Am I being too optimistic about CS PhD application?

Graduate School
1

Hi guys. I’m currently getting a research mscs in a top10 university in US (top10 cs undergrad in the states as well, both rankings are major rankings), and about to apply for CS PhD this fall. Here’s some info:

  • GRE: 161 verbal, 170 quant, 4.0 writing
  • intern: 3 summer interns in the bay area
  • research & publication: 1 first author at ISIT, 1 second author at ACL, 1 second author at EMNLP, 1 third author at EMNLP.
  • GPA: undergrad 3.84, grad~3.9
  • recommendation letters: my advisors are pretty good, although they may not write super strong recommendations

I would like to do research in learning theory, also tcs or mixed integer programming. Here’s my list:

  • reach: UCB, Stanford, MIT, CMU, Princeton, TTIC
  • match: UT-Austin, UWashington, UPenn, GeorgiaTech (ACO program), UWaterloo (ACO), UCSD? Cornell?

My concern is that, although I have 4 papers, only 1 is about learning theory, the other 3 are about NLP, which I’m not sure whether would help with applications for learning theory direction. ML is getting very very popular nowadays and I know ML applicants who have a lot of papers get rejected by all the universities they apply… On the other hand, is learning theory a little easier to get in compared to ML? Since the former is theoretical. Also does anyone know how hard it gets to change research topics? I have no research experiences except for some courses (and reading on my own) in TCS or MIP, but they really appeal to me.

So am I being too optimistic about these choices? Thanks a lot for any suggestions!

2

You sound like a competitive applicant to me for any top school. However, with PhD programs, applying to MORE is always better than applying to less. At elite schools it can be kind of a crapshoot some years depending on what they’re looking for.

3

You have a strong application. a said by @Mandalorian however, the most selective schools are just that most selective and so it is never a sure thing. Make sure you apply to one or more programs that you are pretty sure to get into and have full funding.