Resume! - School Of Computer Science - Carnegie Mellon University: Fill & Download for Free

A2A: I apologize in advance for the too-long answer, but this is a big and complicated question.There's a LOT of variation in the evaluation process from one university, department, and program to another, and even from one individual evaluator to another.I can tell you what my process has been for the past few years on the admissions committee of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science (SCS), Language Technologies Institute (LTI). My focus has been on applicants for our PhD program and the Master of Language Technologies program -- a research-oriented masters program.Bear in mind that this is just one data point and not typical. Actually, there's probably no such thing as "typical" -- there's too much variation, even between members of the same committee.Also, the increase in our number of applicants and the creation of several professional masters programs have put a lot of strain on our existing system, and there have been active discussions about how to streamline our process. For example, we may be forced to do a lot more pre-filtering and pre-summarization by well-trained staff.In CMU SCS, we use an online system, common across all (or most) of our departments, for securely collecting all the materials relevant to each case. The same system provides for entry of comments by the reviewers and any other faculty.In LTI we had about 350 applications for the MLT and PhD programs, plus several hundred more applicants for the three professional masters programs administered through LTI. I'll address only the MLT/PhD process.In our system we use a committee of about a dozen faculty volunteers to pre-screen and pre-rank the proposals. That's basically done as a service to the other faculty, who are free to look only at our top-ranked candidates or at any others who are of interest to them.The head of our admissions committee has traditionally evaluated ALL the applications (I'm not sure how much longer we can keep that up), and all the other applications get at least one other review from committee members, plus a third evaluation (and occasionally more) if there is any significant disagreement among the first two. So this is a lot of work for everyone involved.The work must all be done at the end of December and over most of the month of January (which is also a busy month for proposal and conference deadlines). I reviewed about 60 applications this year, and about 90 the year before. Usually it takes me about 30 minutes to do each of the first few, and then maybe 10 or 15 minutes once I get rolling. Some obvious rejects are quicker, and some complicated cases take more time and perhaps some discussion with other faculty, or gathering of additional information.The committee tries to note each applicant's area(s) of interest, if that's clear from the folder, and also notes specific faculty members who should look at the folder, either because the applicant mentioned them or their project, or because it's just an obvious match.The faculty at large have some time to review the top-ranked candidates and any others that interest them, looking at the online forms with rankings and comments by the committee. Then we have a big meeting of all the faculty to make the final decisions.In LTI, as a rule, we offer PhD admission only to students for whom we are confident of success in our program, and for whom at least one faculty member is willing to advise and commit a funded slot. We also offer direct PhD admission to a few superstars each year, regardless of whether we have identified funding for them -- sort of an internal fellowship. That's a gamble, since PhD students without outside funding eat up a big part of our discretionary budget. But we are working to increase the resources available so that we can make more such offers.The other students who look good to us are offered MLT admission, usually without a promise of funding. Most of the MLT students who come here in the fall do find funded slots soon after they arrive. MLT students who do well and whose advisors want to keep them generally are admitted to our PhD program with no problem; a few of them choose to go to other PhD programs at this point.My own evaluation routine for applicants from outside CMU goes something like this:First, try to get a quick overall picture of the applicant, mostly by reading/skimming the Resume and Statement of Purpose (SOP). What are the applicant's major interests, and are there specific faculty for whom this application should be flagged? Is this person applying as a fresh BS or after getting a masters degree or after some time in industry? What school(s), and who wrote letters? Are there publications?One question I ask during this process is whether the applicant is a good fit for LTI -- is there any evidence of real interest in the research we do in LTI, or is this, for example, a computer-vision person for whom LTI is a distant Nth choice?Second, is this person a native English speaker? And, if not, can this person speak English well enough to succeed in our program? For that I look mostly at the TOEFL scores, if they are recent. If the scores are good, no problem.If the TOEFL scores are bad -- any of them -- I'll look for other evidence. If the applicant provided a video, how good is the English on that? (It's not very strong evidence if they just read a script or recite a memorized statement, which is usually pretty obvious. We're looking for spontaneous speech.)Verbal and writing GREs provide some evidence. If a recommendation letter says that the person communicates well in English, that can over-ride a bad TOEFL score -- but only if we believe the letter-writer is fluent in English. If the English in the SOP is full of errors, that is pretty strong negative evidence. However, perfect English is not a strong positive -- the SOP may have been written or corrected by someone else.Third, do we believe that this person is strong enough academically to pass our very demanding graduate courses without a lot of drama? For this I look first at the school and the GPA, and then at transcripts to see how many relevant CS and related courses there are, and how well the applicant did in these. Recent courses count more than older ones. "Algorithms and Data Structures" counts more than "Thoughts of Chairman Mao".Evaluating academic ability is usually a quick process, but can be time-consuming if it's a school we've never heard of or if the grading system is non-standard. I also look at the GRE scores, but that carries much less weight than the grades.Again, there may be other evidence that would mitigate substandard grades or too few core CS courses. If the person has been doing projects demonstrating that he or she has a solid working knowledge in the questionable areas, that's good evidence. Sometimes a recommendation letter or the student's SOP can explain that a period of bad grades was due to sickness or personal problems, but that this