PhD Chances at Ivy League

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>My credentials are as below and I am looking for PhD at Ivy League schools - </p>

<p>Major: Computer Science</p>

<p>UGrad GPA : 3.80/4.00 (Somewhere in Bangladesh)
UGrad rank: 1/55</p>

<p>Masters (by research): 91% from The University of Melbourne, Australia</p>

<p>GRE: V 630 : Q 780</p>

<p>Publicaitons: </p>

<p>During Masters: 1 Journal in Wiley InterScience, 5 papers in top IEEE/ACM conferences (one of them was nominated for best paper award.)</p>

<p>During UGrad: 8 local conference papers (low quality).</p>

<p>Awards: Got some national level awards and some travelling awards from the IEEE/ACM.</p>

<p>Experience: around 4 yrs.</p>

<p>Do I have good chances for schools like MIT, Cornell, CMU, Caltech ?</p>

<p>please enlighten me.</p>

<p>regards</p>

2

<p>not to nitpick, but only one of the schools you mentioned is in the Ivy League, although all are great universities.</p>

<p>I think you should be more confident in your abilities. On paper, the numbers you gave look great, but be confident… the fact that you’re asking for validation here implies you need to work on that aspect of selling yourself.</p>

3

<p>Most people don’t pick PhD programs based on football conferences, but as stated above, only one is actually in that football conference. So does that mean you are not looking at Princeton, Brown, etc?</p>

<p>Are any of these schools a good match for you as to having professors strong in your research interests? Just as how you should pick the schools based on that, in turn, that is how they will pick you. Will any professor say that you are a good match for him based on his research interests?</p>

4

<p>Aside from the general field of study you did not give us any information about what you actually study. I know very little about comp sci but your chances are nil, despite perfect stats, if you want to study computational mathematics and there’s no one in that department that studies computational mathematics.</p>

<p>Besides, grad school “chances” don’t work quite like undergrad, where if you have good scores and a good GPA you’re likely to get in. In graduate school, your GPA and test scores are basic entry requirements. Everyone is going to have a high GPA, but they’re not necessarily going to let the 3.7 in over the 3.5. Arguably the far more important parts are going to be your personal statement, your research interests, and your fit with the department.</p>

5

<p>hi, </p>

<p>thank you for your valuable comments. here is my revised profile for your evaluation -</p>

<p>Major: Computer Science and Engineering
UGrad GPA: 3.80/4.00 (Somewhere in Bangladesh)
Rank: 1/55 (in my department), 1/200 (in the engineering faculty)
Publications: 6 national level conferences, 2 international level conferences, but they are not directly related to my master’s research and they are not good enough.</p>

<p>Masters by research: from The University of Melbourne, Australia
Research topic: Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization (EMO), Parallel EMO for deployment on Global Grid, Grid Workflow Optimization
Result: 91% - H1 in Australian Grading system
Publications: 1 in Wiley InterScience journal, 2 in IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2 in ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. 1 of them was nominated for best student paper award. I am the first author of all the publications that I have mentioned so far and these are the only conferences in my research field.
Research Collaboration: CLOUDS lab at the University of Melbourne - 2 years</p>

<p>Reco: I can manage two decent reco’s from my Masters supervisor
SOP: I am still working on it.</p>

<p>GRE: Q 780, V 630</p>

<p>Awards: Prime Ministers Award, Vice-chancellor’s award, Australian Leadership Award.</p>

<p>Now, I am not only considering IvyLeage, what will be best possible schools for me in US? - I mean how high can I go with this profile ?</p>

<p>Another point, I did not make any contact with any potential supervisors in US yet, as I came to know that profletting does not help much in good schools in US, the admission committee there makes the real decision - please correct me if I am wrong.</p>

<p>I will be grateful for your valuable comments.</p>

6

<p>Hi ramgorur, I’m just letting you know that I’m also a student at Melbourne Uni in computer science, applying for PhD in the US for Fall 2011. You seem to have alot of publications and your grades (91%) is a bit on the low side for M.Sc.Research, but should be decent enough to pass the minimum requirement of most universities.</p>

