hi! are you native? I'm in China. So you met Chris, did he have confidence of getting you accepted? I also really hope that I can work with him, but my situation is a little hard. I didn't have much practical experiences in rendering, cuz my focus was in point based modeling during master years.
I remembered Chris had not only once mentioned that current number of phd reaches his limit, and he was not actively recruiting. If you are right about his wanting to hire more PhDs, then that's a good news.
Can you leave your email address? or you can tell me your messenger or gtalk so that we can chat with more convenience.