is all now resolved.Fourth, and most important, what evidence is there that the person is ready to do research at an elite level? English and academic ability are check-marks -- the majority of our applicants are OK on these -- so it is research ability that really separates the successful candidates from the others.For research ability, I look at research projects described in the student's SOP and in the letters of recommendation. Are the letters from someone we know? If so, how strong is it relative to that person's typical letters.Of course, I also look at the list of publications, if any. Were there any papers accepted at top conferences or journals? First or sole author? If not, what was the student's role in this work? If the case file includes some actual publications, I may skim through these, but there is no time to read them carefully.Any observations made during the investigations outlined above go into the online evaluation form, and then I have to come up with an overall opinion, a numerical score for the person's suitability as a PhD admit, and another score for MLT admission.And then repeat this for all the other cases...Oh, and we do NOT try to remove the name and "discriminating information" from the case in an attempt to prevent any possibility of unconscious bias. I probably would resign from the committee if something like this were imposed.To be clear, I think it's very important to treat each applicant fairly, as an individual and not as a stereotypical member of some group. But I think that crude (and usually ineffective) information-hiding is a seriously misguided way to go about this. Anyway, that's a discussion for another day.

This is based on my experiences at Carnegie Mellon and serving on the Masters admissions committee. So it mostly applies to Masters prospects. I guess some of it would be applicable to other programs and elsewhere too but I can't be sure.Regarding reputation, the Computer Science departments at the 5 older IITs are definitely seen in a very positive light. I don't mean the other IITs are looked down upon but they are "ranked" lower than IIT-B,D,K, KGP and M [1]. So solely based on your undergrad institute, I'd say your prospects are probably better than any other non-IIT Indian applicants. However, as you would expect, it is much much more that simply your undergrad institute.By far, the two most important parts of your application are your reference letters and SOP. However, a number of other things also get reviewed.Letters: Although important, you, as an applicant, don't have much control over what gets submitted since it's most likely based on your past interactions with your recommenders. The only thing you can do is to frankly ask them, at the time of requesting, whether they can write you a "strong" letter. If they say to the contrary or don't seem very enthusiastic, at least you can ask someone else rather than submitting a sub-standard letter that is a no-op for a reviewer. No letter ever says bad things about the applicant. However, it's very easy to distinguish between unconditional praise and an impersonal letter or one using neutral superlatives or a letter that holds back.SOP: I cannot stress enough the importance of writing a good SOP. Primarily, because it is considered important by the reviewers (duh!) but also because it is completely in your control what goes in it. While it needs to be a statement of your past work, it also needs to have a clearly-stated purpose i.e why you want a MS / PhD and why that particular university. The purpose is extremely important. A statement that is an extended version of your resume or has blunders mentioned in here gets reviews like "Typical SOP" First impressions matter too. As mentioned in the link, please don't start with quotes / poems / assembled-a-computer-as-a-kid-was-fascinated-hence-I-always-aspired-to-be-a-computer-scientist BS. If you don't have something nice to start with, cut the crap and get to the point. At least you don't waste the reviewers' time.This goes for what should not be done. Here is what your SOP should have:A good start or if not, get to the point directly with "My interests are in X, Y and Z and I want a Masters to pursue these" or something to that effectAn overview of your past accomplishment with not just the problem statements of your projects but also how you went about solving themA clear purpose which consists of why you want a masters : firstly how it aligns with your interests and secondly, how it helps your future goalsWhy that particular universityGrammar and language are as important. Mistakes here and the attention is drawn to the next part...Test Scores: Although these get highlighted if you have glaring structural / grammatical mistakes in your statement, that is not their only utility. When I applied, I, too, was under the impression that this is simply a formality and didn't take them seriously. However, GRE / TOEFL are certainly important. It's not that you should absolutely strive for perfect scores but don't ignore them or take them lightly.GPA: Obviously matters. To be honest, 8.5 is not a eye-catcher (don't worry, I was 8.7 at the time of my application) but it's not a straight turn-off either. For lower GPAs, your transcript might get reviewed and if you have been consistent in CS courses or if it can be seen that you overloaded yourself or have been upto other relevant things, you don't have to worry too much. But otherwise, it does not look good. For non-CS candidates, since there are no CS courses to refer to, GPA matters even more.Resume: This is usually skimmed through to see other relevant achievement , what else you have been up to and so on.Process for applying is mentioned on all university websites. No point repeating that here. Everything is online - you need to fill up an application form, submit a PDF of your resume and statement and provide recommenders' email addresses where they can upload their letters.Universities you can apply to is quite subjective and I don't have much to say about that. As for scholarships, I've heard that scholarships from the beginning of a Masters program, especially for international students, are rare. However, most universities have tuition waivers along with stipend for TAs / RAs which you can easily apply for and get after the first quarter / semester. CMU does not have this though and to add to that, I was in the first batch of the MS in CS. Being a new program, it was difficult to secure any assistance since professors were apprehensive. I still had the option to become a TA but I chose to take up an extra course than to TA. Even at CMU, the scenario might be very different for other programs but I am not knowledgeable about that.Also, you should definitely read the following before starting your applications:1. Grad School Talk: Mor Harchol-Bater (CMU)2. Demystifying the American Graduate Admission Process[1] Quoting a faculty, "They now have 20 IITs?! The IITs aren't doing their name any good." which is really quite sad.

