Freyja

Guys, don't lose your hopes yet. I heard back from EDIC a couple of days ago, and just had an interview with a lab that wasn't even explicitly among my choices (unfortunately I found them after I had already applied, so glad they are interested). The interview was not technical, just a relaxed talk about my background and objectives to verify whether there is mutual interest or not. They'll let me know in 2-3 weeks because they also have other candidates to interview. Clearly the selection process is still on, so good luck to everybody

Exactly! Not only to his lab but he was my first choice indeed. He's been the only professor answering so far and stating he was going to consider the applications in the following weeks. What you unofficially know confirms it. Great news, thanks

Distributed systems and algorithms. I chose EPFL purposely because of the variety of labs and research topics in that field. Glad you and I are not competing for the same places!

Well, direct or indirect connections surely help, at least with a gain of attention on the application file. It's something I have experienced at CERN as well, during the selections for their research programs, and as far as I know it works at EPFL too (talked to some friends of mine studying there, but in a totally different field). In addition, I happened to stay in Lausanne for 1 week in December, so I tried to contact a couple of professors to arrange a meeting - kind of informal one though, just to visit the lab and talk about their ongoing projects. They all answered they would talk to me only after official acceptance by the doctoral committee. That's what makes me so upset: we have been accepted and have now the possibility to prove our motivation and capabilities in person, but nobody calls back. However, I want to believe you when you say "no news means good news", as also most of the other candidates I've read about haven't gotten any invitation to interviews either so far. Let's still wait

Hi, I'm in the same situation for the EDIC program. I didn't want to wait so long, so I sent some e-mails to 4 professors whose work I was very interested to. One replied he was going to examine the applications in the upcoming weeks, another replied he doesn't have any more open position in this lab, and the other 2 haven't answered yet after about 10 days from my email. I have already almost lost any hope: statistics from last year make it clear only about 15 more applicants get accepted after the grant of the fellowships. I was expecting an invitation to an interview at least, considering my profile: BSc in Computer Engineering in due time with honours, MSc in Comp. Eng. completed by May with honours as well, 3-months internship at CERN, one publication on a major conference, active participation in a European university association, 3 training courses/engineering competitions in computer science all over Europe and a score of 113/120 on the TOEFL. But unfortunately, no direct connection with any professor at EPFL, which seems to be the most relevant part of the application.