Computer Science applicants, where are you?!

[tedjj]

whoa - so many rejections from Stanford. It's good I didn't apply there:P

[fountainhead]

Spoke to the CS admissions staff at WashU and she said there are a few pending decisions (CS Phd) and most probably all applicants would be notified by 15th Feb.

[SingaporeGuy]

Hi,

I am an international applicant from Singapore. I had just received an unofficial admission notification from Purdue Computer Science PhD.

However, there were no mentions of financial aid.

Do you guys know whether phd candidates are guaranteed either teaching or research assistantship?

Thank you

[nebulasam]

Stanford University Computer Science, PhD Rejected via E-mail on 10 Feb 2009 I 9 Feb 2009 Could someone who got admission in Stanford post their brief profile ?

MS: (Top 4 CS prog): 3.85/4 [Named Fellowship(1y) + Research with two Professors for a year and half (first and second recommendations)]

UG: (IIITA, India): 9.08/10 [university scholarship - Top 3 students (1y), Multiple other fellowships (3y)]

GRE: 1570 (Q:800/800, V:770/800) - 99th %ile

2 Research internships in Canada during my UG (third recommendation).

5 papers (3 AAAI symposia, 1 ACM conf, 1 other)

Multiple research projects.

This year there were very few admits to Stanford CS--something like a third less than last year.

Congrats everyone who got in somewhere.

[Isaac]

MS: (Top 4 CS prog): 3.85/4 [Named Fellowship(1y) + Research with two Professors for a year and half (first and second recommendations)]

UG: (IIITA, India): 9.08/10 [university scholarship - Top 3 students (1y), Multiple other fellowships (3y)]

GRE: 1570 (Q:800/800, V:770/800) - 99th %ile

2 Research internships in Canada during my UG (third recommendation).

5 papers (3 AAAI symposia, 1 ACM conf, 1 other)

Multiple research projects.

This year there were very few admits to Stanford CS--something like a third less than last year.

That makes me feel better :-) haha.

[tedjj]

nebulasam - seems you went to Stanford for masters:)

[michigantrumpet]

Impressive stats, nebulasam! How did you find out about the admission rates for this year? I agree with tedjj! You must have been one of the elusive funded MS students (as Stanford?).

I posted my profile earlier on page 3 of this thread. My numbers are definitely not a strong as yours, but I made up for it with my LORs. Two well-known architecture profs who co-authored my top conference paper. Several professors who have called me from various schools have mentioned the paper specifically.

[nebulasam]

Well since you guys guessed it. Yep. I'm a 2nd year MSCS student at Stanford. Congrats michigantrumpet. You'll find out the exact number of people admitted if you decide to join. :-)

As for numbers, they don't matter much. A GRE score above 1400 (Q>780) is fine and a GPA of above 3.6 is fine. The subject GRE is a substitute to your GPA and is useful only if you are from a university unknown to the admissions committee or if you have a low GPA (<3.3). What counts is your recommendations, past research and publications..

Cheers...

[SingaporeGuy]

michigantrumpet,

so which school r u going?

[michigantrumpet]

michigantrumpet,

so which school r u going?

I'm going to all the visits I can. Right now, I don't think there are any conflicts. I'll try to keep an open mind everywhere and keep good notes about each program... then decide. For undergrad I picked Michigan over Berkeley (just as an example... Berkeley is one of my top choices this time), so "fit" is more important to me than rankings. My professor told me to keep all my options open, which I think is very good advice. That's why they give you until April 15!

[Deguit0]

Congratz michigantrumpet, that's so exciting that you know you've already been admitted to so many great schools

I just got an informal email from a professor with acceptance to Duke. Since I'm very impatient and don't want to have to wait until I get the official letter with the financial information, I wanted to know if anyone here knows about funding available in Duke and how it usually works?

Thanks

[longhorn]

nebulasam said:

As for numbers, they don't matter much. A GRE score above 1400 (Q>780) is fine and a GPA of above 3.6 is fine. The subject GRE is a substitute to your GPA and is useful only if you are from a university unknown to the admissions committee or if you have a low GPA (<3.3). What counts is your recommendations, past research and publications..