I studied was an undergrad at CMU and studied both Information Systems and Computer Science. Here are my thoughts in response to your questions:Workload - ECE / Computer Science have a more intense workload and a “do or die” mentality with several courses that weed out some of the incoming students from those programs. I wouldn't let this intimidate you if it's what you want to do. It's difficult to assess how the workload at CMU will feel to you until you get there. Some students who were super worried and uncertain of themselves excelled, and others who felt well-prepared struggled. There is flexibility to change majors if needed.Esteem - Some of the CS/ECE students were of the opinion that IS was less valuable because it didn’t emphasize programming/technical skills enough and had a lighter workload. I would suggest that you leave this point off the table when making a decision and do what feels right for you. Things in the tech industry tend to be more merit-based, and you’ll get a lot more mileage out of being authentic and following your own passion than by having an esteemed program on your resume. Some companies that have offered me jobs didn’t even know where I went to school or what degrees I held.Jobs - It really depends what the student prioritized. Students who took a lot of CS courses or programmed a lot in their spare time often took Software Engineering jobs. Students who emphasized the business side more went on to become startup founders, project managers, or consultants. If you want to be a software engineer and do IS, I would suggest that you plan to leave room in your schedule for the core CS classes or even a minor/double major if that appeals to you.Professors - I think it’s tough to answer this question objectively because teaching styles and learning styles vary widely. I had professors that I liked and disliked in both schools. Prof. Heimann of the IS program was my favorite instructor in my time at CMU and an outstanding project advisor for the junior/senior project courses. The CS school had brilliant instructors in just about every direction, Dave Anderson, Greg Kesden, and many of the other upper-level CS profs were awesome.A few points based on my own experience:Information Systems is an open-ended major. Some folks took far less technical courses in favor of more business or humanities, others minored or double majored in CS to get more technical expertise. Personally I would lean towards CS if I knew I wanted to become a Software Engineer or do something purely technical, and IS if I thought I wanted to become a Project Manager, consultant, work more with people, or if I wasn't really sure where I was headed (which is definitely not a bad thing).Software Engineering companies sometimes prioritize CS/ECE majors. Before I added an additional degree in CS, sometimes recruiters at the big tech companies (Google, etc) would reject me immediately for Software Engineering positions. It’s an unfortunate heuristic, but it happens. Smaller companies and good recruiters tend to be more willing to interview different backgrounds and aren't as likely to make this mistake.Project experience matters. If you’re seeking out a software engineering role, I think things like working on open source projects, architecting and building side projects would make you a viable candidate regardless of which major you choose. This is something I wished I did more in college instead of taking more classes. Most CS students graduate with a great knowledge of algorithms/math/basic programming, but less experience in practical software engineering skills (systems design, architecture, OO design, unit testing, modular design, etc). You will have a significant advantage over others when applying for an engineering job if you have some of those skills.Humanities courses are worthwhile. IS has a gen-ed requirement of humanities courses that was occasionally frustrating but also got me into some interesting electives. I enjoyed courses like rational choice, psychology, and writing. Whichever program you choose, I would take advantage of these because CMU has some great ones which changed the way that I thought and communicated for the better. These skills matter as an engineer more than one might think, especially if you want to move up into a leadership position or influence others in the workplace.Good luck!