<p>“Another point, I did not make any contact with any potential supervisors in US yet, as I came to know that profletting does not help much in good schools in US, the admission committee there makes the real decision - please correct me if I am wrong.”</p>

<ul>
<li>I don’t agree with this actually. If the professor knows who you are and if hes in the admissions committee, it may help a bit.</li>
</ul>

<p>Another issue is that, depending on which schools you will be applying to, do you plan to take the GRE subject test?</p>

<p>Also just something that you may want to know; the PhD scholarship for international students at Melbourne Uni has a strict grade cut-off of at least 93% average. This is for last year and next year will probably be something similar. Universities in the US are also, in general, much more competitive than Australian ones in terms of graduate admissions.</p>

<p>I suggest you apply for many places in the US, perhaps; Texas-Austin, UWisconsin, CUNY, Rutgers, etc…</p>

7

<p>hi anonymous,</p>

<p>thank you for your reply. I did not know that 91% from Unimelb is in the bit lower side. It made me a little bit upset. However, I have already got PhD admission with a full fund (IPRS) in CSSE department at Unimelb. </p>

<p>The problem is that the authority in my home country is not allowing me for another 3.5-4 years of study leave, if I could go to US, I will leave my job here but I dont have the confidence to leave my job for an australian PhD.</p>

<p>Yes, I am planning for subject test and hopefully go for it in october.</p>

<p>Are you also a Masters by research student ? if so did you make any contact with any supervisors? where are you applying ? </p>

<p>another point, what kind of steps should I need to take to boost my profile more? because after finishing my masters, I could not do any further research on my topic in Bangladesh and in the mean time 2 years are gone. </p>

<p>it would be great if you could give me some more valuable advise.</p>

<p>regards</p>

8

<p>to rangorur,</p>

<p>Sorry for the statement above, it wasn’t meant to make you upset. All I meant was that usually people in M.Sc. Research are expected to get very high marks as compared others, say, honours students. 91% is of course very good, but you have to be aware that only the very best students get admitted to PhD programs at top universities in the US. At lower ranked schools, your 91% will be praised.</p>

<p>I’m a M.Sc. Research student as well in CSSE (but my primary advisor is in the Maths department) and I’m on the same boat as you really; except that I’ve studied (and did research) in the US before so I have some idea of what is expected there. For example, the students from Australia I see getting accepted to PhD at the top 4 (MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU) are those with average > 95%, have won international olympiads, many publications, etc… From what I gather, grades are important but if your grades are good enough then it will boil down to letters of recommendation.</p>

<p>I did email potential supervisors since early this year. I got some positive response, some neutral, and some didn’t even reply. Two of them seemed really interested and even offered to organise a visit to their campus early next year. I am not sure as to the final list of universities that I will be applying to but right now: Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, UCLA, UWashington, Dartmouth, Wisconsin, Missessota. I don’t expect to get admitted to the first two, but might as well give it a try.</p>

<p>Another point is that the Ivy league consists of only 8 schools, particularly MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU are not part of the Ivy. Most engineers also know that the ivy brand name doesn’t mean as much in engineering.</p>

<p>Also congratulations on getting IPRS, I’ve heard that its very competitive.</p>

9

<p>hi anonymous,</p>

<p>Thank you for your reply. No, i did not mean that you made me upset. Anyway, there is nothing to do now, i can’t change my grade, he he.</p>

<p>What i can do now is to do some more publications, if could get a grab at IEEE Transaction on Evolutionary Computation, will it help me to get to top 4 ? </p>

<p>What do u think? BTW, what is your research topic ?</p>

10

<p>ramgorur,</p>

<p>Perhaps your time would be put to better use thinking about who is going to write your reco letters - they are very important! Most people say this is the most important part of the application (but of course everything else have to be good too), unlike Melbourne Uni where your grade average determines everything.</p>

