Rising Sophomore curious about Grad School

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi, I'll be a Sophomore next fall at Princeton majoring in Computer Science. I'm not set on grad school, but I do see it as a possibility. I was just wondering what kind of things I can do throughout my time at Princeton to make me a strong applicant in case I do consider grad school.</p>

<p>My interests are in theoretical computer science, particularly in discovering/analyzing new algorithms. I haven't done any research yet, but plan to during my junior and senior years (and maybe the summer between then).</p>

<p>As of now, I don't know anything about the grad school admissions process and had these specific questions:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Which schools are very good in theoretical computer science? The only reference I have is the US News rankings and it seems MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, and Univ. of Illinois are very good. However, is there one that is perhaps much more stronger in theoretical computer science (as opposed to Systems, Applications, etc.)?</p></li>
<li><p>What consists of a grad school application aside from GPA, Tests, Essays, and letter of recs? </p></li>
<li><p>How important is research compared to work experience? Since I'm undecided about grad school, I'd like to try and get a Finance internship the summer after my sophomore year, such as a good one at Wall Street like Jane Street Capital or something. Does this kind of work experience help me in any way for the grad school application? I assume I would mostly be doing finance stuffs that don't relate too much to computer science.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>That's about it for now, but any other advice regarding what I can do/focus on for now would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Well, I know Cal Tech is excellent on the theory aspects of most engineering topics; maybe you’d want to look into it?</p>

3

<p>If you want to do grad school:</p>

<p>(1) Actively seek research opportunities, especially publication. It is better to have a single long-term research project resulting in a publication and a good LOR than to have 3 short research efforts that are published only internally to your school or program.</p>

<p>(2) Cultivate relationships with professors who will give you good LOR’s. You need 3, so you want to have three professors who know you very well, think very well of you, and can comment on your academic, teaching, and research abilities.</p>

<p>(3) Plan to spend some time creating a great SOP. You will need one per school, mostly different, and perhaps some additional statements. Make them good, personal, and attractive to the school in question.</p>

<p>(4) Keep the GPA up. Anything below a 3.5 will make the top schools very unlikely, and less than 3.0 makes grad school unlikely in general.</p>

<p>(5) Do well on the GRE. You do not need to blow it away, but give yourself time to mess it up, and practice beforehand. Be aware of the average scores at your target schools and make sure you can beat them.</p>

<p>Work experience can be mentioned, but do not expect much credit for it.</p>

<p>All the schools you mentioned are good, look at the research the prof’s are doing and see if it interests you - you need to match well with a prof to get in (in general).</p>