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nvseal

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Austin, TX
  • Interests
    Broad Competence AI, Machine Learning, Grounding Natural Language Acquisition in Perception, Statistical NLP, Cognitive Computing, Neuroscience
  • Application Season
    Already Attending
  • Program
    Computer Science (MS)

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  1. I'm currently a masters student at UT Austin doing the thesis option and focusing on machine learning. I can't really speak to UMichigan but I do think UCLA is a well respected school and has good brand name. That said, UT has a top ten ranking in both CS and AI which UCLA does not. UT also has a good reputation with top companies like Facebook and Google, both of which recruit here, among others. In my personal experience, I've done pretty good getting interviews as a first year masters student which I didn't get before coming here (Yelp, Google, etc.). I don't have a particularly amazing resume either (just one prior internship beyond freelance work) so being a student at UT has been a major contributing factor in getting employers to take notice. I think that having a degree from UT, doing decently, and adding in a bit of research experience will probably just about guarantee you an interview anywhere that fits reasonably with your background.
  2. I don't really know too much about the funding for masters students here, at least as far as how many of them are funded or not. I do know that there are masters who have TA positions and you can sign up to try to receive one. I do not have one at the moment. I don't really know if there is a golden rule to how specific you want to make be in your SOP outside of answering the question "what should I say so that the committe gets a good and accurate sense of who I am and what I'm about?". The most important thing is how you present yourself. e.g. does your specific research focus come across as if you don't care about anything except a single subject (which could seem too limited) or do you like x sub-field and y topic of that sub-field in particular. Then again, if you really only want to do x period and there is a professor who spends all there time researching x, then say it. That might help. What I've been told is that it really only takes one person on the committee to get you in. If one person likes your application and thinks you have potential, they will go to bat for you and will probably help convince others. In my own SOP, I went the "I like these sub-fields and these topics in those fields with this topic being at the top of my list" approach. This worked well I think in my SOP since I went from describing my previous work in my area of most interest to putting it into context of what I like in general and how it fits with my future research goals and what I want to get out of that research. If you would like, I don't mind PMing you with the SOP that I used. Its not perfect and there are parts (e.g. the intro) which I think could be better as I think it seems a bit cheesy -- but it worked though.
  3. Hi Kalai, I can't speak to all those schools but I am currently a masters student at UT Austin and my profile was as follows: American who attended a small US regional university for undergrad One sole author paper published No internships, just some freelancing work GRE: 770Q/520V/4.5W GPA: 3.72 total/3.95 CS Focus: AI, NLP I was also accepted at Brown but rejected from UIUC, MIT and Stanford. Hopefully this helps a bit.
  4. I had a similar profile to yours though I was a masters applicant. I went to small non-research, non-prestigious southern state university and had a final GPA of 3.71, a 3.95 in Computer Science (math minor), one sole author publication, GRE (Q:770/V: 520/ AW:4.5) and am going to study AI (NLP in particular). For comparison, I applied to the masters programs at MIT, Stanford, UIUC, Brown, and UT Austin and was accepted at Brown and UT Austin. Again, this is for a masters applicant so the requirements aren't quite as intense compared to Phd admissions but I hopefully this could be informative in some way. It sounds like you will probably have more research experience than I did too which will probably help.
  5. I would agree with what others are saying. While I get what you are saying about saving money and all, if you are accepted and a school funds you they are assuming that you at the time of the acceptance are planning an pursing a Phd in good faith -- that is why they are giving you their money. If you really aren't then you are kind of stealing from them as well as taking the place of someone more interested.
  6. If you don't know any, get recommendations from professors who know you, such as the professor who advised you during your research. Getting rec letters from known academics is not a requirement though it is a big plus, especially at the really competitive schools like MIT. At those schools, who you know (or rather who knows you and the adcoms) can help separate one good candidate from the 100 other good candidates in the stack. I came from an unknown school with rec letters from unknown professors and still got some good admits (though that was for an MS, I'm not sure how I would have done had I applied straight to the Phd program), so it's not impossible to get in without famous letter writers. Make sure you have a good fit with the department that you can convincingly lay out in you SOP and your letter writers can echo.
  7. That is true. I don't want to give the impression that taking it won't matter -- especially if you come from an unknown undergrad (like me, though I didn't take the test). In that case it can help adcoms put your GPA in perspective which may help a lot. As OH YEAH said, it is a hard test and it can take a lot of time to study for. So if you are coming from a school which is already known to the committee, I personally don't think the cost would justify the benefits in most cases, especially if you could spend your time doing research and getting good LORs.
