stunning research background and probably a leaning towards PhD programs. Also look outside the top 30. (I had a 2.7 when I applied and ended up getting accepted to four of the ten PhD programs I applied to. One of which was UWisc. So it is possible, but I was also domestic and had a strong research background, so these are advantages I had that you probably do not.)

Ask one of your professors where they think you should apply. Who knows, if they like you they might even make a phone call for you or offer to write a letter if you don't have that lined up.

I'm not familiar with your field, but I'm familiar with some of your questions ("Will I get anywhere?" "Which should I target?" etc...) Shoot broad. Look beyond the top 20, look beyond the top 50. Don't apply to any place you hate, but there's plenty of places outside the top 20 you could probably be comfortable calling home. Find them and send them applications. I ended up turning down an unfunded top 10 in my field school for a funded outside the top 50 in my field school because I realized at the end of the day not only do I need the funding, but I would be more comfortable calling the outside the top 50 school home. You can do good research in your basement if you have to. A good school helps and does a lot and there's certainly a few other schools I would have gone to if I had the choice, but if you can find a place you don't mind calling home, you can find a way to do good work there.

It probably wouldn't get him rejected with any particular prejudice, it just wouldn't help him in the least and unless his employers were awesome somehow (not an awesome company mind you, but the industry person writing the actual letters would need to be known to the committee) then the letters will likely be next to worthless and won't help. (Caveat: I realized that I wrote this advice for a PhD applicant. This is more acceptable for an MS student, but still not ideal for top tier schools.) It's not that they actively will reject you for doing something like this so much as letters of recommendation are generally what get people in and yours wouldn't help you much. So the reality is you face a much higher chance of rejection. Lower tier schools (i.e. not the ones you listed) might give you more of a chance. Also if you've been doing R&D and have been working with good people who the committee will actually know by name, then that's acceptable. There are places in CS where good research is done in industry, if you happen to be in one of them that might be okay. However, a lot of CS industry research isn't well regarded. Probably the easiest way is to ask an academic what they think and gauge the reaction. If you've published during this research experience, then that's ideal for this background and is probably needed for the schools you listed... You should apply to a broader range of schools.

I think the advice to slow down and consider how much debt the OP has is misplaced. That was advice that needed to happen 5 years ago. Now the OP is stuck and needs to make a rational decision. If the OP can double his or her earning power (High Ed Administration can be around 6 digits eventually) without doubling his or her debt load (it would be hard to do at this point really...) then it turns out to be a win. Since the OP is already so deep in debt, even if the OP could only gain an extra 20% in salary, that means it's reasonable for the OP to take on up to 46k of additional debt. I think in this case if the OP can do the masters in a year and can reasonably expect their salary expectations to go up by more than 20%, it's a win. (I am not a financial advisor. It sounds like you could use one. Go see one.)

Read a good book. Trashy fiction, not anything high minded.

Yes, the goal is cheaper screens with longer battery life and better quality that can quickly move from prototype to fullscale production. Which seems impossible, but the tech comes from a group of people that tend to thrive on that type of thing. I wish I had more specifics to give you, but it's all at the stage where they aren't really talking about it unless you're interested in buying hundreds of thousands of units. If it doesn't materialize then you'll end up having to wait 3-6 months when you shouldn't have needed to, but maybe by then the kindle thing will be more resolved too and you can use that information. I guess my only concrete advice for you is that if you haven't fallen in love with an ebook reader already, then give it a few more months and see if you can't find a device more worthy of your undying affection. (Given that it will take precious funds from a graduate student budget and you may well be spending more time in bed with it than any significant other you may or may not have.)

I've found steps 2, 6 and 8 to be optional in my field. Sometimes even 3 is optional.

