Adamah

PhD

How much of an improvement is this school over your other options? From what I understand, funding is usually guaranteed for your second year onward. If that's the case, then I think it's better to go for it now rather than wait another year. Next year you may be in the same situation, or not admitted to the school at all. Even if you did get in again, it might not be worth waiting a whole year.

This is the person I spoke to: http://www.seas.harvard.edu/directory/ganglon

I'm domestic and have not yet received a letter. Instead I called them today and asked for someone who would be able to give me my decision now. I eventually got a person's name, which I used to find their phone number, and called them and got my result -- not admitted. The rejection doesn't really matter since I've already narrowed down my choice to two other schools, but it's ridiculous that it takes them this long to send a decision, and especially to send it by mail.

Nothing in the mail today from Harvard. Honestly it's flat-out insulting that they don't send these results by email. There's no reason why in the 21st century they should have to snail-mail these decisions and make us wait an extra week when we have other options we need to decide on. I think it reflects poorly on them, both as a university and as computer science program.

Stanford says in its FAQs that decisions will be sent out March 16th.

MS

I received an admit from them a couple weeks ago. No funding though.

Stanford says on its website that all MS decisions will be sent out on March 16th.

Does it distinguish between MS applicants and PhD applicants? If not it probably includes both. Also, 33 students doesn't mean 33 people were given offers. The number is probably 20 or 25 accepted. I would guess around 10% acceptance then.

I've recently been admitted to the PhD program at U of T, as well as a few American schools. I'm trying to gauge the level of prestige and respect for the Toronto program, which I know is important, and which is apparently difficult to find out for non-American schools. The US News rankings don't list foreign schools. ARWU and QS put Toronto at about #9, but these rankings also put UIUC at #13 and #28, which strikes me as pretty fishy. Right now I'm mainly trying to decide between U Toronto and UMass, so if anyone has advice on the relative strengths of the programs I would appreciate it. Thanks!

I've always heard that the GRE's are a hurdle that you have to jump over rather than a critical part of your application. Since I got the 800Q in the general GRE and the subject GRE was at most "recommended" for the schools I was applying to, I didn't take the subject GRE. However, now I'm getting a bit worried that skipping on it was a mistake. Should I be concerned? I was a CS double major in college so I'm not too concerned about my CS background, but is it correct to assume that the subject GRE is only expected from students with a non-CS undergrad major?

I agree with Oh Yeah. The reason a lot of students come from top undergrads has less to do with the school's name and more with who they can get letters from. I also don't think you'll get into Berkeley, but it may still be worth it. In the end, $80 isn't that much.

nvseal, did you apply to the MIT PhD program? From what I understand they don't have separate Master's admissions.

Thanks. It seems kind of odd that this information is in an undergrad guide, but it's a nice find. "All applicants to the regular graduate program are reviewed for their ability to complete a Ph.D., regardless of their intended final degree." That doesn't bode well for me then.

On the MIT EECS website there is a graduate degree labeled "Engineer in Computer Science": http://www.eecs.mit.edu/grad/index.html This is a pretty cryptic title, and the description is equally terse. Does anyone know what this degree is supposed to be? I get the impression that it's more than a master's, but less than a PhD. It seems research-focused, since there's a thesis requirement, but it's unclear if it's terminal (I'm guessing so?). It also doesn't say how long it should take to complete. It also doesn't say if admissions for that degree are separate from the masters/phd application process, and if any funding is available. Anyone have any ideas?

Honestly I don't think your chances are very good. While your work experience is colorful and off the beaten path, that's not very relevant in an application to a PhD program. My biggest concern is your weak background in CS classes. Admittedly, a CS undergrad major is not required for a PhD in CS, but they do expect a minimum background in the subject. Aside from the intro classes, you've taken 1 undergrad and 1 grad class in CS. From an adcom perspective that raises questions - does this person really know what CS is? How does this person know he wants to study CS? My other concern is the weak research background. The summer research is helpful but won't get you too far. This will knock you out of the tier-1 but isn't a big deal for tier-2 schools, from what I've read. I think you'd be better off A) getting a master's, where you can improve your academic CS background and maybe work on some research, or finding some kind of research-oriented job where you can take classes on the side (preferably paid by the company).

