Chances of getting into Top 10 CS? (PhD)

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello everyone!</p>

<p>I'm a student from Brazil, and I really want to get into a "great" Computer Science (I want to work with Computer Graphics) PhD program in the US. My current list of favourites includes:</p>

<p>Carnegie Mellon
Stanford
Berkeley
MIT
Princeton
Harvard
NYU
CALTECH
Cornell
... and a few others.</p>

<p>I know these are notoriously hard to get into, so I'd like to know what someone with more experience in these things than me could tell me about my odds. Here's some info about me:</p>

<p>I am 20 years old.</p>

<p>In high school, had a research scholarship in astronomy during the senior year. Won 2 national public school mathematics olympic gold medals (being 9th and 95th from ~6 million students). Have a gold medal in the brasilian astronomy olympiad.</p>

<p>Finished university in Juiz de Fora (mathematics), with 85/100 average score, being the first in my class. (also finished the 4 year program in 3 years).
During these 3 years I've had several government funded research scholarships, first in mathematics (from the olympics), then theoretical physics, then partial differential equations. I've also participated in the Computer Graphics group from the 2nd semester, and managed to publish 2 papers with the group, both in A rated international conferences (ICIP and ICCS).</p>

<p>Currently I'm getting my master's in Mathematics (computer graphics major) at IMPA (probably Brasil's most famous school). I just began in january this year, but I'm hoping to be able to finish the master's program by july/2011, thus allowing me to pursue a PhD in the US in fall/2011. So far I have 1 A- grade and 3 classes that will finish this month for which I hope to get either A's or A-'s.</p>

<p>I'm most likely going to get 1 really good recommendation from my Graphics advisor from university (the one I published the papers with) and 2 moderate recommendations from teachers at IMPA.</p>

<p>I haven't taken the GRE or TOEFL yet, but I expect something above 100 on TOEFL and about 500 V and 750+Q on the GRE.
I'm not sure if I can take the math specific GRE, since I live in Brazil and the nearest test center is far
away.</p>

<p>Do you guys think I have good chances of getting into one of the programs I cited above? Do you think it's very important for me to do the specific GRE exam?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!!!</p>

2

<p>Yeah, if you apply to a bunch you’ll likely get into a couple. Having a publication record certainly helps you. The subject exam in CS might be important if you’re concerned you don’t demonstrate enough knowledge of CS fundamentals in your background (since your background seems all over the place). Aim for 80+%</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the reply! </p>

<p>The thing is, since my undergraduate degree is in mathematics, I think I’d be more confortable taking the GRE specific maths exam. (I am a decent programer, but I didn’t take all the courses for Computer Science)</p>

<p>Anyway, the problem is that in order to take any paper-based GRE exam (such as the subject exams), I’d have to take a plane to another city, and that’s expensive… The general GRE is fine, since I can get the computer based one where I live.</p>

<p>Any opinions would be very welcome.</p>

4

<p>That’s why schools may require you to take the CS exam (you don’t have a thorough CS background compared to other qualified individuals, and school want to know how well you’ll perform in their CS program, not math).</p>

5

<p>Well, I can see your point, Oyama, but at least from what I’ve seen on those school’s websites they don’t usually (I haven’t seen any of them do it) require you do take the CS exam, but most of them advise you to have a subject exam in either CS, Maths or Physics, whichever you’ve studied at university.</p>

<p>I believe they advise that because you can’t really prepare yourself for an exam that covers your whole undergrad education in a different area than the one you’ve studied without spending a large ammount of time, and because CS relies a lot on maths and sometimes physics. Graphics specifically requires a lot of mathematics, and that’s how I got involved with it, although I originally was a maths student.</p>

<p>What I’d really like to get from this thread is 2 things: people who are in one of those programs I mentioned to estimate my odds of getting in (kinda like trout did) and those same people giving me an estimate of how important the presence of a subject GRE is. Since it would be really hard for me to take the subject GRE, I’m hoping it’s not crucial…</p>

6

<p>Just to clear things up, I do have several programing courses both in my undergrad curriculum and during master’s, with good grades and all.</p>

7

<p>Well, achapiro, from what I heard, many people didn’t take the CS subject test since they were CS majors. The purpose of the CS subject test is for the grad school to gauge an applicant’s ability in the CS domain when there’s insufficient information given to determine whether or not he/she has the appropriate background. In your case, it would be better to take the CS subject test.</p>

8

<p>Look for an advisor with your interests. Your advisor will give you a great deal of direction but it helps if you like your research topic(s). </p>

<p>Son (CMU BS, mechE), did MS at Toronto-thesis on using mouse for graphics. Did research on digital screen input at microsoft research. Now doing robotics at Washington. All done in computer science, and he never taken a CS class or mathematics other than required BS.</p>

<p>GL</p>