Fall 15 PhD

[letsgoflyakite]

Please evaluate my profile and suggest which universities I should apply to.

 

M. S. - The University of Texas at Dallas 

           GPA: 3.97

           1 first author publication in Big Data 2014 Stanford Conference

           A Masters thesis on Machine Learning and Big Data

           A Summer internship in an Ivy League (had to cut short the internship due to personal reasons, so won't get a reco from here.)

           1 good reco from my thesis adviser, 2 strong recos from Profs I took courses under

           Working on another Paper, but may not come to fruition before my application.

 

2 years job experience as a Software Developer

3 months research internship experience at INRIA

 

B. Tech - Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay 

              Major: Electrical Engg, GPA: 7.5/10

              B. Tech thesis on Latin Squares

 

I'm interested in doing a PhD in the broad area of Data Mining and Machine Learning. 

For my MS, I'd made too ambitious applications, and could only get into UTD, so I'm scared with the applications, and don't want to end up with similar results. 

Have my MS experience added enough weight to my profile to make me eligible for PhD at a top school?

Which universities should I target? Any suggestions would be great.

Also, is there a major advantage if I put in my application early, as in by September end?