Computer Science

PhD Admissions

Demystifying Computer Science

PhD Admissions in the U.S.

by ThanhVu Nguyen
ñ This book is last compiled on March 25, 2025. It is available at

[Link]/phd-cs-us/[Link],

and its LATEX source is on GitHub. If you have questions or comments, feel free to
create new GitHub issues or discussions.

Demystifying Computer Science PhD Admissions in the U.S. © 2025 by

ThanhVu Nguyen is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

2
Preface

Having been involved in PhD admission committees for many years, I’ve observed
that international students, especially those in smaller countries or less well-
known universities, often lack a clear understanding of the Computer Science PhD
admission process at US universities. This confusion not only discourages students
from applying but also creates the perception that getting admitted to a CS PhD
program in the US is difficult compared to other countries.
So I want to share some details about the admission process and advice for those
who are interested in applying for a PhD in Computer Science in the US.
Originally, this book was written for international students, but has been expanded
to include information for US domestic students (§C). Moreover, while this
primarily aims at students interested in CS, it might be relevant to students from
various STEM (Science, Technologies, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines.
Furthermore, although many examples are specifics for schools that I and other
contributors of this book know about, the information should be generalizable to
other good R1 institutions in the US.
This information can also help US faculty and admission committee gain
a better understanding of international students and their cultural differences (§H).
By recognizing and leveraging these differences, CS programs in the US can attract
larger and more competitive application pools from international students.
I wish you the best of luck.

3
Contents and Summary

I Introduction 1

1 Should You Apply? 2

Yes, definitely. CS PhD study in the US is often fully funded and admission
into good universities in the US is not any harder than in other countries.
1.1 What’s a PhD in CS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 How long to complete the CS PhD program? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
About 5–7 years in the US.
1.3 My undergrad was not in CS or related areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
You can successfully apply to CS PhD even if you have non-CS background.
1.4 Is MS required for admission to PhD in CS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
You do not need an MS to do PhD in CS.
1.5 PhD in the US vs. Other Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Among several differences, CS PhD in the US does not require an MS degree
but has a longer PhD study time.
1.6 About this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
This book aims to provide in depth information about the CS PhD admission
process in the US. It is particularly useful for international students
from smaller countries and less well-known universities as they often
lack access to such information.

2 How is Your Application Evaluated? 8

Applications are evaluated by the PhD Admission (adcom) committee and each
application is typically reviewed by three faculty members.
2.1 Admission Committee (adcom) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Adcom members are faculty who evaluate your application. They consider
various factors, e.g., research experience, LoRs, SOP
2.2 How applications are assigned to adcom members? . . . . . . . . . . 9
Adcom members only review applications assigned to them (typically match-
ing their expertise) and rarely get involved in other applications
2.3 How are decisions made? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

4
 Even if all adcom reviewers recommend acceptance, the application can still
be rejected. Vice versa, if all reviewers think the application is weak,
the student might still be admitted.
2.4 Do adcom members talk to each other? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Sometimes adcom members discuss applicants, but in most cases they make
independent decisions.
2.5 Waiving the application fee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

II Application Materials 12

3 Letters of Recommendation (LoR) 14

LORs are very important, but only if they are personalized and research
focused.
3.1 LoR writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
LoR writers should be someone who (i) can talk in depth about your research
experience and potential and (ii) have the credibility to evaluate your
research ability.
3.1.1 LoR from Well-Known People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.2 LoRs from Dept Chair, Dean, or Supervisor at Work . . . . . 16
3.1.3 Generic Letters are Bad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1.4 Self-written Letters are Bad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Asking for LORs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Ask for LoRs at least a month before the deadline. Waive your right to see
the letter. Help your writers by providing details about your research
experience and potential.
3.2.1 Waiving Your Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.2.2 Helping your LOR Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.3 Reminding Your Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.2.4 Thank Your Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2.5 How is a LoR written? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4 Research Experience 22
Publications are not required but can greatly help. Papers in good venues
are concrete evidence that you have successfully engaged in research.
4.1 Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.2 Work Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.3 Competitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

5 Statement of Purpose (SOP) 25

SOP is important. Write it in such a way that makes you stand out.
5.1 Kiss of Death in SOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6 Your School and Grades 28
High grades probably won’t help much, but bad ones likely will raise concerns.
6.1 School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
6.2 Grades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

7 Standard Tests (GRE and IELTS) 31

Standard tests are not important. GRE typically is not required. For standard
English tests (not required for domestic students), just do enough to pass
the minimum requirements.
7.1 GREs Are Optional and Do Not Matter for PhD Admissions . . . . 31
7.2 English Tests (IELTS, TOEFL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

8 Miscellaneous 33
8.1 CV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Highlight and summarize major achievements such as major publications
and competitive programming awards.
8.2 Writing Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
8.3 Online Courses and Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

III After You Apply 35

9 Interview and the Waiting Game 36

Getting an interview is typically a good sign; but no interview does not mean
rejection.
9.1 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
9.2 Not Getting Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
9.3 Notification Timeline: Why rejection letters are sent so late? . . . . 38
Grad programs often wait for accepted students to make their decisions,
typically by April 15, before sending out rejection letters.

