skremon

A sad news:(. I will surely check out his last lecture soon. I first learned about him while I was browsing the pages of Entertainment Technology Center that he established, and through his very informative white paper: "An Academic's Field Guide to Electronic Arts".

I believe SB is better (in terms of ranking, research & location).

AFAIK Computer Sc. @ Stony Brook is very good, i don't thing Stony Brook is very good in Computer Engg. Computer Science @ SBuffalo should be very good. What would you like to study Comp. Sc. or Comp. Engg?

Sorry i shouldn't have said that without learning much about UK CS degrees, but i've searched some universities in my areas of preference and they were 1 year course based degrees without a thesis. Old UK degrees used to be 3 years BS and 1 Year MS (equivalent to 4 year BS in US), i don't know if they have changed it or not. But if the UK MS level degrees are like complements of BS degrees i think the US standard is must better for Masters level. One more thing i have learned from some of my friends on UK, that generally EU students gets preference over other students in getting phd funding, job etc. And on Masters level its hard to manage funds for education for non-EU ppl.

Utah CS decisions should be out, check your online application (i got dinged!), i'm still waiting for Stony Brook and UMBC. IMO US 2 year MS degrees are much better than UK, most of which are 1-1.5 years.

Congratulations! UNC and Utah are both great if you are interested in Graphics, and UNC is most probably the best in US. So UNC might be the better choice :tup: . Utah was my #1 university but i didnt make it :( Good Luck!

First of all congrats!!! If you go for PhD straight away (many US universities prefer it that way, like Columbia) consider Utah. I think that the MS in Columbia is considered as a terminal degree and doesn't necessarily lead to PhD and aid is tough too. Utah is one of the best in CG research (Columbia as well!) so if you want to pursue a research career in graphics its the best option IMO. Be sure to check out their CG labs & professors before making your final decision. Now a days profs/students/graduates are making significant contributions in the conferences and working in companies like ATI/Nvidia or profs in premier universities. I hope you make the best possible decision.

congratulations :tup: Great to know that someone from BD got into Columbia. Good luck!!!

Congratulations!!! :tup: I also re-applied to SB but didn't get any decision yet :rolleyes:

Applied to SunySB for MS in CS. Waiting for decision ...

One cousin of mine did his BS in ECE and MS in CE from there maybe 5-7 years ago. That time they had good co-op programs to help students. I don't know how good it is now. Its not highly ranked though and probably very costly too.

Good job brother rob!!! Congrats. I think i can help some of my friends with your tips who are pursuing MBA.

No i did not. I don't think its necessary anyways.

I'm not sure what are you talking about, but i think the first line should clearly state your goal, and i couldn't have written it in a more simple way.

What our recommenders did is keep the space in the comment section of the form blank and attach the letter they gave to me with the form (or write 'see attached letter' in the blank space). They signed in the letter too. This way they don't have to write all the comments in the blank section.

This is what they asked for in the personal statement form: ----------------------------------------------------------- What would you consider your special qualifications to be, over and above those called for on the previous pages of the application? Discuss briefly your experience relative to the area of proposed study outside the classroom. What do you propose to do with your advanced degree, professionally? (Attach a separate sheet if necessary). ---------------------------------------------------- This is how i started: ----------------------- I intend to specialize in the area of Computer Graphics in my MS degree. In this area I am interested in real-time rendering and shading techniques, visualization of large environments and scientific visualization that are applicable in interactive graphics applications. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Body ( academic + work experience ) --------------------------------------- My undergraduate preparation at North South University (NSU) [1] includes related coursework and projects in Computer Graphics and applications. Through my undergraduate education I have learned about graphics technologies and applied them in developing educational & entertainment software. In the Computer Graphics course project i developed an application (Virtual Optics Lab) that was intended to be used by students at high-school to perform their physics experiment. This was part of our faculty M Rokonuzzaman's research work on "Virtual Apparatus for Computer Assisted Learning". Afterwards, i worked with Mr. Emdad Ahmed (my undergraduate project advisor) and Adnan M L Karim in my undergraduate research project to develop a "3D Graphics Engine", which was extended to use in a 3D game Bangladesh-71 [3] and other commercial products. As a part of our project we wrote a paper on scene management techniques that was presented in ICCIT [4] and published in the proceedings. I have also continued working with Mr. Emdad Ahmed and colleague M Mahmud Hasan on graphics engines and game technology. Currently we are writing some papers based on our work that we intend to submit in ICCIT [4] and ICECE [5]. Furthermore, I am working with my colleagues to study and improve graphics engine design and currently used real-time cloud rendering methods. I have a year of experience in developing real-time 3D games using current graphics technology, which I believe was a good preparation for undertaking advanced research activities in computer graphics. I worked with the team of eSophers [2] to develop a 3D game engine that is being used in Bangladesh-71 [3] and in a promotional game for British American Tobacco. My responsibilities and contributions included developing the engine core, rendering system, resource managers & skeletal animation system. I have also worked on visibility optimizations and client/server network programming for multiplayer games. This is the conclusion ------------------------ My professional goal is to work on research & development of real-time graphics applications, (e.g. 3D games, visualization tools) and, to devise & discover solutions for concurrent and future graphics systems. The advanced Masters degree in Computer Science at Stony Brook will enable me to continue my education in my chosen area and give me the educational and research experience I need to become successful in the industry. The knowledge that I will garner from my graduate education will prepare me for designing and developing large scale software systems and graphics applications. I also believe that I have the potential to make contributions to some of the ongoing research works at the department of Computer Science at Stony Brook. -------------------------------END--------------------------------------- Make your intentions and interest clear in the first paragraph, the more specific and concise you are the better :) I didn't use any heading for the paragraphs, added references in the end. Hope it helps :)

