Where to apply?

You made the decision to go to grad school. Decided whether to do MS/PhD. You also decided on your field. Now, where to apply among the hundreds of universities around the world?

Wherever you go, you are going to stay there for quite sometime (2 years for MS and 5-6 for a PhD). Needless to say, your career is built on where you go. So, obviously you would like to go to the best place you can go to.

So, how do you decide where to apply? There are various metrics to evaluate universities. Rankings on certain websites are a good starting point. Then, you have the location of the universities - placements and other facilities are affected by them. The funding scenario is another. So, which metric should one follow. Here is my personal opinion regarding how one should go about selecting universities.

Each field has its own top conferences. The publications in such conferences are a direct index to many things. The universities from which these publications come, are the places where the good work happens. The sub-fields in which they publish are the areas in which the work is being done in the field. The existence of a good number of such people (who publish) in a university makes the university a good place to apply.

In case you haven't decided which field you are going to apply in, it becomes tough to go about this way. In that case, it would always help to start with some pointers (like university rankings) and then look at how "my" process fares in the fields you think you might be interested in.

This is all fine, but should everyone apply to these top places? No, some one who doesn't have enough "measurable" credentials (one might be very good, but his percentage and scores might not show the same) should apply to a lower ranked place also. In such a scenario, one can apply to places where there are fewer people who are doing the very good work or to a place where there are many people doing mediocre-to-good work.

It is a general practice that people apply to 2 top ranked places, 2 medium ranked places and 2 "safe-apps"(applications to places where they are sure to make). I have a slightly different opinion. One can have 1 safe-app and apply to a lot of medium-to-top places. It is always a good idea to apply to a place even if you think you have 0.1 probability of making it.

All said and done, the best of the students might not make it to a certain place while others do. It might help to see if the university has offered admits to students from your university in the past. It would also help if a fewer number of people better than you at your university are applying there.

With so many indeterministic factors, it is definitely a tough job to make a list of universities to apply to. One might need to go with the gut feeling (especially while choosing between two similar universities). I wish you all the luck in choosing the universities and hope that you would make it into universities of your choice.

Anyways, this is not all. There are more important things to do in the application process.

Note: In all cases where I call someone better, I mean better at measurable credentials.

GRE/TOEFL

Now, I am supposed to blog about something that I do not know. Let me try going about it. But, I seriously advise you guys to look out elsewhere as to how to fare well on these tests.

GRE/TOEFL are very important. It always helps to have a good score. There is no harm in that. Please try to get a good score on these.

TOEFL: I particularly like TOEFL iBT style of testing language and conversational skills. I would say the standards set by TOEFL are required for comfortable living in the US.

• Preparation - Get yourself a copy of the Kaplan/Princeton book. Go through it on the surface to acquaint yourself to the test format. Take a practice test and see for yourself how you are performing. If you are not very good at spoken English, it could be a good idea to ask someone who is good at it to sit next to you. Take feedback. Practice a bit. Take the second test. You should be fine to go ahead and take the test.

GRE:

• Quant-It is mostly high school arithmetic. So, you should sail through pretty easily. The only key is not to commit mistakes in calculations. Solving a couple of tests would definitely better your performance and boost your confidence. It is a nice idea to refresh some of your geometric/other formulae.
  
  
• Verbal-Everyone follows the Barron's book. There is nothing like a syllabus for GRE. By following Barron's, you would learn a few words of a whole lot. Though it is advisable to go through the words in Barron's, I find it more important to try memorizing words as and when you see them - in movies, books, newspaper etc. I read that it is tough to learn words starting with the same letter. It would help if you keep learning words randomly. Some sites allow you to do so. Also, a huge mistake that people do is they learn all the words but they would have no idea as to how to apply them in the test. It is the practice tests that are more important. GRE Verbal gives you very less time. You should have done at least half a dozen tests to be able to manage the time well in the exam.

