Calling all CS grad school applicants

[Ancalagon The Black]

And if people wanted to know, I don't even have a CS degree or a EE degree or Mathematics degree but only a Bachelor of Business Administration degree !! So, its possible to get admission into CS even if you don't have the degrees which they usually consider !! Research rules !!

[agretaker]

Rejected:
MIT
Stanford

No news:
Purdue
UIUC

[CS_Student]

Originally Posted by w_guy

hey CS_Student, Waterloo has a great CS faculty, it is the largest in the world. Bill Gates visited University of Waterloo last week and Microsoft hires more Waterloo CS grads then from other university.

Thank you for the advice. I really admire this university and I am not sure what to choose if I got admitted to both of Toronto and Waterloo. But anyway, I am currently not sure if I am going to be admitted to any school at all So I just wait and see.

[Modeler]

Got an email today from a Prof at Northwestern who said he would offer me support if our research interests aligned. Well, they don't, so thats one more offer out there for people who applied to Northwestern and are interested in embedded systems (his area of research).

[Wiki]

Originally Posted by gttts23

GRE 800Q, 620V, 4AWA
GRE CS 870, 97th percentile
TOEFL 110

BA in CS, Summa Cum Lauda from a top-150 university (according to the 2007 Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranking - their methodology is a bit woo-woo, so it's just to give a reference).

3 conference papers (fortunately it seems that no one in the committee read them ).

Almost 8 years of experience in an industrial research lab and in the industry in a field closely related to the one I want to do my PhD in. I tried to make my SOP as focused as possible.

I selected schools according to potential advisers, and would be very happy to work with all of them.

@gttts23 Nice profile and cngrats on great admissions.

I am a future applicant, and need your valuable opinion on following:

1- After eight years of experience how easy/difficult is it to get accepted for PHD (I have more than 8 years experience)?

2- Is age a hinderance, any threshold age (for CS PhD)?

3- How valuable is having relevent work and teaching experience, but not research, in field of interest?

4- After this much experience on usually depends upon a handsome salary/month, how to cope with this situation during PhD, if one has a dependent family?

Sorry for digressing from the subject of the thread.

[gidora]

Wiki, if I was in the admission committee, I would have definitely take you. Your profile is very appreciable. I don't know about the academic part of your profile, but you ought to be extremely enthusiastic. Bravo!
Best of luck.

[Wiki]

Thanks for your comment, I dont want to fall out of frying pan into fire
so am extra cautious.

Seeking more comments.

[gttts23]

Originally Posted by Wiki

@gttts23 Nice profile and cngrats on great admissions.

I am a future applicant, and need your valuable opinion on following:

1- After eight years of experience how easy/difficult is it to get accepted for PHD (I have more than 8 years experience)?

2- Is age a hinderance, any threshold age (for CS PhD)?

3- How valuable is having relevent work and teaching experience, but not research, in field of interest?

4- After this much experience on usually depends upon a handsome salary/month, how to cope with this situation during PhD, if one has a dependent family?

Sorry for digressing from the subject of the thread.

While I've had the opportunity to speak to several professors in US and Canadian universities about that, I am just an applicant with no direct knowledge.

I've been told that age is not necessarily a problem in CS, and that experience can be very helpful in getting admitted. In my case it has probably been a significant advantage because it is so close to the theoretical discipline I want to do my research in.

I am not aware of any threshold age, but it may become harder as you pass your early thirties. I have a friend who started her PhD in her forties, but this may not be very representative. Before starting her PhD she had many important, and heavily cited papers, published.

[deadcoder]

Accepted:
ETH-Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Zürich)
Oklahoma State University
University of Texas at San Antonio

Rejected:
University of Virginia
University of Arizona

Pending:
Purdue
University of Rochester
Northeastern University

please pray for me...

[Wiki]

Originally Posted by gttts23

While I've had the opportunity to speak to several professors in US and Canadian universities about that, I am just an applicant with no direct knowledge.

I've been told that age is not necessarily a problem in CS, and that experience can be very helpful in getting admitted. In my case it has probably been a significant advantage because it is so close to the theoretical discipline I want to do my research in.

I am not aware of any threshold age, but it may become harder as you pass your early thirties. I have a friend who started her PhD in her forties, but this may not be very representative. Before starting her PhD she had many important, and heavily cited papers, published.

@gttts thanks for the reply.

I am in late thirties, and am on a most senior technical position in a US based software company, infact leading its software development worldover (have distributed development teams). My whole experience is relevent to my field of interest for future research.