dionysus

I just got a peculiar email from a Prof at Columbia. He said that it "unlikely" that I will be offered admission at Columbia. I am quoting the email in this post:

I've heard from NYU Ph.D. (CS). Admitted. No news from Columbia, but I called them up and they said they'd get back to me in a week.

Hey Kirti. First of all, you have not made clear whether you're interested in a Masters or a PhD. I applied for a PhD and I can give you a perspective in terms of my opinion to make it to the top CS programs in the US. GRE: In my opinion, the general GRE is of little relevance for a top CS PhD program, unless its atrocious. Anything about 2100, with an 780+ in Quant, and not anything lesser than a 4.5 and 500 in the AWA and Verbal respectively should meet the GRE bar -- if it exists in the first place. TOEFL: I dont think this matters at all, as long as you can get something like 270. A-GRE: I was of the opinion that of all the standardized tests, the subject GRE is the one that is given maximum weightage for the PhD programs. But having a good A-GRE score still does not ensure admission. Having a poor score however, could rule you out. Try to make around 75+ percentile. Subject GRE becomes even more important if your undergrad. school is relatively unknown to the admission committees. GPA: Well, GPA is important to an extent. I know that all Department Rank 1s from my college have consistently made it to the top programs. Research experience: This is an unstated, yet the most important factor for admissions in my opinion. Having one or two research papers could go a long way towards your admission at top schools. Having said that, this is probably the most difficult thing to do. Anyway, good luck.

Great job charlieboy! Your scores were intimidating! So its only fair that you got in at Columbia. I'm still to hear from them. The webpage says pending. Have NYU though -- and am reasonably happy with that! Hopefully we'll both meet in NY. :-)

Thanks anak and matek. Your comments were encouraging. Also I heard that being in NY is a big plus since one can also work with researchers in IBM TJ Watson and profs at Columbia.

Thanks guys. Vipul, you asked for my profile, here it is (from another post): Apping for: Ph.D. in CS (Theory & Algorithms) GRE: Q:800 V:670 AWA:6/6 Undergrad GPA: 8.5 / 10. Postgrad GPA (I'm already a masters, apping for a Ph.D.): 9.5 / 10. Recos: 3 from CS profs, two good, one average - and then one reco from a humanities prof. - which would be very strong, but I don't know if that counts. Although that humanities prof. is a famous poet of sorts. Every prof likely to say at least top 15% in academic maturity and top 10% in motivation (some might say still better). Subject GRE: 96 percentile. Work experience: One year as a software developer. Research papers: None. ------ Guys, how is the CS department of NYU? What is its reputation? Is it considered good?

$20K is the amount that they mentioned on the offer.

Hey guys, Just wanted to share that I got an admission with financial aid for a CS Ph.D. from NYU. This is a pleasant change from the long string of rejects that started back on February 18th. I am still to hear from UPenn, Columbia and CMU (ACO program). Received the offer through email yesterday morning. I want to thank everyone in this forum for helping me out a great deal and wish good luck to everyone whose still to hear from their favourite places. Thanks guys.

hey anak. i applied well in time. all my recos reached in time. the only thing that did not reach them in time, were my subject GRE scores, and those they permitted and acknowledged receipt of. I applied for the Ph.D. program. I got acknowledging emails from cornell cs faculty saying that my file was complete and now under review. I had contacted two profs, and they had encouraged me, but that didn't help for me I guess. best of luck for your app dude.

hey anak, it was my an email that was sent from some weird account, and to a large number of people altogether.

Just received a decline mail from Cornell. Sigh. Now theres only four more schools left: NYU, CMU, Columbia, UPenn.

has anyone received any offers / rejects (other than murboy's reject from cornell that he told us of) from NYU, Columbia or Cornell for a CS Ph.D.?

Hi, I know a friend who got a (CS) Ph.D. transfer from IIT Delhi to U.Penn. last year. His transfer was facilitated by the fact that in the first year of Ph.D. at IIT Delhi, he was able to make good progress on one of the problems that he was solving, and got a publication out of that.

