<p>Hi! First of all thanks for reading the thread. I am interested in applying for PhD in CS, particularly in the theoretical side. From my brief experience of surfing the net, it seems that MIT/Berkeley seem to have the best CS Theory in the world. However, I'm sure that their admission are also very competitive. I am just curious of which level of schools I should apply to. Right now I have absolutely no clue where I stand in terms of chance.</p>
<p>I am a student at University of Melbourne (Australia) pursueing a 3-years bachelors degree in Pure Maths (although I take alot of CS electives). I am finishing off my 2nd year and will spend my 3rd year at UC-Berkeley on an exchange program.
I have written one research paper (unpublished) on Sturmian words, which is in the field of Combinatorics, and my professor seems to be happy about it. However, this semester I plan to take the GRE and TOEFL, and compete in a maths competition in Australia, so I will not be writing another research paper until I go to Berkeley on exchange in Fall this year.
As for my grades, my average is about 88 (the grade here is out of 100) which places me on the Dean's List (top 3% of undergraduates). Gradewise, I am one of the top students in the department, but probably not the no.1 best.</p>
<p>Most students from my university tends to continue to do PhD here, and so they dont know much about applying for PhD overseas. I know that it is impossible to determine whether I will get accepted or not, but I am just wondering whether I am on the right track to applying to MIT/Berkeley, or if it is unrealistic for me.</p>
<p>What are the other top departments in CS Theory? Are Princeton, Harvard, Chicago, Stanford, Cambridge or Toronto any good at CS Theory? I saw the USNews2009 Theory ranking, but I was told to take it with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>P.S. Is it correct that letters of recommendation and research experience are the most important factors in PhD admission?</p>
<p>I'm pretty familiar with Commonwealth schooling (I went through it for A Levels and all that).</p>
<p>Research experience and letters of recommendation are THE most important things bar none. It's great that you're working with a professor that was impressed by your work. If you could get the paper published that would be phenomenal. I don't think you need to take the TOEFL. Australia is an english speaking country.</p>
<p>I think if you're going to aim as high as MIT (nothing is guaranteed at that school, I'm sure if some of their professors apply as students they wouldn't get in themselves) you should put in some safety schools.</p>
<p>How do I publish my research paper? I don't know if it will be of any significance though, since it is only 20 pages long.</p>
<p>Heliosphan, I dont know if I am going to aim for MIT. Can you please tell me whether this is realistic? Does anyone know how my 88/100 Australian mark translate to the American GPA?</p>
<p>Anonamous, I'm from the University of Melbourne too. 88 is definitely a 4.0 GPA although Melbourne doesn't do the conversion (I know this because I found out how the student admin convert the grades of US students on exchange at Unimelb) and used that as a guide. </p>
<p>Beyond that, as everyone has said, you need great LoRs and a strong personal statement that highlights the fit with the research being done at a particular department. I hope you're planning on doing honours because that certainly helps with both those.</p>
<p>I was hoping to do the honours year, but due to the Melbourne Model, they will discontinue the honours year for Computer Science. The Maths one will still be available though. Besides, half of the courses I will be taking at Berkeley while on exchange are numbered 200+, i.e. graduate courses</p>
<p>I don't know whether the 3-years bachelors will be acceptable to graduate schools in the US. If not, I suppose I could do my honours year in other places that still offer them, e.g. USyd, ANU, etc..</p>