In 2011, I was a fellow gradcafe surfer. Today, I'm an assistant professor at CMU. AMA

[scyrus]

I cannot guarantee I will respond immediately, but I remember the anxious energy I had entering into a Ph.D. program. Hopefully I can answer some questions for a few of you.

One restriction: Apologies in advance, but I won't do "profile evaluations" — Ph.D. admissions are so idiosyncratic across faculty, departments, and institutions. Any profile evaluation I offer is unlikely to be predictive of anything, so let's not waste time on that

[Alexa Ch]

Hello scyrus,

Thank you for the AMA, this is very kind of you.

I am an international undergraduate currently studying CS in the US university. I am planning to apply to one of the CS Masters program in the US.

How realistic is it to get any funding for the Masters students? I have an impression that funding are reserved mostly for the PhD students, and the admission web sites are very vague about the chances to find funding for MS. Do you have any advise?

Thank you!

 

 

[scyrus]

Hi Alexa,

The specific likelihood that you will be able to find funding as a Master's student will vary fairly widely from program-to-program. I do think it is realistic that you will be able to find at least partial funding if you are attending a R1 university with an active research program. That doesn't mean it will be easy — you will have lots of competition. But the opportunities are there. Here are two:

 

1) Research assistantships: You are right that most funding is earmarked for Ph.D. students: partially, this is because Ph.D. tuitions and stipends are guaranteed* and so until a faculty member has enough funds to support their Ph.D. students, that will be the priority. However, sometimes faculty have small amounts of money for short-term projects that none of their Ph.D. students are actively working on, or for which they haven't been able to recruit a Ph.D. student. I would seek out faculty with new grants, in particular. Look at their websites and see if they have a grant that was funded in the last year — there's a good chance they need more people working on that project as it is starting up. I've hired several MS students as research assistants this way.

2) Teaching assistantships: Most CS departments have skyrocketing enrollments and a voracious appetite for TAs. Your best bet is to seek out classes with particularly large enrollments — e.g., required courses for all CS majors. Many departments have student:TA ratios between 25:1 (e.g., at Georgia Tech, where I previously worked) to 60:1 (at U Michigan, last I checked). So, at Georgia Tech, a class with 300 enrolled students would have room for as many as 12 TAs. When you seek out the smaller enrollment classes, there's a good chance the instructor already has a TA in mind. But, with these large enrollment classes, many faculty need to reach outside of the students they directly know.

* At any competitive R1, at least.

Hope that helps.

 

[geekyathlete]

Hi scyrus,

Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. I hope these questions do not come to close to a profile evaluation.

I am appying for PhD programs for Fall 23. I am currently a senior. I have good grades(3.8/4.0) and GRE scores. 

I am attending a highly ranked liberal arts college, it's a great school but oppotunities for research are almost non-existent.

I am currently working on two separate research with a PhD candidate at another school and a Research Professor at another institution.

I am hopeful that I can at least submit one publication before PhD applications open but even if accepted it won't be published in time before decisions are made.

Should I still try to apply for a PhD at a school like CMU or is it impossible without a publication? I would to like to do research in Reinforcement Learning. 

Should I get LORs from faculty who taught me here or the people I work with in research? Would a LOR from a PhD candidate count as much as one from a faculty?

Do extra curriculars matter for PhD admissions? I am a multi sport college athlete at the D3 level.

Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

[scyrus]

"Should I still try to apply for a PhD at a school like CMU or is it impossible without a publication? I would to like to do research in Reinforcement Learning. "

There is a growing acknowledgment that not all great students come from institutions or backgrounds that would warrant publication, so you the lack of a publication definitely does not disqualify you. The unfortunate reality, however, is that there so many applicants for so few positions that you will need to seek out another way to stand out from the crowd. One possibility is strong letters of recommendation, particularly from faculty who publish in the same venues that your prospective advisor might like to publish. Another possibility is seeing if you might be able to work with your prospective advisor prior to applying so that they know you. Many professors don't have the capacity to respond to each cold email request we receive so a good strategy here might be to reach out their Ph.D. students first.

"Should I get LORs from faculty who taught me here or the people I work with in research? Would a LOR from a PhD candidate count as much as one from a faculty?"

Definitely the people who you work with in research, but a LoR from a Ph.D. candidate will not count as much as one from faculty. It would still be good to get a letter from someone in your home institution as well who can explain that research opportunities for undergraduates are sparse in the institution.

"Do extra curriculars matter for PhD admissions? I am a multi sport college athlete at the D3 level."

Not in the same way as they do for undergraduate admissions, but faculty like to see students who are excellent at a small set of things. If you can integrate your athletic engagement into your statement of purpose in a manner that is compelling — and not contrived — I could see that helping your case. But, I wouldn't expect it to help your case if you list that you are a college athlete: try and weave it into your narrative of who you are and what you want to do with your research.

 

 

[Alexa Ch]

Hello scyrus,

Thank you very much for answering my first question. I saw a question on another forum, and I would like to ask your opinion on it:

"Would it be a bad career move for an international undergraduate CS student to attend a T50 master’s degree program after attending a T5 US university?"

Thank you!

[graduate descent]

Hello scyrus,

Thank you for taking the time and answering out question. I am an international student, potential phD applicant.

I have a strong sop, lor and two workshop papers. During my undergrad, I took 8-9 retake courses to improve my cgpa[currently 3.63/4]. How negatively would that affect my chances? What can i do to mitigate it?

 

[scyrus]

To

On 7/17/2022 at 12:24 PM, Alexa Ch said:

Hello scyrus,

Thank you very much for answering my first question. I saw a question on another forum, and I would like to ask your opinion on it:

"Would it be a bad career move for an international undergraduate CS student to attend a T50 master’s degree program after attending a T5 US university?"

Thank you!

It's really hard to answer that question without more context about what one's career objectives are, but basically no. The T5 university will always be on the student's CV; lots of employers understand that students may have different constraints when they get their Master's degrees. The big benefit of attending a more prestigious university in CS is access to the alumni network and employer network — there are just more HR resources pushed towards recruiting folks from big name schools.

 

6 hours ago, graduate descent said:

Hello scyrus,

Thank you for taking the time and answering out question. I am an international student, potential phD applicant.

I have a strong sop, lor and two workshop papers. During my undergrad, I took 8-9 retake courses to improve my cgpa[currently 3.63/4]. How negatively would that affect my chances? What can i do to mitigate it?

 

For Ph.D. admissions, it should not affect your chances one way or another. I have personally never looked at the details of a student's transcript when making an admission decision. If you're feeling insecure about it, you might use it as an opportunity to demonstrate your grit and character in your SoP. But, overall, I don't think this warrants much concern.