I thought I'd quote a correspondence with a Brown grad. student at the CS department:

It was a snail mail. I'm in office right now so dont have access to it. From what I recall it was dated at February 17th, 2004. :(

Hi, I just got a reject from Princeton for a CS, Ph.D. Good luck to you.

Hi Swetak28, First of all Subject GRE is not mandatory at most schools. In fact for a masters, the demand for Subject GRE is even lesser than it is while applying for a Ph.D. For schools that do require a subject GRE, some of them do state that they would 'prefer' the subject to be Computer Science, but incase the student has taken the subject test in other subjects such as Maths and Physics then those are acceptable too. I think the answer to your question will depend pretty much on the schools you're applying to. Most top tier schools would most certainly require the CS AGRE from you.

I have applied to Princeton in CS and haven't heard anything from them either other than the fact that my application is complete. I think all these universities will start sending offers / rejects by March 15. Does anyone know anything about waiting lists and cut off lists - or any insight into how grad. schools extend offers?

Hey GooGooDoll. I have applied to Columbia (CS), but haven't heard from them yet. I do know that they have extended out one offer in Masters for CS, but haven't heard of anything else. I've applied to Cornell (CS) too and haven't heard from them as well.

Thanks Jaideep. I really need all the support pal! Good luck to you too! :-)

Hey Murboy. Did you get the reject from Cornell for Ph.D. via email? I am basically wondering if Cornell has sent out rejections and not rejected me (and are keeping me in the waitlist)? ;-) Wishful, but the thought crosses my mind. Thanks pal Ashish

Hi Guys, I've applied for a Ph.D. in CS. I just wanted to know if Cornell has sent out any rejections yet? I just got this terse letter from Yale saying that they were awfully sorry to deny me admission! *sigh*. So much for all the hard work for the AGRE and the GRE and the SOP and all that. But I am not getting disheartened. I guess the people who got through would've worked harder than I did, and were most likely smarter than I am. I have also applied to CMU (GSIA), and the website states that the results will be out only by April 15! Damn. Princeton, Brown, UPenn, Columbia and NYU should be deciding their admissions over the next month or so. Apparently, the Ph.D. class at Yale is just 20 people. Wonder how many of these are international students. And of those international, how many are Indian. If its just 1 - 2 Indians, then I guess I don't deserve to get through! Anyway, congratulations to all the people who are getting offers here. I am glad someone's getting through. Still awaiting some good news.

Hey guys, I've apped to eight places including Cornell, Columbia, CMU and Stanford. - places from where people have started receiving offers. I was wondering how may I interpret no communication. I'm guessing that if I dont hear from these univs in another week / fortnight, that's an alarm bell saying that I'm not on the first / second list, and may not get an offer. Does anyone have any ideas about what dates do these schools send their offers by? Or how many people do they take in a class of Ph.D.? Also are Ph.D. admissions declared earlier than the Master's admission or is there no relation between the two. Hm.. thanks guys.

Hey Murboy, I'm very sorry, I went lax with the forum after my GRE scores (and you shouldnt blame me, boy wasn't I relieved!). So the schools that I am applying to are: 1. CMU 2. Stanford 3. Cornell 4. Columbia 5. Princeton 6. Yale 7. Brown 8. University of Pennsylvania 9. New York University -- I am applying in Theoretical Computer Science (Algorithms & Complexity Theory). What about you? Good luck man!

Hi Aimee. I would like to point out to you that everyone who takes any test from ETS takes an oath not to disclose any information about the test. So it would be 'illegal' or 'not permitted' to disclose the set of questions appearing on the subject test through a 'brain dump'. I know that all of us would like to have more than just a lame sample test from ETS for the subject test preparation, but such is the nature of this test, and ETS that we have no more information than that. However, this forum would be more than happy to help you with any doubts that you may have while you are preparing all the topics for the subject test. Also, you'll find the references in this forum a handful for good preparation. I prepared only through this forum and have done reasonably well in the subject test myself. Good luck on your preparation. Thanks, Ashish.