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puffin444

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Everything posted by puffin444

  1. If I shouldn't worry about this, I'm just curious: what kind of grades get your offer rescinded from a top program? "About the only negative would be if you wanted to apply for certain Scholarships/Fellowships that are based on past academics" 1. This does concern me. I can definitely say though that these classes will probably not be related to my research.
  2. So... I accepted an offer to a Ph.D program that's #1 in my field. I am currently finishing up my undergraduate degrees (triple major). For my last semester, I am taking 3 graduate courses and 1 undergraduate course. The three graduate courses are not required to graduate, but they are related to my future degree. I have taken tons of graduate courses in the past, so they are definitely not my first experience with them. Because of the high stress of admission decisions, visiting campuses, and a unlucky bunch of truly awful teaching professors, I'm expecting my performance to tank this last semester. This is not due to laziness. The admissions offer did not formally offer any GPA requirements, but I will be sending my eventual transcript to the graduate coordinator in the department once I am done. I guess they will look at the transcripts subjectively. Especially because I don't come from the most prestigious undergrad compared to the others, I will feel a little embarrassed. 1. In the worst case scenario, this could be 2 B+'s and 2 C+'s. I've had a 3.88 average so far, so it's definitely a noticeable drop in performance. (Never had a C before). It would drop to around a 3.77 Should I be worried about my offer being rescinded? What does it take for that to happen?
  3. Yeah I'm actually applying to the Ph.d program. It's hard to understand when they actually respond with admissions decisions. The website says it only corresponds officially through mail, but some Ph.D applicants appear to have received emails last week according to the results survey. (Don't know if these are official or to all invited to the program). What's wierder is that they say they make Ph.d decisions in early March, but the open house is March 9th. Whatever. I think master's decisions are made in early March. How competitive are admissions there (relative to MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc)? It sort of looks like they just admit people to SEAS, but not necessarily to individual departments. Does anyone have experience with the Ph.D or Master's program here?
  4. I got one by email today. From the little information I have, they have not been sending them out all at once. Someone got it early last week, a few others got it last Friday, and I just got something today. I don't know if they have sent out all of them.
  5. I just got an email today stating that my essays did not meet the formatting requirements. Panicking, I checked all of my submitted essays, finding that they were in the margins and right font size. So I called them up, and they said that one specific essay failed the guidelines. So I check that essay again, finding no errors [!?], but then I look closely and realize that the pdf generator made a tiny artifact right outside the margin . Am I finished? Did my application entirely get rejected because a single artifact? Do you think, If I explain the situation, that there is a possibility that NSF could still consider me? .
  6. I have found some profs with research interests and projects which have seriously captured my interest; I REALLY would want to work in these labs. Of course, with my luck, they happen to be at the most competitive schools MIT/Stanford/Caltech/CMU. Two questions: 1. Most people tell me that making contact with potential advisors is a good idea. However, they say that the most competitive departments discourage this due to the high number of applicants. The last thing I would want to do is annoy a potential advisor. Does anyone here have experience with the culture of any of these departments? Should I or should I not try to make contact? 2. My interests are deeply interdisciplinary, and some of these professors aren't listed as CS faculty even as adjuncts. However, they have had a history of advising some CS grad students. Would it be self-defeating then to mention such professors in the application? Would this confuse (or possibly anger) the admissions committee? Is it possible instead that these departments have a philosophy of letting some grad students pursue really novel CS projects that include people outside of the department?
  7. I plan to apply this fall. Thanks for the reassurance. Some people kept telling me that grad schools made distinctions on attributes as fine as tenths of a gpa, which sounds quite arbitrary and draconian.
  8. Hello, I am an undergraduate hoping to apply to grad school in CS for the upcoming fall. I came to college with a great deal of advanced placement and I would say 50% of my course program consisted of graduate courses from six or seven different departments. I learned a lot from these courses, and I think I have a very concrete idea of what I would want to research for a Ph.d. They have also given a very strong background for interdisciplinary work. However, this experience came at a price. It seems that, compared to undergrad classes, the grading in grad classes where I am from is quite arbitrary. Either the professors gave out A’s like candy or they graded on very fine distinctions. The result has been a lower gpa relative to a “typical” undergrad program, a 3.87 compared to what would probably be a 3.97, and some of the grad classes in subjects that I am interested in researching for my Ph.D. (Machine Learning, Neural Networks) have been A-/B+ instead of A’s. Again, this is not due to lack of intelligence or hard work, but do to the fact that some of these grad classes were graded on ultra-fine distinctions (missing one question on a test leads to a drop in the entire class grade). 1. Did this hurt me? Do the most competitive grad schools/fellowships make distinctions based on a tenth of a GPA no matter the course program? Keep in mind I come from a decent, but not elite, college (top 50 or so in CS). 2. Did this actually make me look good? Did taking these grad classes make me look like I have a strong work ethic and initiative? 3. Will this be taken into consideration? From what I know grad students are more interested in getting a 3.0 or above than getting straight A’s in each class. 4. Does this even matter? Will competitive grad schools/fellowships be more interested in my research experience? (I have substantial experience as well as publications)
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