You both really think I should only get 1 LOR from the Fed? These are the only folks that can personally attest to any research I've done, even if they are economists. I was planning to get 1 LOR from my boss, who ranks pretty high up on the Fed hierarchy and who I get along with very well, and another letter from one of the economists who I've directly assisted with research. I don't know if it'd be wise to dump either of those selections in deference to an undergrad professor who barely knows me or a professor who I've never taken a class with and can only speak of my teaching ability.

Hey everyone. I'm planning to apply for a MS in Computer Science this Fall. I'm looking at Berkeley, Stanford, Princeton, UIUC, and the Technion in Israel (aiming high, I know). I think I have a pretty competitive application. My GRE is 800Q, 600V, 5.5AWA. My GPA is 3.95 from a large, upper 2nd-tier state university, and I'm a US citizen! I'm also a year into an RA job at the Federal Reserve in DC (finance, but still research), and have taken an upper-level grad class through Stanford's SCPD program as a non-degree student, which I did very well in. I have some work experience as a programmer in finance, but it isn't very relevant for my app. My main concern is LoR's. I graduated in 2008, and I didn't keep in touch with any of my professors. They'd probably kind of recognize me if they saw me, but they wouldn't be able to say anything meaningful in their recommendations. I didn't do any research in undergrad either. That said, I was a TA for 3 semesters and participated in a program to teach gifted students in the sciences. I still go back once a year to give a Game Theory lecture for that program. The organizer of that program (a mathematics professor) knows me pretty well, but I get the impression schools want to hear about research when they read an LoR, not teaching ability. I can get pretty strong LoR's from my current RA job (only economists, though), but I've heard that I should get at least 1 letter from a professor at my undergrad institution. Is that true even if I graduated 3 years ago? If so, I'm short on options. Basically, my options are: A) Get 3 LoR's from economists at the Fed. They'd all be pretty good. I've helped out a few economists on research projects, took initiative in them, and made meaningful contributions to them. That said, none of my contributions were significant enough to get my name on a paper. A couple of the economists are very well known in their sub-field and have published in top journals, though I don't know if a CS admissions committee would pick up on that. Get 2 LoR's from the Fed, and awkwardly go back to my undergrad to find a professor to write a "did well in my class" letter. C) Get 2 LoR's from the Fed, and get a pretty good letter from a math professor at my undergrad talking about my teaching experience. D) A bit of a curve ball, get 2 LoR's from the Fed, and ask for a letter from the TA I took the Stanford SCPD program with. I never communicated with the professor, but I exchanged emails with the TA quite a bit and he can comment on the research I did for the (pretty significant) final project. That said, I never saw him face to face, as I'm on the east coast. I'd really appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

I'm planning to apply to MS programs this fall (aiming for Berkeley). I think I have a pretty strong application in terms of GPA and GRE. However, my research experience is roughly non-existent. That said, I recently took a class through the Stanford SCPD program (I'm enrolled as an Non-Degree student) that required a pretty significant class project instead of a final. The projects are viewable here: http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee368/Project_11/index.html (I'd prefer to remain relatively anonymous and therefore won't specify which is mine). The class was fantastic, by the way, and I highly recommend it. I think the TA for the class won the Best TA award at Stanford last year. I'd like to mention the project in my application, but I'm not sure how much emphasis to put on it. The entire project was done in about 6 weeks, so I suppose it wasn't a particularly involved research project. That said, I did have to read quite a few papers and write a 5-7 page research report following the IEEE conference template. Would you all say this project counts as "research" as far as my application is concerned? How strong would it be in my application? I know this is kind of a stupid question, but I never did any research in undergrad. I was mostly a mathematics major, where undergrad research wasn't common, and my undergrad comp. sci. classes were all test-based. Thanks!