<p>My research is in network theory; message-passing algorithms. I will be taking the GRE CS in october as well, in Canberra. Good luck!</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>This is true; however, the quality of research and LORs are much more important than grades. The “very best students” are not gauged by grades (although you do have to have good grades) but instead by their independent research skills and letters of recommendation, which should address research potential. If your LOR professors at Melbourne have research contacts in specific US universities, then you are more likely to be accepted to those programs. Did they introduce you to anyone at the conferences? Where were they from? Different research communities have vastly different networks and therefore different universities/programs. If you want to study parallel processing, your “top programs” may be vastly different than if you were interested in robotics or AI. </p>

<p>Your publications, and not your grades, will be the strength in your application. Make sure you match your interests to the programs you apply to. If, say, MIT has no one who does the kind of work you’ve done, then save yourself the application fees. You won’t get in. Every year, many US students with excellent profiles get rejected by top programs, and it has nothing to do with their abilities. Instead, they just weren’t right for the program.</p>

12

<p>I agree with the above; it does matter what your grade average is, but to distinguish between a 95% or a 82% (here 80%+ is first class honours H1) is not as important as your letter. In the US what’s important is your GPA which is not an average mark of all your test but instead shows the percentage of letter grades (A,B,C,…). If you get mostly H1’s but your average is 82% then it should be good enough already since your GPA would be high enough (someone correct me if I’m wrong?).</p>

<p>If course in Australia all they care about is your grade average, so a 95% over an 82% has significant advantage, and letters are not that important, just a formality.</p>

<p>As for the publication, I believe that the admissions commitee may gauge your application depending on your background; if you have had 6 years of education (bachelor + masters in research) then you would typically be expected to have published qutie a bit, compared to say, someone straight out of a bachelors degree.</p>

<p>Also, unless your interest is very specific and rare, chances are big departments like MIT will have at least a few people working in that field. You have to worry if you apply to smaller department though, i.e. the ivies (brown, dartmouth, yale, penn). Anyhow its always good to email the professor to let them know who you are.</p>

<p>I don’t know if you’re aware of this but at CSSE in Melbourne uni there are a few professors who did their PhD at top departments in the US (Stanford, Princeton, UPenn). If you are interested in applying to these places then it may be a good idea to ask their advice.</p>

<p>By the way what was your research topic and your supervisor?</p>

<p>Edit: you may want to take a look at this document written by a CS professor at CMU, although a bit outdated, but still useful:
<a href=“http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

13

<p>hi all,</p>

<p>Thank you very much for your important insight. Many issues have become clear from your discussions.</p>

<p>my research topic is evolutionary multiobjective optimization, evolutionary computing and its application to grid workflow scheduling. But i want to switch my topic to pure genetic algorithm/genetic programming and its application to automated hardware synthesis (i dont want to work on grid anymore).</p>

<p>My principle supervisor is dr. Michael kirley and my second supervisor is prof dr. Rajkumar buyya. kirley is specialized in genetic algorithm and buyya is well renowned in grid computing. I have collaborated in buyyas clouds lab for 2 years.</p>

<p>Will it be a good idea to switch my field to pure genetic algorithm ?</p>

<p>@anonymous: who is your supervisor? And did you take gre general test? If so how is the score ?</p>

14

<p>A bit of other perspecitve for you. My daughter (American) applied to PhD programs right from a BSc program (CS Theory.) While she might have got a better placement for grad school if she had done an extra year for their 5 yr Masters program, she felt she was ready and wanted phd acceptance and funding. She got in top 10-20 programs, not in the top 4. But she really didn’t target them.</p>

<p>I’m pretty sure she got accepted on her strong research experience and, and the letters of reccomdation that go with working with well known professors. Not gpa or grades and not gre, which was acceptable.</p>

<p>She was told by her own professors not to contact profs at prospective schools, SINCE THEY ARE USUALLY OVERWHELMED with overseas students doing so. They said everything was already in her application. But, there was one prof that interested her greatly. So she wrote a very short email, saying she enjoyed his lecture at her college, she had read his work, she wanted to know if he was accepting students, and she gave a little background. This lead to a little email exchange. And at this school, each professor got to choose one student on their own–independent of the committee.</p>

<p>That exchange was very important. So, I would just say, if you write someone, be interested in them. Know their work. Be brief.</p>