  8. If an applicant has a different undergrad major or has been away from school for awhile then the subject test may be justifiable. However, I don't think that it is really needed for some with good grades coming straight out of school from a good university. It certainly isn't as important as research. Having research (especially if you can some publications which you played a key role in) tells an adcom much more about you as a potential graduate student at their school than a test which will most likely just validate the grades in your transcript which they already have. Maybe if you really studied for it you could convince the adcoms that some B+ was just a fluke and you could have gotten A, but I don't think they would really care since a B+ isn't really a bad enough grade to raise any eyebrows --- especially if its bookended by some A's.
  9. I don't think you really have anything to worry about. There are lots of phd students at top schools who don't have 4.0 GPAs and if you have a 3.87 with 50% graduate courses in your undergrad you should probably be fine. The graduate classes will probably help you to stand out from the other 3.8-3.9 GPA applicants. Add in a publication or two with some good rec letters and a good SOP and it sounds like you may have a decent shot at some top schools. Try looking CVs of students already there to compare your background with those who have already gotten in. 1) As I said, I don't think so. When you get to the very top schools, research and experience seem to matter more than GPA (so long as the GPA doesn't bring any red flags). 3.8 with good research > 4.0 with no research 2) Yes I think so. 3,4) It does matter as it makes you unique and will help you to stand out in the applicant pile. As I said in #1, research is most important but I can't imagine those grad classes not helping your chances as they give a whole new light to your GPA and will probably make you seem like less of a risk (the question of "can this person handle graduate work?" seems, at least to some extent, already answered). Do you mean that you are interested in starting grad school this fall or applying this fall?
  10. Here are a few more links to add to the list, Though most are for CS admissions, there is still some good advice, especially if you are in the sciences. Demystifying the American Graduate Admissions Process Matt Might's Blog
  11. 1) I definitely have to agree with there being no such thing as a safety school -- apply at schools matching your interests, safety or not, otherwise you probably won't get in. The two schools I was accepted at are, quite frankly, way out of my league of my undergrad university. I am convinced the primary reason I got in was because of my research match. 2) Don't put off industry experience in good companies, internships are a must if you can get them. 3) Get involved in research as soon as possible. If you don't go to a research university, start working on your own. Ask your professors for help and advice during the process as they will probably be behind you all the way and it is a good way to get recommendation letters. If your school doesn't have professors with a background in your area, look at other schools and ask professors there. This can be a great way to network. Also, along the lines of #1, do work in your area of interest if at all possible. If you tell a school that you want to work in area X and you already have some undergrad work in that direction, this will help you application a great deal by showing that you are interested enough to actually do work instead of just "it sounds cool". 4) I was lucky to not need this one, but get to know your professors and use their office hours. Doing well in class isn't enough. 5) Start writing your statement of purpose as early as possible. This will help you clarify your intent in your own mind and will probably make the process of choosing schools easier.
  12. I also have an admit from UT and will (most likely, still haven't accepted) be attending. Things to consider are of course the general suspects: research (unless you are more interested in coursework), location, school relationships in industry (seems to be basically the same for both UT and GT), etc. I'm not too familiar with computer vision labs so I can't speak to that. Also, since I didn't apply there, I'm not familiar with the other programs you haven't heard from yet. That said, I would think it would be okay to send them an email (since it is so late in the year) to see if you have been wait listed or a decision has been made.
  13. I will (most likely, haven't made it official yet) be going to UT this fall and will be doing the MS Thesis. I was also concerned about this, especially since professors don't usually let people into their labs until they have worked with them in a class. With a one year program, it would be essentially impossible to get lab work and LORs after one semester of classes (which, if applying for phds, is how it would work out). But I believe that Amogh is correct, these are just average numbers. While looking through grad students web pages at UT yesterday I found a masters student who finished the masters program in two years, so the one to one and a half year range is by no means a cutoff.
  14. Haha, yes I think I basically have, I just don't want to admit it to myself yet. With regard to the ms-phd route, I come from a completely unknown, non-research university; so as frenzydude said, going straight into a phd from undergrad at a top university is going to be basically impossible in my case. My plan is to spend a year or two as a masters student at a well respected university to prove that 1) I can handle graduate level work 2) network both by getting to know my professors and trying to get involved on projects at universities I would like to attend later and 3) build up my cv by doing research (e.g. at the time I applied I had only one publication in a international, but not well known conference).
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