The article is meant to aid students in the process of applying to PhD programmes. Due to the pandemic some of my suggestions might not apply to students who will be applying in 2020. A large part of the article is motivated by this amazing blog post by Prof. Matt Might.
First things first, getting into a reasonable PhD program requires a strong research background. Depending on the research area, a certain number of publications are necessary. The art of managing research in the undergraduate program will require a separate blog post. Here, the aim is to talk about the application process.
Most universities require scores of GRE and TOEFL . I would suggest getting done with GRE and TOEFL in summer. These tests require some amount of hardwork in memorizing words and writing long essays in a short time. Try to schedule your GRE earlier than TOEFL and within two weeks, get done with TOEFL. TOEFL is far easier than GRE but be cautious about the speaking section. Tools like Magoosh, Quizlet, and Vocabulary.com might be useful for practice.
The next important and time-consuming task is preparing a list of professors and therefore, the schools you’re interested in. I would suggest applying to a school only if there are at least three professors whom you’re interested in working with. Be open to new research areas. It is not necessary to continue working on the same problems that you worked on in your undergraduate. For example, if you like working on theoretical problems and you worked on information theory in your undergraduate, professors working on theoretical problems related to optimization, reinforcement learning, blockchains, game theory and of course, information theory should be in your radar. Completely changing fields can be tricky but many schools and professors are reasonably open-minded.
One has to choose which schools to apply to and it requires some strategic decisions to make. Firstly, apply to schools that you’ll be happy going to. If you only get one admit, ask yourself would you be happy going there? If not, then don’t apply. However, being too choosy can lead to a situation where one ends up getting no admits. I applied to 9 schools and I wouldn’t have regretted going to any one of them. Among the schools I applied to, I would classify 4 of the schools as ambitious, 3 as middle, and 2 as safe. However, I’ll reiterate that I would’ve been happy going to any of them if I had gotten only one admit.
Before filling up the application form, I would recommend that you make a common google sheet of PhD applicants, where each applicant fills up their research interests and the schools they’re applying to. There is already enough competition, try not to cut each other. Diversify your middle and safe school choices and apply to different professors at the top schools. Outrun the bear, not each other.
Now, I’ll talk about the application materials. Make a three page CV (why? it’s the law!) with a focus on your research and course projects. Try not to spend more than half a page on PORs and extracurriculars. Get some feedback from your close seniors and polish it up. You will typically require three recommendation letters for your application. At least two of therecommenders should be professors whom you’ve done research with. Ask them if they’ll be able to provide a strong recommendation letter or not. The last recommendation can be from someone whom you’ve done a TAship with or with a professor in whose course you performed well (AP preferably) or you took a graduate course with (difficult 6xx or 7xx course). A person from the industry could be your third recommender but that person should’ve a PhD and should be involved in active research.
The statement of purpose or SOP is also an important part of your application. The first thing to embed in your mind is that you should never read someone else’s SOP before your SOP is in good shape. The SOP is meant to convey why you want to do a PhD and shouldn’t be a copy of your CV. Try to write a coherent story describing why you got interested in the research projects that you worked on and how this motivates you to do a PhD. Get a first draft ready by October first week. Ask your seniors to suggest changes and then polish it up. Find more information about application materials on the earlier mentioned blog post by Prof. Matt Might.
Finally, please be careful with the deadlines . Stanford and Berkeley generally have their deadlines earlier. Berkeley also demands something called a personal statement besides the SOP. Figure out the details yourselves.
Please create a personal webpage. Upload your CV, give descriptions of all the projects that you’ve done, even if they’re not on your CV. Provide links to your publications and project reports. Professors might get interested in projects that you consider dull or irrelevant. Webpages are quite easy to build. This is the template that I had used to make my webpage: Template
Apping : There are a lot of different opinions on this. Don’t write to a professor if their webpage asks you not to. Write only if your work is extremely related to the professor’s work. Apping is an arduous process and hardly any emails to professors ever get replied to.
Placements : There are a lot of different opinions on this. Managing both placements and the PhD application process is hard. Application deadlines are nearly parallel to the placement dates and I did not sit for the placements. Getting a job in hand is a good safety net but it requires considerable effort. I would leave it to you to decide if you want to manage both.
Life is hectic till you submit your application but after that, be prepared for waiting and be prepared to get emotionally hurt. There is hardly anything you’ll be able to do after submitting. The period between submitting your application and finally, hopefully, accepting an admit is crazy. It is not uncommon for students to constantly check their emails and an addicting site called GradCafe. If you can, keep yourselves busy with recreational activities and take the bare minimum course load. I feel it is okay to binge Netflix and go for trips instead of checking GradCafe every 5 minutes. You must be thinking that this is not you and you will remain in control and you will nail DDP2 or BTP2. Everybody thinks that. Read this paragraph again between December and April. Be easy on yourself.
Many professors interview students before sending the admits. However, note that interviews
don’t necessarily convert to admits and not getting interview calls doesn’t mean you can’t get an
admit. If you do get interview calls, be prepared to explain your projects in detail and answer
questions put by the professor. Also read at least one paper authored by the professor and
come up with a question to ask them. Some professors might get into details of coursework and
this is especially common if you’re not applying to your home department.
Always remember that your admits are not solely a function of how good a researcher you
are. Admits depend on too many things beyond your control and getting an admit to a top
university doesn’t guarantee success in future endeavors. Stay humble and don’t tie your
achievements to your ego. I know that it hurts to get rejected and therefore, always have a
support group to provide you necessary emotional support. Also, stay away from toxic immature
imbeciles who are too proud of their achievements and have no or little empathy towards others.
I would like to end by saying that enjoy your application period and accept however things
unfold.