Q1: Most universities in US/Canada asks for original official transcripts, that means issued by the registrar, given to the student in a sealed envelop. Q2. Mentioning GPA in SOP is irrelevant in most cases, because they already know it from the transcripts. Q3. Whether you mention them in application or not, you MUST send universities Official scores through ETS. It normally takes around 2 weeks or so. If you have partial scores then you can put them in the application if they ask.

Yo buddy, let me be the first one to congratulate you on your BOMB score. Not many ppl in Bangladesh i know have scored a 650+ on Verbal. Your score gives a good ground for admission into a top school. You have great potential, i know it! So think hard and make the decition that you believe is right for you. Good Luck!!!

Thanks gforce, i'm now looking @ Fall05 now. However, SB is still in my list for 05, because i think its one of the best choice when there is a 'no aid for MS' situation. Hopefully i'll get admitted again. I'm thinking about the following univs for fall (US): UNorth Carolina - CH Stony Brook UMaryland Baltimore County Dear awhig, Regarding SoP keep the following things in mind: 1. You must show research potential, mention any projects or efforts that might prove it. 2. If you have paper(s), mention the work 3. Don't forget to mention your research interests, be specific on the topics and subtopics you are interested in 4. If you have worked with a teacher/prof on some project/research mention it 5. Make sure your research interests matches departments ongoing research, and show your motivation and willingness to contribute.

The ONE advise i can give to you is avoid 'Panic Attacks' :) I'm afraid there is only 1 Power Prep software. Make sure you take the 2 tests at least 3 times each, so that you can extract most Math Questions.

The universities maintain separate file/folder for each applicant. I'm sure they will sort it out when they recieve your application. However, you can remind them by mail that a LOR was mailed earlier. GRE/TOEFL scores are often sent before the application, but they collect them all, so i think you should just relax :)

Publications are certainly a bonus. but for PHD applicants its important to have some i guess. What they look for when evaluating applicants (well many good universities) is 'research potential', not necessarily 'research experience'. Publication is a great way to prove either of those qualities. But if anyone can prove potential that is good enough in most cases. However some universities gives too much importance to test scores, i don't think thats right! I've seen many profs suggesting students to put their research exposure in the SOPs, this could be their work on a publication that wasn't published!!! But it shows that you have interest in research and tried to do something special. One more thing, publications have much more weight than test scores AFAIK.

Look gforce, you are underestimating your abilities. My suggestion is apply ONLY to the top universities that have solid research facilities in networking and distributed systems. You need to be more confident and have to believe in your outstanding achievements. Good Luck.

I don't believe it matters whether you answer yes or no, because all univ's understand that a (good) student might have one or more better choices. They just do it for survey, to see how many students got admitted declines admission after acceptance for going into a different univ.

On the contrary retaking the Toefl to get 250+ is a better idea, i think. Because your math score is already good. I don't think Math programs will look for your verbal scores as a determining factor of your admission, however, spoken english ability is more prefered than verbal.