Getting a straight answer on how likely will I be admitted from UIUC CS.

[Eigen]

Your posts are really hard to follow, by the way. It's exceptionally hard to find a consistent flow or narrative.

A few comments based on what I can glean from the above:

Sme programs have prestige overall regardless of major- sure, in the general perception. Not when it comes to applying to grad school. Then it's all about the rigor of specific programs, and most ad coms coudn't care less about "general prestige". Similarly, whats important for grad school applications is not grades. Just like getting a job. People want to see skills, products and recommendations. For grad school those skills and products are your past research. In CS, that would be conference papers, mostly, from my understanding. You also have your thesis and the research therein that you can elaborate on in your application. Your ability to communicate well is also very important. It's hard to tell from just forum posts, but your writing seems a bit rushed and disorganized. For an elite program like UIUC, you also want recommenders that are going to say you're one of the best students they've ever had, especially if you're coming from a small program.

On reputation and personal attacks: coming into any established community, even online, and calling a more regular poster an immature troll within your first dozen posts rarely goes well. It's more likely to establish you as a troll.

Relative to many other communities, this is a very nurturing and helpful one, and this thread is no exception. You've gotten lots of answers and well worded and thought out replies, you just didn't like what they all said.

[emmm]

Oops - I missed a page of comments. My comment is not particularly relevant at this time.

Edited May 16, 2012 by emmm

[wine in coffee cups]

It doesn't matter about UIUC, I didn't get in and they don't recommend applicants reapplying unless their profile changes significantly.

You were concerned earlier that UIUC was encouraging you to apply when you had no chance coming from your school just so they can keep their number of rejections high. You do realize explicitly discouraging reapplications is evidence against this position?

This is my first thread on this discussion board, which this is, an Internet message board.

Demonstrably (Well, not the message board part.)

[ghanada]

@buddy16cat - I think you are reading too much into your rejection. After going through grad school applications for 3 seasons now, I have learned that there are just too many factors to pin it down to 1 particular thing. And believe me, the prestige of your undergrad or Masters school has very little to do with your chances of acceptance at a top 10 school. Once of the larger factors in your acceptance comes down to which advisers you match with and whether or not they have space/money to fund you. I know I was personally told by faculty members at schools I applied to that they were interested in me but didn't have any space for me and weren't accepting any more grad students into their lab. For this alone, I was rejected by the school since there wasn't anyone else that I could work with. Had I applied last year or maybe next year with my same stats, I would have been accepted. Timing is a HUGE gamble year to year and this alone could be the reason you didn't gain acceptance.

Now, I think the reason you tend to see a lot of top undergrad universities represented at top grad schools is not simply because of the prestige factor, but rather because of the fact that the typical student from a top undergrad uni will be a strong applicant. It has little to do with school name though. It just so happens that school's with big names tend to be big research universities that also tend to attract top professors. This means that the students there will have access to lots of research opportunities and these top professors. So there is a good chance that if you did research there, the people you worked with would be well known and well respected so that when you apply to grad schools they will know you came out of a good lab and you probably have letters of rec from names they are familiar with. It just makes sense. And since you are applying for a PhD, research experience is one of the MOST IMPORTANT factors in gaining acceptance. Unfortunately, gaining that research background is often harder to do in small liberal arts schools. Were you able to do do substantial research work and publish?

I also think you need to realize that large states schools with separate regional campuses are actually considered COMPLETELY different schools and they even compete with each other for students, funding, professors, etc. I know the diplomas are more or less the same and it seems like they should be more unified, but that is just not the case. You are better off considering them as having nothing to do with each other and that they happen to share part of their names. I did my undergrad at UCLA so I can personally attest to this fact since nobody would ever consider UC Merced to be in the same league as UCLA. UC Berkeley students also consider themselves to be superior to UCLA, which in fact might be true. I'm a realist, I understand that as good as UCLA is, UC Berkeley is better. I am also going to be attending University of Michigan - Ann Arbor for my PhD. Anyone in Michigan would clearly favor UMich - Ann Arbor over the other campuses. I know you don't think UIUC is an "elite" campus, but in the science/engineering realm is certainly is. Like I said, I am coming from UCLA but I respect the hell out of UIUC and it was one of the few schools outside of Cali that I even knew of.

[Sigaba]

@buddy16cat--

If you do decide to reapply to graduate programs down the line, please consider the advantages of looking inward rather than focusing so much on who knows whom, a program's rankings or its prestige and rationalizing that such matters beyond your control are the only factors in one's acceptance or rejection.

I specifically recommend that you ask yourself questions about (i) your ability to express yourself clearly and articulately, (ii) your ability to present yourself as a person with whom professors--and graduate students--would want to work, (iii) how you manage your expectations, (iv) and how you react to set-backs and to dissenting views.

My $0.02.

[Olga Childs]

@buddy16cat -- I do not want to comment on the subject of the discussion, but I want to point out that you make a lot of grammatical mistakes when you write, which can not be excused because they are associated with a negligence toward the language, currently prevalent among the lesser-educated young people. I do not know what your age is, and obviously if you are in computer science no one is going to judge you very stringently, but if you are trying to apply to PhD programs and your writing -- for instance, your SOP -- has "who's" instead of "whose", and "definately" instead of "definitely", this signifies your discomfort with the written language and a possible difficulty that you may have expressing yourself in writing. So, being a person who naturally writes poorly, you have to have someone proof-read your SOPs and anything else sent with your application. As someone who used to teach English, I would surely hope that we do not yet admit people to can't tell "who's" from "whose" to Doctoral programs in this country? Mind you, English is actually my second language -- but from experience both learning and teaching it, these are mistakes made most commonly by native speakers who are ignorant to the language, rather than those non-native speakers who studied it academically. Just my 5 cents, nothing personal.