DSPCSbuff

Thanks a lot for letting me know about Prof. Baranuik's research plans. Meanwhile there have been some developments on my side from UMich and CMU. In my UMich offer my POI clearly mentions of the possibility of collaborating with Prof. Hero whom you might know to be as one of the big shots in Statistical Signal Processing. During my interview with my POI as well, he mentioned about the low acceptance rate for the EE:Systems program. But their work is more or less focussed toward statistical inference, random matrix theory and its applications and information theoretic signal processing. On the other hand from the CMU side, Prof. Moura could probably be my co-advisor. CMU's SP is pretty strong and to some extent is centred around my POI and Prof. Moura. My POI in CMU clearly mentioned about the project which defines the paradigm for my PhD. It would be on adaptive sensing or rather compressed distilled sensing. As you would know, compressive sensing is non-adaptive in nature and is generally utilised for offline processing. Distilled Sensing came up very recently from the likes of Prof. Nowak et.al which provides for adaptive sensing and that too with online processing . So, the research area is really pulling me towards CMU. Though UMich's Maths department and the thought of being able to do courses in Harmonic Analysis excites me a lot. The dilemma is almost cured for now with me inching towards CMU. I too got to know the same about Rice's acceptance rates from one of my friends working towards a PhD there. So, not counting on it too much at the moment. P.S Would appreciate your thoughts on this.

@Nick Both my admits come with full financial funding. CMU ECE on one hand doesn't hand out fellowships, but gives RAships worth $29k per year which I think is pretty good considering Pittsburgh. Same goes for UMich too. I am very comfortable working with my CMU POI. I like the UMich POI's work a touch better may be speaking maths wise. So, in a big big dilemma. Thanks a lot for your inputs anyways @Tarman.. It feels really good to find people around here interested in Applied Math and Signal Processing. Both my POI's are assistant professors, so nothing much to choose that way. I will look to go for a Post-doc position with a big shot, if at all I intend to join academia once I get done with my PhD. Yeah, machine learning in signal processing is coming up big time. IEEE has already come up with a society for that. But about the Assistant Professor vs Big Shot debate, I got a bird's eye view of it during my REU at CMU. During my REU my POI used to spend a hell lot of time having academic interactions with me, but saw a big shot meeting his grad students with a frequency of once in a month. Though with all the added benefits of working with a big shot for post-PhD life, I think I would like the interactions more as long as they don't dictate my work completely. About the tenure, may be I am not potent enough to comment, but the rate at which my CMU POI is going, I don't see him not getting a tenure. It would be really nice to know about Prof. Baranuik's research plans. I am also looking forward to the Rice decision and have obviously applied to him. Its just that I don't like the part because they look to apply compressed sensing at places. Though theory does come up with it, I like core signal processing better. Thanks a lot again

I am more into signal processing theory rather than video/image processing. My area of interest would rather be Applied Maths and Signal Processing. I did contact Prof. Hero but never heard back from him. I contacted my POI in UMich who works on Random Matrix Theory and its applications. With CS more and more pure mathematicians are coming into it, many of them even cite it as their research interest. So, the field is progressing at an unbelievable pace. Nice to find somebody having similar interests.

Well Rice has a very good compressed sensing group for sure led by Baranuik, but there work these days is pretty much aimed at applying compressed sensing to images and its processing. GaTech has Romberg/Davenport and given they are Rice DSP alumni they work on similar lines. With CMU and UMich I get to work on more theoretical signal processing and compressed sensing rather than applying it to things. At least this is what I think. Thanks anyways!

Hi All, I got an admit from cmu ece last week. Earlier this week I got an unofficial informal sort of admit from UMich EE:Systems. I am in a real dilemma as to select which one of these two. My area of interest being Signal Processing..Statistical Signal Processing and Compressed Sensing to be precise. With no communication from UCB(I consider it to be a certain reject!) and a probable reject from Princeton, these two boil down to be my top choices. With CMU though, I have been working with my POI for over an year now. I did a REU with him last summer. At the same instance, he is young and new and an Assistant Professor. I really liked working with him. The same goes for my UMich POI, but he's may be a year or two more experienced in comparison to my CMU POI. I don't have much idea as to where do CMU and UMich figure in ece rankings. Should I take that into consideration too? I am having a real hard time choosing between the two and I will appreciate any help I get for the same. Thanks a lot!

I guess now that acceptances have been sent, seals the deal. I would take no mail to be a reject :-(

It doesn't necessarily mean that no interview call implies a reject. I personally know people who have had admits from EECS Berkeley without any interview whatsoever. But the number of such people can be hand counted. So, all in all just wait and watch without giving in to any pre conceived notions. They generally hand out decisions within Feb 10th. So, a day or two of waiting and you get to know your decision. All the Best!

My UMich interview was very much the same as well. The first 15 minutes the professor devoted on knowing my interests and discussed on a few results from my previous research work. Then the next 45 minutes he went ballistic about the work he does and the mathematical tools/theory he tends to deal and develop simultaneously. And finally some information about how it works in UMich.. and the courtesy line of "Do you have any questions? Feel free to get in touch with me in case you have any!"

Anybody has heard from GaTech and UMich yet? I also came to know that the past week was the interview week for UC Berkeley EECS. My UMich interview was back in December 14th. Don't have any idea what's going on at the moment.

Hi, I am also a Fall 13 PhD EE aspirant with my field of interest being Signal Processing. I had an interview with a UMich prof whose name I had listen on my SoP as a faculty of interest. My interview was on 14th December. Nothing after that.

Hi, I took the GRE today.I got scores of 169/170 in quant and 153/170 in verbal.I intend to apply for PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering to places like CMU,GaTech,Purdue,UMich.. .I was just concerned whether my GRE verbal score would hurt my chances as they are just around or rather just above average. Thanks

Hi All, I know in the revised GRE test,the quant plays a very important role for our acceptances and need to be more 165 for good chances.But I wanted to know how important would be the Verbal score for the same?Do the universities really look into your verbal score seriously and in that case,do they have a cut off as well?Say a score something around 155,would that create problems? Thanks