CS PhD - Plz evaluate my Profile

[praksbaks]

My profile goes like this. Plz comment n suggest about University Selection.

GRE Score - 1430 (Q-780, V-650)

Yet to take TOEFL and Subject GRE in Computer Science.

MSC - Comp SC - 76.2% (2nd in class) - University of Calcutta, India - 2007

BSC - Comp SC - 50% - University of Calcutta, India - 2005

HS - 80% - WBCHSE - 2002 (2nd in class)

10th -88% - WBBSE - 2000 (2nd in class)

Research Exp.

1. 3 projects on Image Processing from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. A paper in process from one of them (First author).

2. 1 Database Search Engine project - under Emeritus Scientist Prof Dwijesh Dutta Majumder, ISI, Kolkata. This Prof has more than 450 papers and he is one of the founding stones of Image processing research in India. He worked with Lotfi A Zadeh n many more in US. I will have one recommendation from him. I will have two strong reco n one avg.

Job Exp.

1. 1 yr - teaching exp. (taught undergrad students in a college)

2. 2 yrs - Information Security test engineer - in HCL & STQC

Award:

1. 3rd in the merit list in a Digital Image Processing Workshop among 40 students organised by Center for Soft Computing, ISI, Kolkata and DIT, Government fo India.

Research Interests.

1. Artificial Intelligence

2. Human Computer Interaction

3. Pattern Recognition

4. Image Processing

5. Computer Vision

Please suggest some good university according to my profile and research interest.

Some of my selections though not finalized are as follows. Plz comment.

1. University of Massachusetts, Amherst

2. North Eastern University, Boston

3. New York University, NY

4. Tufts University, Medford (Safe)

5. University of Rochester

6. University of Illinois, Chicago

Some Bigshot

1. Brown University

2. CMU

3. UC. Berkley

[newms]

I think you have a good profile and should have a good shot at all those schools you mentioned. I would encourage you to focus your interests a little more since 5 areas are a lot to put in an application. I think the schools you applied to are good ones for your interests. A word of caution though, I wouldn't consider Tufts a 'safe' school since their department is small - they take on less than 20 students each year. UC Irvine is another school you could consider for ML/CV. As for your reach school, your research experience should give you a decent shot, but as you know, top 10 schools are so competitive that it's hard to predict.

[praksbaks]

Thank you mocha.

Actually I got one reply from a Prof of Tufts Univ, who encouraged me to apply there.

About Research Interest: These are the broad range of my interest but I have actually done work on Image processing.

And I am just looking at univs working on these areas.

I dont want to apply in the west part of US like California.

In that case can anyone suggest me some univ ?

What about

1. Harvard University

2. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

3. Boston University

4. University at Buffalo, SUNY

5. Stony Brook, SUNY

6. Yale University

Any comment about it is welcome.

[starmaker]

I've been a student at both Tufts (post-bac) and Northeastern (MS, which I'm doing part-time as I work). Your research interests are somewhat similar to mine, though not an exact match.

Tufts is pretty good for AI, and has gotten better very recently (they got a couple of new faculty). The department is friendly and close-knit. It's actually more selective than Northeastern's (in terms of acceptance rate). However, its reputation in the larger community hasn't caught up with what it deserves. Tufts is also good at HCI, but I don't remember it being an image processing-heavy department. The facilities are not very good - it's an ugly little building in an isolated part of campus without much common space.

Northeastern is bigger and has (much) better facilities and a better reputation. There are a lot of international students, more than there were at Tufts. It's also not super-selective, and I suspect you have a good shot there. But the real strength of the department is programming languages, not any of the things you mentioned as your research interests. I have heard a rumor that there will be a couple of faculty in my areas of interest (which overlap a lot with yours) joining soon, but so far it's just a rumor.

You seem to like the idea of the Boston area, and are interested in image processing and computer vision - have you considered Boston University? Harvard is a great choice, but, of course, difficult to get into, even if you are very good.

Your profile seems pretty respectable, but I don't know enough about how grading works in India to judge your grades.