Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

How to choose your letter writers? The best LoRs I've seen usually come from a faculty/research who publishes in highly selective venues If you are in CS, you can use http://csrankings.org  to see what are considered the most selective CS venues (ignore rankings for now) 6/13

What about other LoRs? I would argue you need at least 1 from a research supervisor. Letters from industry internships seldom help (unless it's publishable research). You're better off getting a letter from a professor who taught you a relevant *technical* course you Aced 7/13

A great statement of purpose (1) shows clarity and depth of thought and (2) demonstrates alignment between your background and the PhD research you want to pursue. This is why it should be the cherry on top of the cake 8/13

SoP should highlight: 1- Area of interest (& possibly profs you want to work with) 2- Briefly: your academics (grades,honors,projects) 3- Your prior and ongoing research projects. For each proj, talk about motivation, your role & contribution, & outcome/status 9/13

What if you're not exactly sure of what your area of interest? Or if your prior research is not aligned with it? If I'm being honest, this is where the final cutoff usually happens at very selective schools. There are three ways around it 10/13

1- If the application deadline is 3 months away, thoroughly read papers recently published in an area of interest 2- If you have more time, try your best to do research in that area 3- Do a Masters first These can help you clarify your own purpose for pursuing research 11/13

What about GRE and TOEFL? I never personally looked at them. Anything they would tell about communication or technical skills should come out in the LoRs and SoP 12/13

Final thought: Admission decisions are hard because there are many amazingly qualified applicants. The process also varies quite a bit across schools. If you're an aspiring PhD, I hope this thread can help you help us admit you! 13/13