Some notes about CS PhD Admissions
PhD admission season is in full swing, and I decided that it would be nice to document some of the resources and tips I received from mentors and friends around me before I forget what it’s like to apply. My advice here will be most relevant to CS or ML PhD admissions.
There are many guides out there which are more detailed than this will be, but when I applied I always wished there were more. So here’s a short memo that hopefully will add on to your collection of things to read over during admission season.
The resources I list here helped me a ton with all the different components of the application process, so I won’t try to repeat all the points made in those resources.
General Advice
- Paul Liang’s collection of advice for prospective and current PhD students
- Jean Yang’s blog posts on PhD life and applications
- John Hewitt’s blog post guide for undergrads thinking about PhDs
- MIT EECS Faculty share what they look for in students
SOP Advice and Examples
- CS SOP notion - a crowdsourced collection of PhD students’ SOPs
- Eugenie Lai’s Annotated Statement of Purpose example
Fellowships (e.g. NSF GRFP)
However, the process can still seem quite opaque after going through all the motions of curating your application.
The “Right Fit”
This was the part I worried about the most when I applied. I had drafted all the components of my application, but which professors and what departments should I apply to? Who was the right fit for my interests, especially if my interests were changing?
Even though good research into what the “right fit” is (depending on your interests and research background) was incredibly useful, there were still many hidden factors that were out of my control.
On one hand, it can be hard to know what a professor’s conditions are for a new student. They may have funding constraints, their interests may have shifted but they never updated their website, or they may just not have the bandwidth to take on any students this year.
It can be hard to evaluate how your interests, a professor’s interests, and background all align in the grand scheme of things. I think it’s almost impossible to determine from just reading website bios and papers. So, we can only do what is good enough – maintaining a list of 3-5 potential advisors per department that you are interested in is likely to have at least one advisor that fits you well. And even then, you may not end up working with any of these advisors if you end up going, which is totally ok!
Overall, it’s not a good idea to over-optimize your application for any particular place. Be true to your interests, go with your gut to some extent, and I believe that a good match will find you, as long as you cast a wide enough net. It can be useful to ask your advisor and any close PhD friends you know to see where they recommend you apply to, or what they know about a particular application process.