complexbongo

This. I love the time period between the two World Wars. A lot of smart, tough men and women came out of this period. To me, this is the generation that defines the United States as we all imagine (or wish) it to be (minus racism and other issues). Who wouldn't want to party with Jay Gatsby?

Not listed here is the StackExchange site : Academia | StackExchange It seems that not many people use this site, but it has great information on it about grad admissions, and generally anything for those in academia at the graduate level or higher.

Macy's is a bit more expensive, but they often have very good clearance deals (at least for men).

Good luck to everyone! Also, report back when you hear, if you can. The results search helps, but it's always good to get some more specific information.

At top schools, GPA is pretty worthless. The adcoms will consider your grades in courses relevant to the field you're applying and make sure there are no red flags (C's). GREs are nothing but a filter. MIT and UIUC don't require GREs if that's any clue. You need to demonstrate to the committee that you have potential to produce high-quality research. Publications are a GREAT way to show this. Good job. But they would also like to see that you are devoted to research. If you've been doing research for a long time, then that helps. 3 years or more is on par with the top applicants. A top applicant will likely have a) 2-3+ publications and b ) 3+ years of research experience. They will also write c) an outstanding statement of purpose and d) have raving recommendation letters. I think if you can demonstrate 3 out of these 4 things, you have a chance of being accepted to a top program.

Adding on to lowering file sizes for PDFs. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro (I think also the regular version has the same feature), there is an option File > Save As... > Reduced-Size PDF. It's beautiful.

I don't know why this isn't the case for most people. Location was huge for me. I want to enjoy where I am for the next 4-6 years of my life. That being said, I'd love to move to sunny San Diego after withstanding this "Polar Vortex" in the northeast! Warm weather, coastal areas, and big cities are big draws for me.

Great news! Keep on them, they have a lot of records to maintain so it's understandable that they make some clerical mistakes. Good luck with your apps!

That depends on the university, but most schools use the uploaded unofficial transcripts to review and then verify what you uploaded against the official ones. Most, if not all, schools require an official transcript to be mailed upon admission. Often times the school who you sent the transcript to will fail to mark on their online system that they have received it, so that could be a factor in your case, LesSoc. If you're worried, call the school to double-check. You don't want your application being disqualified if their was a simple processing error.

Since you just took the GRE less than a week ago, it takes about 2-4 weeks (from personal experience) for the scores to show up on your ETS account. Likely the schools your marked down to have your scores sent to will receive the scores in about the same time frame. ETS is notoriously slow and, unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to change that. The scores will show up after a few weeks if you have properly registered your ETS account with your GRE registration number. Hope all goes well, and good luck!

Anyone start hearing back yet?

My suggestion would be to not get the letters now. The reason being that you may accomplish extraordinary feats or receive awards or perform above your letter writers current viewpoint of you, and you want to have them write in credible detail about all of those achievements. As an academic, you should always aim to improve and getting your letters now suggests that you are already at your peak. I'm sure that's not the case, so push forward and ask for them when you decide for sure that you want to pursue a graduate degree.

Great post! I found this a while back and couldn't find it. Thanks!

You should definitely ask the school. Each school is different in how they handled deferred acceptances. More than likely, if a "few years" is more than 2yrs or more, then any offer is probably long gone. But again, call the school. Good luck!

This is a post taken from Academia StackExchange, a user named JeffE who is a professor at UIUC. So, to answer: No, your work ethic is what matters. Top schools will help foster you to become a better researcher than most schools, but they do not dictate your success.

1) No. 2) Having research experience in any way will never hurt your chances, regardless of what area it is in. Admissions committees want to see a candidate's potential to perform excellent research. As long as you have shown that, they will be confident that you can make a transition into a different area. That being said, it is good if you have taken at least an undergraduate course in the field you plan on pursuing.

Apply to the programs that fit your interests. Look around at the top 40 programs and research their faculty to see what areas they are researching right now and see how that aligns with your personal interests. This is the best way to judge a program and no one person can tell you what programs will fit you best. Pursuing a PhD is a huge commitment, so you will want to enjoy not only the program you are attending, but the surrounding location, social life, weather, distance from home, etc, etc. The list goes on.

I think the problem is that AI composes a large number of research topics, including NLP, control problems, etc.

E-mailing professors can vary from professor-to-professor. I suggest finding your professors of interest, and then looking at their web pages to see if they have a note for "prospective students". Often times professors will say "prospective graduates are [welcome] to contact me about researching in my group" or "Prospective Graduates: contact me only AFTER you have received admission". Professors from top universities are more likely to have the latter message on their page, unfortunately.

How about a local community college? Calculus and Probability are standard courses at any institution, so I suggest phoning around and trying to find a good fit for yourself.