Very true. I can vouch for the importance of recommendations from my experience. I have seen people with 1200's in GRE getting into Berkeley, Washington, CMU etc because of recos.

I got rejected everywhere last year. This year, I had significant improvements (atleast I thought so) in my profile - I had new publications, have been involved in many new research projects, filed a US patent, but still my fate remains the same because I don't have recos from influential profs.

[alice]

Wow, thanks for saying this. I wish someone told me these things (especially the one with subject GRE, I thought it's only a formality).

I also do think R&D work in industry does not count for PhD admissions. Two of my recommendations, although great, came from a young prof and an industry person that nobody knows on these committees. That will likely lead to rejections from all these top places.

[fazamal4]

Hey, this is my first post. Have applied for PhD in CS at 6 universities, haven't heard anything from them yet.

[SingaporeGuy]

did u apply to the PhD directly in the canadian universities? i applied to UBC, Mcgill and Waterloo but I applied to the MS program because I did not have a Master's degree

[nebulasam]

Very true. I've seen people get into Stanford with ~1300 in the GRE. The general GRE is probably the least important part of the application (except the TOEFL for international students which takes the bottom spot). The subject GRE is only slightly more important than the general.

I am inclined to think that recommendations and the "departmental fit" are the most important parts of the application--possibly an order of magnitude more than the rest.

Best of luck with your applications longhorn..

[jhrgejdobre]

michigantrumpet----congrats!!!!!!!!!

your research must be really strong --------can you give some more details about your work, the type and format of the ug research program at you ug program?

Thanks

[michigantrumpet]

your research must be really strong --------can you give some more details about your work, the type and format of the ug research program at you ug program?

Thanks

My UG research wasn't actually through a formal program (UROP, etc.). In the middle of junior year, I approached a professor whose class I did well in to discuss grad school possibilities. She talked about some of her ongoing projects and one new one that I was really interested in. I did the programming grunt work for a few months to set up the simulation framework (and reading papers, Intel x86 manuals >_<, etc) for that project. As we got close to the submission deadline (top architecture conference), our results were pretty crappy. I made an observation and suggested a new solution that improved our results 100X just in time to submit, which made the two professors on the project very happy. It also got me put on the paper as third author (behind two grad students). They hired me for the summer to continue working on the next phase of the project, and I'm still working for them. The grad students in the lab have done a great job of introducing me and a couple of other undergrads to the research process, so I definitely have them to thank, too.

That may be a long answer to a relatively simple question. I also did a term research project for a grad-level class I took with one of the professors on that original project, so that gave him more material to write about.

Hope that answers your question! Again, good luck to everyone!

[SingaporeGuy]

hi michigantrumpet, i am really curious. what solution did u propose? :shock:

[michigantrumpet]

hi michigantrumpet, i am really curious. what solution did u propose? :shock:

Basically, the caching scheme we were using was horribly inefficient. I observed that about 99% of our cache was being wasted by data that could not possibly still be relevant for reasons specific to the paper. So, by auto-evicting those now-unnecessary cache lines prior to trying a standard eviction policy (LRU, etc.), our cache efficiency increased two orders of magnitude.

[octav1an]

hmmmm, someone posted they got into MIT via Phone....hmmm, at this time? i am pretty sure he/she is messing with us :evil:

[fazamal4]

did u apply to the PhD directly in the canadian universities? i applied to UBC, Mcgill and Waterloo but I applied to the MS program because I did not have a Master's degree

I hv already completed my masters from Mcgill. That's why i hv applied directly to PhD.

[leogk]

hmmmm, someone posted they got into MIT via Phone....hmmm, at this time? i am pretty sure he/she is messing with us :evil:

Yeah I think your theory was correct. (The decision is already made.)

Now it's a matter of notification.

If you know a professor personally, you may know it earlier than others.

I think the official notification is not yet started.

[zero]

Has anyone heard anything official from UCLA after the recommendation? I am quite nervous and I need official results to calm down. :?:

[michigantrumpet]

Has anyone heard anything official from UCLA after the recommendation? I am quite nervous and I need official results to calm down. :?:

What does your online decision status show? It might take them longer to process international students... :?: