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Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

jeffhuang.com

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Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#111

Post by pnathan »

Fomite wrote: post #76
rmk2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you work remotely, there is a good chance you will be left out. Of course, "interaction" can be done remotely. But many other things cannot. Showing your face every now and then around other people is quite important. Somebody is organising a seminar? Somebody is organising a conference? Somebody is looking for someone to teach a couple of their lessons? If you are the person that never shows up, you will be the p…

I did my dissertation remotely, and to keep up with people, make sure my network was strong, push through the things that sometimes just need you there with a piece of paper and keep everyone happy, I was in the car an awful lot. It's not a tactic I'd recommend to anyone unless their circumstances were strongly dictating it, and there's definitely stuff lost in the process. And my department wasn't particularly "coll…

I did my Master's work part-time and semi-remotely - I lived and worked in the same geographical area as the University, and it was hard.

I would recommend against it in exceptionally strenuous terms for the PhD. Full-time on-site PhD or don't bother IMO. It just decreases the educational intensity and quality so much not to do that.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#112

Post by _delirium »

jrs99 wrote: post #31
pnathan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcasm detector might be failing, but PhD work has very little to do with homework....

to get into a phd program, i mean. a phd from a "top school" means you did your homework in college and high school.

That's not as true anymore. If you did some interesting independent-research projects as an undergrad, which you got published as conference papers, that strongly overrides your undergrad course grades nowadays, at most schools. Basically publications trump everything, and grades are only used if you don't have any publications.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#113

Post by ank286 »

banachtarski wrote: post #109

As a person who was about to apply to PhD programs but changed my mind due to insufficient recommendations, I'm glad somebody else realizes that PhD admissions is utter bull crap. 185 dollar GRE that I can get in the 99th percentile on with ZERO studying? Grades that aren't normalized across institutions weighed heavily? Need recs from established professors who can slip in a good word for you? Oh sorry, you were act…

HAHA. As a PhD student, I agree with most of your sentiments. The PhD application process is nothing, try applying for fellowships. Go to a prestigious institution, pull allnighters, to get a subpar gpa, and have no time for volunteering activities. These are the criteria you need to satisfy to get something like NSF GRP (Broader Impact is 50% of the application). You might have a better shot at a lesser prestigious university with a not-so-great engineering program and being a super smart person, killing it. Then, apply for fellowship --> you will get it. It is all a rubric.

Now on to the game of academia. It is one that is based on reputation, papers, and not money. No one cares for efficiency either and no one is building crap. All they are doing is trying out different "solutions," which may or may not make any sense. For instance, "hey guys, let's apply game theory to problem X, it will be a good/novel experiment and we can get a paper out of it." Waste of tax dollars. The logical answer that solves problem X might have already been solved and can be solved using ordinary methods, but academia doesn't want that. Research labs have business models, keep proposing new complexity on complexities, very unnecessary. Overcrowded fields like computer vision reek of this.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#114

Post by jxtx »

banachtarski wrote: post #109

As a person who was about to apply to PhD programs but changed my mind due to insufficient recommendations, I'm glad somebody else realizes that PhD admissions is utter bull crap. 185 dollar GRE that I can get in the 99th percentile on with ZERO studying? Grades that aren't normalized across institutions weighed heavily? Need recs from established professors who can slip in a good word for you? Oh sorry, you were act…

As a person who reads PhD applications and works with graduate students, bullshit.

I care a little about your GRE scores, it is a filter, you need some kind of standardized comparable. Congrats on getting in the 99th percentile (that's expected). I don't care much about your GPA. I might look at what classes you took. I will probably look at your reference letters briefly. They might be from professors, they might not. I don't care. I love the fact that you have some startup or industry experience, you are slightly more likely to actually know how to get things done.

The very first thing I read is your cover letter, then straight to your research statement which I will read in great detail. The only thing I care about is do you have a passion for research, are you likely to be successful at it.

At most research institutions in most areas of science, we have to pay our graduate students stipend and tuition, either right away or after a year. This is a damn good incentive to get students in who are going to do great research.

All I care about is getting great researchers in the door and (eventually, hopefully) into my lab. So, my advice: focus on your research statement. Tailor it to the department your are applying to, talk about the research they are doing there. But, have your own agenda. At least know what research areas you are passionate about.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#115

Post by Balgair »

p1esk wrote: post #95
Balgair wrote: post #71

I'm applying as we speak, but in Bioeng. When I email professors and get to talking they always coach that they do NOT have control over the admissions process, that a committee acts as Maxwell's demon. Though I am not applying to Brown and do not know anything about the internals of their process, this seems to indicated that professor Huang has at least some control over the admissions. If I were professor Huang, I…

Are you kidding? Of course a professor has control over the admission process. If he wants you on his team, you're in, unless you have a criminal record, or GPA below 3.0 (or whatever is absolute minimum for that particular grad school). Think of it as a hiring process, with the professor as a hiring manager.

No, I am not kidding.

Based on the conversations I have had, it seems to be typical that a committee selects the applicants, not the professors. That is what all the professors tell me.

That being said, I would be stunned if this were the truth. There is no frickin way that this happens. Here's how I imagine it:

'Admissions committee is in session' 'So, which of these bozos we gonna pick?' 'I want Joe, Schmo, and Dingus' 'Sweet, I want Harry, and Fiona' 'Ok, we all cool?' 'Yep' 'Aite, lets get beers'

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#116

Post by p1esk »

Balgair wrote: post #115
p1esk wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you kidding? Of course a professor has control over the admission process. If he wants you on his team, you're in, unless you have a criminal record, or GPA below 3.0 (or whatever is absolute minimum for that particular grad school). Think of it as a hiring process, with the professor as a hiring manager.

No, I am not kidding. Based on the conversations I have had, it seems to be typical that a committee selects the applicants, not the professors. That is what all the professors tell me. That being said, I would be stunned if this were the truth. There is no frickin way that this happens. Here's how I imagine it: 'Admissions committee is in session' 'So, which of these bozos we gonna pick?' 'I want Joe, Schmo, and Din…

Well, the committee also has a job of selecting the rest of the applicants, if there are still places left after professors made their recommendations.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#117

Post by kraskat »

Like Jeff I am also a young faculty member at Brown (http://cs.brown.edu/~kraskat/) and I couldn't agree more with him. The Ph.D. application process has a lot of flaws. We (the Big Data Management Group at Brown) are also always looking for very talented people and similar to Jeff we started to hand out small challenges to candidates interested in doing data-centric systems research (see also http://cs.brown.edu/~kraskat/phd14.html). In addition, last year we started a research internship program (http://database.cs.brown.edu/big-data-internship) - it is quite competitive to get in, but still easier than to be admitted to the PhD program, and the best way for both sides to determine if there is a good fit with the group and the PhD program. Finally, I would like to mention, that we actually do consider MOOC courses and github portfolios as part of the candidate evaluation.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#118

Post by banachtarski »

jxtx wrote: post #114
banachtarski wrote: post #109

As a person who was about to apply to PhD programs but changed my mind due to insufficient recommendations, I'm glad somebody else realizes that PhD admissions is utter bull crap. 185 dollar GRE that I can get in the 99th percentile on with ZERO studying? Grades that aren't normalized across institutions weighed heavily? Need recs from established professors who can slip in a good word for you? Oh sorry, you were act…

As a person who reads PhD applications and works with graduate students, bullshit. I care a little about your GRE scores, it is a filter, you need some kind of standardized comparable. Congrats on getting in the 99th percentile (that's expected). I don't care much about your GPA. I might look at what classes you took. I will probably look at your reference letters briefly. They might be from professors, they might no…

What you are telling me is completely at odds with what others have told me (including faculty on admissions committees) so I imagine it varies from institution to institution. I had a pretty compelling application a year ago and my statement (in my opinion anyways) demonstrated that I was caught up with the academic literature on a particular topic and I had done some work myself implementing and attempting to improve existing techniques. I realized that I may not have worked on that topic in particular, but my hope was that it would demonstrate research aptitude. My application was rejected from 8 schools and I contacted several to see what the problem may have been.

The GRE point I was trying to make was that since 99th percentiles are expected, the test shouldn't exist at all as it is clearly a poor filter.

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#119

Post by banachtarski »

ank286 wrote: post #113
banachtarski wrote: post #109

As a person who was about to apply to PhD programs but changed my mind due to insufficient recommendations, I'm glad somebody else realizes that PhD admissions is utter bull crap. 185 dollar GRE that I can get in the 99th percentile on with ZERO studying? Grades that aren't normalized across institutions weighed heavily? Need recs from established professors who can slip in a good word for you? Oh sorry, you were act…

HAHA. As a PhD student, I agree with most of your sentiments. The PhD application process is nothing, try applying for fellowships. Go to a prestigious institution, pull allnighters, to get a subpar gpa, and have no time for volunteering activities. These are the criteria you need to satisfy to get something like NSF GRP (Broader Impact is 50% of the application). You might have a better shot at a lesser prestigious…

Don't even get me started on funding and fellowships haha. I think trying to get funding in math must be the worst. Every formula has to boil down to "security this" or "missile navigation that."

Re: Ph.D. 2.0: Rethinking the Ph.D. Application

#120

Post by yetanotherphd »

timburus wrote: post #106
skj wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very interesting perspective on working for Google. That is, that it's a waste of time. In my experience, working at Google is a blast both in terms of compensation and exciting projects.

If you were luckier than others it doesn't necesserily make you an example to be followed.

I wouldn't call it luck. Google is consistently ranked as one of the top workplaces. Out of a large number of my co-workers at Google, almost all of them seem to enjoy their work. Very few people are unhappy or seeking to leave. The main difficulty is getting in.
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