<p>I am a student studying CS in my junior year at Purdue University. Here are some facts about me</p>
<p>GPA: 3.65, intend to raise to 3.7 -3.75 by the time of grad school application
Major GPA: 3.6, intend to raise to 3.7
Research experiences: Sophomore year - I worked with the Civil Engineering Dept to develop software for a project and was listed in the acknowledgements section of the research paper which was accepted for presentation at a conference.</p>
<p>Junior Year - I'm working on a mobile computing project which we will be submitting a paper for next year(not sure if I will have a publication by the time I apply).</p>
<p>I intend to list mobile computing/Operating Systems as my research interest.</p>
<p>I have 2 of my LOR figured out. One of them will be from my research professor and the other will be from a Prof that I worked with as a TA and also took multiple classes with. I'm still trying to figure out the 3rd one.</p>
<p>Target schools：
Stanford
Berkeley
Carnegie Mellon University
Caltech
UCLA</p>
<p>I am wondering if my current experience would make a competitive applicant of top CS PhD programs? If not, what can I do to make myself standout?</p>
<p>The first 4 are extremely selective and difficult to gain admissions. I wouldn’t count on it. I don’t know how much of a fit there is with professors and your research interests however, I suppose that will be key. To make yourself standout, do more research and be sure your 3rd letter is from someone you did research with. You can’t just leave one viable school for your application. You need more options, especially you don’t know what sort of funding you will get from a UC these days.</p>
Not especially - realize that those schools probably have an average incoming GPA higher than the one you are aspiring to. Your research looks decent, but without a publication (and most of your competition will not have one either!) you are reliant on your advisor’s LOR, and it is hard to know how they really rank you and what kind of standing they have in the field - if you are doing research with a top guy and he thinks you are fantastic, you can get in LOTS of places, but if he is barely known and thinks you are just okay…</p>
<p>
Everything you mentioned, but more. Get the best grades you can, and really push on that research effort - try to find something meaningful that you can make your own, something that ideally will lead to a publication at some point in the future, something that will impress on your current advisor that you are talented and dedicated. Make sure to do well on the GRE, but don’t count on it to help you - usually, the best you can count on is it not hurting you!</p>
<p>I would also suggest broadening your search - really, ranking is not that good an indicator of how good the school will be for you. You need to be focused on which departments are doing research you want to be a part of, and which have the best researchers in that area. That may be a top-5 department, it may be a top-50 department! The injunction “go where you will be happy AND succeed” often means discarding a lot of highly ranked departments.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your input! I do have some more schools I am targeting for such as </p>
<p>University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
University Maryland College Park
Cornell
UT Austin</p>
<p>One of my LOR(perhaps the strongest one) will be coming from a professor that graduated from UIUC. So, would that help my chances of getting into that school? </p>
<p>I also read in an article by a CMU professor that as long your GPA is between 3.5 and 4.0, you’re GPA is considered good enough. So, a 3.9 wouldn’t be more impressive than a 3.6. So, am I fine on the basis of GPA?</p>
It will usually help a bit if you are trying to get into his old advisor’s lab group, probably not otherwise.</p>
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I would say that the importance of GPA generally drops off after 3.5 and peaks somewhere between 3.8 and 4.0 (some people distrust candidates with a GPA that is TOO high). As to “being fine” it depends a lot on the competition - while a 3.65 is certainly high enough to meet entry requirements anywhere, it is not going to impress at these schools, and if your competition have comparable LOR’s and research, GPA could be the deciding factor.</p>
<p>Do the admission committees tend to look at the overall GPA or the GPA from Math and Computer Science courses(Since I am applying to a CS Program)?</p>
<p>They look at both but the courses in the field you are applying for are most important. When i look at our physics program applicants, I always look at their grades in quantum mechanics and senior level electrodynamics. I don’t like to see weak grades there.</p>
<p>My opinion is that the gpa is fine and they will decide on your research and your fit with the professors interests. It doesn’t sound like you are that strong if you don’t have at least 2 research LOR. All those additional colleges listed are also very competitive.</p>
<p>Are you saying your prof got his PhD from UIUC? I suppose it really matters more if he is known to the current researchers in the area of interest, not that he graduated from there. He will be just as valuable at the other uni’s if they know him/his work.</p>
