Apply to graduate school
A student wrote to me: “I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and applied to study for a M.S degree in the U.S. But I got a rejection letter from the university. I did not know why but want to apply again. What should I do to get better the next time? Please advice."
Answer: There is a difference between applying to an undergraduate program (Bachelor's degree) and graduate programs (MS and PhD degree). Although all students must fill out application forms, write a purpose of statements, send school transcripts, examination scores (GRE, TOEFL etc.), and recommendation letters etc... BUT undergraduate admissions is done by the school admissions administrators who evaluate large numbers of applications covering every field of study based on the university's admission standard; WHEN graduate admissions (MS and PhD degree) is done by each department faculty committee based on their specialty and research interests.
Therefore for graduate admission, the two most important factors are the Statement of Purpose where you indicate what specific area that you want to study, why you want study it, as well as what you plan to do after complete the study (Your education and career goals), and letter of recommendations from your school advisors or professors who know about your capability. Students must understand that a Master's program is designed to give them knowledge and skills in a specialized area. A PhD program is designed to give students extensive expertise to do research in a specialized area. Most graduate programs expected that students already have general knowledge and strong foundation to focus in specific areas within a field of study, as no one go to graduate school to study basic knowledge.
Because the department faculties make decision on your application, you need to clearly identify what specific area that you want to study. For example there are several specialized areas in Computer Science such as embedded system, Computing Security, Robotics, Human Computer Interaction, Software Management, Machine Learning, Data Science etc. and you must identify which one that you want to focus on. A general statement without being specific is often getting rejected because in graduate programs students are trained to specialize in a particular area. If you know what you want to study, then you should put it in your statement of purpose. You cannot send one general statement of purpose to every graduate school and expect that they are the same. This is the most common mistake that I have seen and it is one of the main reasons why so many get rejected.
Because your application is reviewed by the faculty, it is logical that they select only students whose specialize in area that are relevant to their research and interests. Most graduate programs (MS and PhD) are built on the academic relationships between students and professors as they will have to spend a lot of time with each other in mentoring, learning and doing research. Therefore, before applying to any school, you must conduct your own research by carefully review the department as well as several professors in specific areas that you want to study. Most professors have their own websites, Facebook or Linkeln pages, which provide you with a complete list of their research interests and publications. You need to know about their works as you will try to convince them that you are the right student for their program. You will need to look for at least three or four professors in the department whose specialties are relevant to your interests. You must read some of their publications to know more about them then modify your statement of purpose to fit their interests. If you seems to know something about their research and state that you want to focus on learning something in that area then they would consider you more favorably during the admission review.
Recommendation letter from professors who taught you provides some good evidence about your capabilities as they know you well. Do NOT send letter of recommendation from your relatives or parents, even though they also know you well. What do you think the faculty committee would react when they read some letters that say “My son is the smartest people on earth” or “My daughter is a genius in computer science.” And you should accept them?
Beside the statement of purpose and letter of recommendations, factor such as Grade Point Average (GPA) is also important. Most professor would pay attention to courses relate to the area that you are applying. For example, if you want to study Data Science then the grade in Artificial Intelligence course, the Algorithm course, the Statistics course, and Math course must be excellent as they are the foundation of Data science. Also your score on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is an indicator about your overall knowledge to distinguish you from others. If you are foreign students then you must have good score on the TOEFL as language proficiency is very important since you must read, write and speak English fluently. A good TOEFL iBT score of 100 or IELTS score of 7.5 are the minimum to get into good graduate schools.
A common question that student often ask me is about the difference between good schools which are difficult to get in and private for profit schools which are easier to get in. In my opinion, it is better to attend a good school for your graduate degree than to attend a not-so-good school even you still get a degree. Today advanced degrees (MS and PhD) does not mean much if it come from an unknown school. For advanced degrees, school reputation is the most important way to get good jobs. It is important to be prepared to get into a graduate program that is worth attending, where you will learn to be specialists, an expert in the specialized area than just have a “worthless piece of paper” from an unknown school.
Of course, when you apply for a good graduate school, you will be competing against people who go to good schools, get good grades, and have good letters of recommendation so you must be prepared. It is important to note that with advanced degrees, you will be among a community of top scientists and specialists in a special area, if you are attending a good university then it is easier to get accepted by other members where they may help you to build and advance your career.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