I keep three different calendars. One called "Recurring schedule" which is recurring non-special events that take time out of my schedule but are mostly regular things. Events like classes, regular meetings, etc get scheduled on this calendar. Another calendar, called "Task Schedule" contains one-time events, deadlines and get-togethers. Those two calendars are both public and exposed on my webpage so people can find me if they need me. Then I have a third private calendar for personal things where it just schedules blocks of time out on my schedule but doesn't list any details. During times when I have big projects and work with others I generally also create a calendar specific to that project shared with the other folks involved where we schedule project-related events. I also have another small calendar I share with a group of friends where we schedule social events. My advisor has four calendars and it seems he has a similar setup where he has multiple public calendars and a personal one. His public calendars are separated into "External", "Teaching" and "Work" calendars.

I was using a prototype of the display about 3 years ago. The project it was a prototype of hit production not too long after that. The screen technology will be commercialized in ebook readers starting at the end of the year and will be ready for laptops by next year. Even if they just take the technology they've already proven and used in a production line for the OLPC and put it in an ebook reader it would be a really nice screen. So assuming their timelines are accurate: 3-6 months until products ship with this screen tech in them. Of course nothing is certain until actual products roll off the production line and ends up in a store, but if you were willing to wait 6 months you might consider it.

IMO, wait until Pixel Qi releases their products into the screen market first. They have some innovative technology. The OLPC screen was one of the most amazing things about that device and though the OLPC project might die, the screen technology lives on and is getting commercialized. My prototype OLPC remains the best screen I've ever read a PDF on, bar none. E-book readers are perfect for the types of screens there working on and their tech is supposed to start shipping on a "soonish" timeframe. The difference is noticeable (*and* the battery life is better!)

Not terrible by any means, but also fairly generic. You need to talk about something different if you want a unique and compelling narrative.

Let's see... half way through my sophomore year, I took my first graduate course with a friend of mine. We unknowingly took a course with a professor who had a reputation for being difficult. Both of us excelled, my friend did spectacularly even while missing the last half of the class and got the top score on every test. I managed to beat all but one grad student (but not my friend, who again got the top score) on the final. Overall, a fairly good showing for two undergrads taking his grad course who he assumed would barely pass. The next quarter we were invited into his research group's meetings. During our first meeting one of the students who was graduating in a few quarters was practicing her job talk. The professor stopped her mid presentation, declared it to be insufficient and proceeded to rip her entire presentation to shreds. The most stunning part to me was that the student was completely unfazed. I realized that this was simply how they worked together and... it was pretty exciting. The next presentation was noticeably better and when the professor and I did start working towards publishable papers, I found his harsh feedback style very refreshing and it helped me produce a much better document in the end. I'm still trying to find that type of feedback, I hope my next advisor can be as blunt and as insightful. Anyways, I keep going to meetings, my friend did not. The professor and I met one on one occasionally and we used these meeting to fish around for research topics, feel out the field and scope out where the exciting research was happening. We found and rejected a few research topics both of us were interested in and then eventually settled on something we both felt was exciting and worth publishing, we started meeting on a weekly to semi-weekly basis. I started enrolling in the PhD-restricted "Research" course the department offered (it turns out that if you give a signed card directly to the registrar the system doesn't check if you're a PhD student) and began to pursue research. Since I was working on my own ideas and not the professor's, he didn't have funding for me, but that was fine, I spent the next year and a half learning how to manage my own project, write papers and put together a grant proposal. At the end of the day none of our submissions were successful, but I learned a hell of a lot and will be going into graduate school in the fall with two active research projects close to publication and a thesis idea. So that's my story, but this is probably not a path you have time to do. It also didn't, other than the excellent rec letter he wrote, give me the strongest research credentials. (Since, at the end of the day we never published. His name will be on the paper when we do, but it's taken surprisingly long to get everything together. We ended up biting off quite a bit and this project really should have had about three grad students on it, not one eccentric slacker undergrad.) You probably want to take the more usual route of joining an existing project and participating under a professor and grad student who can guide you through what they're already doing. This still allows you to provide a substantial contribution and learn the ropes while making sure you don't flounder for years refining a project with escalating scope as an undergraduate with coursework requirements to think about. If you're a good student in the department, it should just be a matter of asking around (you can do so directly) and see who might have a need for an extra set of hands.

