Mecasickle

doctor house

A friend of mine from Yale applied to Rockefeller BioEngineering (not sure if Neuro falls in the same pool that uses interviews), and he got invited like 2 weeks ago. Just in case.

As long as you seem enthusiastic about your past research (rather than complaining or pretending you liked it), I think it should be ok. I've done past research on neuroinformatics , then bioimage analysis and now Scene Understanding which is cross disciplinary (CS and Psychology). It's part of your process of self-discovery and knowing what you really like and want to do with your life and research. I talked about this a at a summer school with an MIT professor I'm applying to work with, she seemed pretty cool about it.

graduate application

pencil eraser

Nice, what area in CS are you in?

rest orant

Here's a website where Prof. Andrew Ng (Stanford CS) exposes how graduate admissions are usually processed: http://graddecision.org/ApplicationProcess_AdmissionsProcess.html

UCSB is a great place, I did a research internship there at the ECE department on BioImage Informatics last year. Who will you be working with at the CS department? I might give you some tips I know. I loved it because I liked to have a lot of fun too.

I also applied, I'm still waiting as well. I didn't know UC Berkeley EECS did interviews though. Well I'm living in southamerica, so I don't know if they usually send out interviews to people abroad, or if they do phone interviews instead.

A friend of mine who got into UC Berkeley Neuroscience last year (he was 1 of the 8 chosen ones), told me that as long as you know your professors research well, you're all set. He also said that after an interview you are 70% in. The only reason they could not accepted you (reject you), is if they notice that you're crazy, have a weird sense of humor, are a sociopath, have 'no idea why you want a PhD', are a poser, have some sort of psychological disorder,etc... It pretty much is a verification process to see if what is in your brilliant application is who you really are, it gets better if you can prove that you are more than meets the eye. If you are an international it's very important to prove that you can fluently communicate in English. If there are social events, don't really look like an antisocial and awkward person, but instead talk a lot and have fun (but don't get shitfaced or too high)

4 years ago I applied to MIT, Stanford, U Penn and Cornell as an international applicant (undergrad transfer) from a small town and university back in Peru. I let all my high school friends, family and M.E. department down, they were all having hopes that I could represent the country... Today I've worked at UCSB on BioImage Informatics, and am collaborating long distance with a Marr Prize winner (the highest honor in Computer Vision) Professor at Virginia Tech on a new idea I've proposed. I just re-applied for Fall 2013 to places like MIT and Stanford for my PhD with a higher leverage of getting in, as I met most of the professors personally and know the grad students of the lab I want to get into from conferences in Italy and France I've been. Failure and rejection can happen due to multiple reasons. I wasn't ready back then, now I feel more prepared, the important thing is to never give up on your goals and work realistically to achieve them. I personally don't believe in God, but a friend of mine told me a very deep quote when I failed and let all of my friends and peers down. It kinda went like this: Me: God only gives you one shot in life, and I failed... Him: You're wrong, he gives you two. The first time you weren't ready... Me: What about the second? Him: That's what we're preparing ourselves for.

Time to do a correction, this was for BioEngineering (I thought it was EECS), My bad people!

What about the case for international applicants? I know CS almost never does interviews but Neuroscience/Cog.Sci. does: do places like Stanford pay people from Bolivia/China/France to go for interview session?

Yup , it was 2 rejections to 2 friends at the same time. *They applied as internationals so that might be different. He's now at Rice university, so he can't say much about this years UC Berkeley admissions.

A friend of mine (who applied last year) told me UC Berkeley EECS Rejections are probably going out tomorrow or this week, so fingers crossed for everybody.

I'll already be doing a paid internship at Virginia Tech as I wait for results, so worst case scenario, I stay there more time and then write a book.

Alright, MIT website seems working again, can anyone else confirm? (I hope they didn't sabotage the admissions process haha)

People at Tech Crunch with more specs: Two more websites were down :doj.gov and w3.gov http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/13/mit-edu-doj-gov-w3-gov-all-currently-down-following-investigation-into-swartz-tragedy/

Game changer for grad school applications and decisions? www.mit.edu doesn't work for me at the current time and part of the world. Is anyone else experiencing the same problem?

All my friends in Peru think I'm going to end up in NASA just because I'm applying for a PhD in CS. (laughs)

Does anyone know if MIT-BCS sends interview invites to international applicants?

How does the list of 'other universities you are applying to affect your application?' is it used to see if a tier-2 school sees you have better potential and chane to get into a tier-1, thus not offering you admission? Any other ideas? My application have already been sent so I'm asking this question out of plain curiosity. Thanks

Alright mewtwo thanks! Has any international applicant/student have any experience on this matter?

DropTheBase is right, from what I know about MIT and PhD's there, most (if not all) are only accepted by a reccomendation of someone known from the field and/or personally knowing the professors you want to work with. In my personal case I applied there, and I already personally know the two professors I want to work with as well as their grad students and post-docs. Not to discourage you, but to be realistic, is to remember you that everyone that applies to MIT has a resume as brilliant as yours. Their criteria of admission at the end is almost purely reduced by your references (and if they know them). This has been told to me by MIT EECS professors, in person at a conference in France. If you have not applied already, my best suggestion would be to do a research internship at a lab of a colleague of the MIT professor you want to work with at a tier-2 university, publish a paper with him, and get a reference letter from him. Chances are that with your brilliant resume and his reccomendation, you will most surely get in when you apply.