Sum-up:

• Take GRE/TOEFL roughly at the same time.
• Practice tests are the most important.
• Do not restrict yourself to one book. Try reading for different places.
• Look at the most frequent lists before you go to the test. People found this very rewarding.
• Focus and give the test well.

Note: Good GRE/TOEFL scores do not get you admits. But a bad score might influence your admit in a negative way. Give them your best shot and try to score well. But, please do not get discouraged if you have a bad score. There are lots of people who scored low and made it to top places. Universities look at what you did before - your course work, your projects, research, publications and experience.

MS or PhD? What field?

A very common question that bothers everyone. There are a few people who have very strong feelings as to what they want to do.

I would say, it all depends on how you want to see yourself 10 years down the lane. A Masters is more general than a PhD. So, choosing a university for PhD is tougher than for Masters. Unlike the Masters where you see the general rank of a Department, for a PhD you need to see who is working in your area in that particular department and how known is he in the field.

If you are very sure that you do not want to pursue research later in your life, apply for a Masters. Choose a wide field that you are interested in. The reason to choose a field is to apply to the good schools in that field. In case of Computer Science, if you are interested in Artificial Intelligence, there is no point applying to a school which is very good in Systems but has no faculty working in Artificial Intelligence.

If you are very particular about research, it is a straight choice to apply for a PhD. This way, you would not waste that extra time which you would if you apply for a Masters and then follow it with a PhD. Though you would decide on your PhD thesis/problem after 1 year of grad school, it is very important to decide on a broader field early enough. There is no point going to a school very good in Graphics and then realizing that you are not very interested in Graphics.

If you are interested in research but not quite sure, you are in the toughest situation.

1. You can always do a Masters, see if you are interested enough to probe further in the subject, and then apply for a PhD. Advantage - No commitment. Disadvantage - Lesser chances of funding, and probable loss of time. If you apply for a PhD after Masters, your work during Masters matters more than from where you got your Masters.
   
   
2. You can apply for a PhD. If you realize that you can not do it, you can opt out of the program - a risky step. Advantage: Higher funding chances, No wastage of time. Disadvantage - Risk and commitment.

It is all subjective. Your financial position, your interest level in doing research, your ability to cope up without funding. There could be people (like me) who can not risk the chance of joining a university without funding. But many others with similar financial backgrounds take the risk and sail through pretty easily.

I would like to add something here. Getting into a top school for a PhD program is much tougher than getting into the Masters program. It might be a different story about being funded - it might be easier for PhD students in such schools to be funded. But, remember, one has to get admitted before getting funded.

To sum up, straighten your priorities - interest in research, financial need for funding, general personality. Decide on how you want to see yourself 10 years down the lane and make a choice whether to apply for MS or PhD.

Key Ingredients

Folks,

Given that most of my friends are interested in pursuing graduate studies, and owing to the fact that most of the material on websites and blogs is misleading, I decided to write my own version of what is good and what is not with respect to applying to graduate school.

People might have many reasons to apply to graduate schools in other countries. It could be interest in research, good work in companies, or merely more money. But, if your interest is just to migrate to a foreign country, I dont think this blog would be of much help.

Now, let us go into what exactly makes a nice app. There is a lot to a nice app. But, somethings are already out of hand. A good GPA would definitely help one but once you are in your last year you could hardly do anything about it.

Apart from all this, there is nothing like a winning formula. The baseline is that you would like to work with someone and you should convince him/her that you are the best bet. "Statement of Purpose" is the one where you can project yourself. Your projects, GPA and recommendations should back you up.

So, how do I start the process of applying? Here are the various steps.

1. Decide on what you want to do? MS or PhD? What field? (June)
2. Give your GRE/TOEFL. (July - August)
3. Decide which places to apply. (August - September)
4. *Write Statement of Purpose and recos(if you have the option of writing your own recos)(September - October)
5. Get everything reviewed by as many people as possible. (October - December)
6. Get recommendations. (November)
7. Apply (December)

In subsequent posts, let us see on how to go about each of these individually.