Your research and your advisor is what matters in the end. Good advisors tend to go to highly ranked schools. This isn't always true, but tends to be true, which is part of why a ranking can matter. Also higher ranked schools tend to be more competitive, which means you spend your time with (presumably) smarter peers. Oddly enough, a lot of the benefits of a highly ranked school are things that happen because of the ranking.

I would say that's a fairly standard reply from a professor who is cordial but also busy. Feel free to contact her with more questions, but make sure you read through the materials she mentioned, contact a few students and do some research on her program. At that point you'll probably be left with several questions you can talk about. Ones more directly related to specific types of work you're interested in doing are probably the most appropriate.

I'm not dismissing it. I personally think this incident is extremely lame. I don't think however, that's it's inappropriate to caution against throwing words like trauma around. These incidents are terrible, but things like this happen all the time. This case is mild in comparison to the typical abuse of power which sometimes takes place. To use the word trauma in this case and to act like this specific case is a more severe traumatic experience is to denigrate all the much more severe cases that the media isn't happening to spoonfeed you with an appropriate dose of outrage. In my opinion, the "don't tase me bro" incident was more shocking, traumatic and offensive than this particular action (they're both bad, don't get me wrong) but that also wouldn't merit the label of "trauma" that seems to be thrown around so casually in this thread. Further, the public reaction in that case was generally to ridicule the victim involved. Do us all a favor and reserve the gesticulating over widespread collective trauma for the many more serious cases of this type which happen on a daily basis. To go off the rails on this one seems to indicate a lack of understanding on your part that in the scope of abuses, this one if it existed, was mild compared to what many racially charged neighborhoods face on a daily basis. Given your comment about being a public defender, I would guess you probably have this understanding (indeed probably far better than I do!) but you need to go ahead and take the next step and apply it. Is this really that severe a case in the context of everything else you've seen? If not, I'd really like to hear your opinion again in a few years as a PD yourself if you take that route. So to get back on topic... if you want to say, for instance, that the officer probably acted "stupidly" in this case, I would agree with you. I would also agree that this case is highly significant because of the media outrage it has received. But traumatic? There we disagree. But apparently arguing for an ounce of perspective in people's diction is just to completely dismiss the argument? Gah. Speaking of bias... would we even be talking about this incident if the person wasn't a professor?

I'm pretty sure he said that he couldn't see how this could be labeled as a personal trauma in someone's life. Significance is an entirely different matter.

I wouldn't worry about it. Which school do you plan on attending?

No, I don't think anything about those relationships was that multidimensional. (Well, except for the last one, but for the sake of the joke we'll put that aside.)

Well... I'm not familiar with your subfield but those conferences looks like they might be a bit disappointing. Probably won't count against you, but I wouldn't factor in your publications now. Your list still looks reasonable, just I don't think the adcom is likely to weight those papers too heavily. It'll come down to the reputation of your LoR writers and what they have to say. I may also be underestimating these conferences. I just briefly scanned the PC list, so my analysis is extremely shallow and I have no knowledge whatsoever about the standards for HCI and which conferences there are good.

Yeah I would think so... but still, wouldn't you just take a foreign lang if your research required one anyways? Is it really necessary to have a rigid requirement? Couldn't the department just have an expectation that "students should be doing research that requires them to learn another language and their advisors should make it impossible for them to not have that knowledge?" Then if students prefer to learn it in the field instead of in a classroom it would serve just as well... I guess I see the point I'm just surprised to hear of a blanket requirement like that. Though I guess it's the same with our core courses in sci/eng.

Are they ever. I could tell you some stores that would make your hair curl and your feet spasm. That's how continuously indiscreet they are.[1] Or you could ask my ex from undergrad who went on to date a string of math grad students after me. It was serial. Apparently that whole thing with TAs and students getting together is not so strongly enforced in a lot of math departments. [1] For the less familiar with math: the opposite of discrete mathematics is mathematics based on continuous structures. Computer science uses so much discrete mathematics that sometimes it's actually the computer science department in a university that has all the discrete mathematics programs, researchers and classes.