<p>I guess I forgot to mention that I have done some research with the professor who will be writing my 2nd LOR. The reason I didn’t mention this is because I did not see this as too much of an applied research experience. It was more of a research study where I interviewed several students about their opinions on the way a course was being taught. As a result of my research study, the professor had made some changes to the way the class was taught and noticed that students were able to apply what they had learned a lot better.</p>
<p>The reason I didn’t mention this is because it doesn’t seem like a strong research experience. However, I did make significant contributions as I was heading the research study and we obtained significant results. Also this research study does not fall in place with any of my current research interests. It was a project that I took when I was initially trying to find my interests.</p>
<p>Does this make any difference in relevance to the strength of my application? Overall, I guess my 2nd LOR will be a combination of Research, Teaching Assistant experience, and my ability to do well in class.</p>
<p>I guess I still have some time before I apply to Grad school, so I can also try t find a position in other research labs.</p>
<p>Right, that is not CS research so it isn’t the important stuff. However it is helpful in the way that being a TA is helpful. It is a bonus thing, nice to have, but not the main consideration.</p>
<p>You don’t really talk about how your research is aligned with these specific program’s professors and that is really key for you. I’d advise you not to even apply to a program just for the ranking. Apply where there will be good advisers available for you, who are interested in working with you because your research interests match theirs. For one thing, you won’t get in if you don’t. For another, you won’t be able to go in the direction you want with an adviser who shares your interests. Sorry if this is obvious stuff and maybe you have already targeted these uni’s for that–I know UCLA has at least one group. I also suppose you have input from your research professor about this but if you don’t then you should.</p>
<p>Actually it is CS research. The course that I helped restructure through the research study is in the field of Software Engineering. However, it is very different as compared to my other research project, since it was a research study. It focussed on gathering interview data and analyzing it. </p>
<p>In order for my application to be competitive, do all of my recommendation letters have to come from professors that I have done research with in my areas of interest(i.e Distributed Systems, Mobile Computing). Or can I have recommendation letters in other research areas? I only recently found out what my research interests for Grad school are, so it seems almost impossible if all 3 of my research projects have to be in my mentioned area of interest.</p>
<p>I think any CS research is valuable. But it is good that you have experience directly in that area so you can show that you know what you are interested in. As you say, it isn’t that easy for undergrads to do, but then again you are measured against Master’s students as well.</p>
<p>I don’t see how researching course content or surveying software engineering topics is solving computation problems or creating novel technological developments. But that’s not important that I do. I’m sure your professor will explain it in the right way. No doubt it is a useful skill set.</p>
And that is not CS research - it is research on educational methodology that just happens to involve CS. One easy test is this: if you take the research and increase the depth, would it serve as a PhD dissertation in the field? Could you get a CS PhD at a decent school with a dissertation titled “Instructional Methods in Computer Science”?</p>
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They can certainly come from other areas, but the farther you get from your proposed graduate research area, the less valuable it will be. So research in your proposed area is best, followed by research in other areas of CS, followed by research in other fields of engineering or hard sciences, and by the time you are outside of that the research is just not going to help that much - they will wonder about whether or not the skills involved will carry over. </p>
<p>This will all be multiplied by the degree of involvement and the goals of the person directing the research - innovative work in CS that is directed by a CS prof and aimed for publication in CS will help a LOT, but routine work (like interviewing students) in the field of higher education directed by a CS prof for the purpose of tweaking his instructional method and NOT for publication anywhere… well, that just doesn’t show a whole lot, research-wise.</p>
<p>But here is the thing: you don’t have to have 3 research-based LOR’s. It certainly helps, but is not required. You want LOR’s that all support your contention as a valuable grad student, and if you have one or two that focus on your academics or your teaching or your professional skills then that will still help. So perhaps you should consider that 2nd LOR part of your attempt to get a TA - it certainly sounds like good experience for that!</p>