10 Getting Admitted 39
Congrats! Now it is your turn to evaluate the school! Attend Open House to
learn more about the place and interview profs—they would be much more
willing to talk to you now.
10.1 Checking Status, Accepting, Postponing, and Decline Offers . . . . . 40
10.2 Negotiating PhD offer (e.g., having multiple offers)? . . . . . . . . . 41
You will not be able to negotiate stipend, but you can ask for specific start
date, TA assignment, and conference travel budget.
10.3 Offer Letters and Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
The offer letter is essentially an employment contract. Make sure to read
and understand the terms of the offer.
10.4 Buying Computer Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
 Ask your prof. if they can buy computer equipment and such for your research.

11 Dealing with Rejection 44

Rejection is part of academia. Common reasons for rejection include aiming
too high, not a good fit, and bad luck. Do not take rejection personally.
Learn from it and try again.
11.1 Try Again! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
11.2 Why did you get rejected? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
You aim too high, are overqualified, or even because you applied to
AI/ML, a super competitive field in recent years with many
applicants.
11.2.1 Your profile is not as strong as you think . . . . . . . . . . . 45
11.2.2 Other Common Reasons for Rejection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
11.3 Increasing your admission chance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
You can improve your profile by being unique and standing out.

IV Funding, Schools, and Profs. 48

12 Funding 49
TAs, RAs, and fellowships are main funding sources for PhDs. TAs are pro-
vided by the department to help with classes. RAs are given by profs. to help
with their research. Fellowships, provided by the university, department, or
external sources such as government or industry, give move flexibility but
can be very competitive.
12.1 Graduate Assistantship (TA/RA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
12.1.1 Teaching Assistant (TA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
12.1.2 Research Assistant (RA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
12.2 Fellowships/Scholarships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
12.3 Miscs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
12.3.1 Low Stipend? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
12.3.2 Funding In the Summer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
12.3.3 How much do you cost? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Your entire PhD program costs about $400K in total, but you do not
pay for it.

13 Choosing Schools 56
Not every university has a CS PhD program. Not every professor, even those
in CS, can advise or graduate CS PhD students.
13.1 Choosing a University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Select schools based on their CS program and faculty research interests.
13.1.1 Schools offering PhD in CS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
13.1.2 Selecting and Ranking Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
 13.1.3 PhD in other related fields: CE, IST, Cybersecurity . . . . . 58

14 Choosing an Adviser 59
The best adviser is the one that you can work well with. But you do not know
that until you start working with them.
14.1 Finding an Adviser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
14.2 Types of Faculty: Who can serve as a PhD adviser? . . . . . . . . . 61
14.2.1 Faculty Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
14.2.2 Ranks (Assistant, Associate, Full, and More) . . . . . . . . . 63
14.3 Tenured or tenure-track faculty? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
14.4 Contacting a Prof. How to get a desired reply? . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Individually faculty member cannot directly admit a student—so do not
email and ask if you have a chance. However, faculty can advocate for
a student and therefore increase their admission chance—so contact
and introduce yourself.
14.4.1 Kiss of Death in Emails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
14.4.2 Interpreting Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
14.4.3 Are profs. so busy that they completely ignore emails? . . . . 69
14.5 Research Achievements and Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
14.5.1 Research Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

V Miscs and FAQs 73

15 Miscs and FAQs 74

15.1 “Chance me” on getting admitted to T10 programs . . . . . . . . . . 74
15.2 How long does it take to evaluate an application? . . . . . . . . . . . 75
It takes me about 10–15 minutes to review an application.
15.3 Checking for AI in SOPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
15.4 How to call or address a professor? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
What should you call your profs.? Many possibilities (e.g., prof., Dr., and
even their firstnames), but not Mr., Mrs., or their firstname in the
first email.

VI Appendices 79

A Glossary and Acronyms 80

B Visa for International Students 86

B.1 For Spouses and Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
C Domestic Students 89
Specific benefits and opportunities for domestic students applying to CS PhD
programs.

D MS Admission 91
MS focuses on coursework and prepares you for industry, while PhD focuses
on research and prepares you for academia or research. So admission re-
quirements are different.
D.1 Differences between PhD and MS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
D.2 MS Admission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
D.2.1 Admission Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
D.2.2 Application Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
D.2.3 Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
D.2.4 Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
D.3 Selecting and Ranking Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

E Research Opportunities 96
How to get research experience as an undergrad.
E.1 Locally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
E.2 Open Source Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
E.3 Virtual Research Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

F Fellowship Applications 99
How fellowships such as NSF GRFP and DOD DSEG are evaluated.
F.1 NSF GRFP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
F.1.1 How Applications are Evaluated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
F.1.2 Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
F.1.3 Common Pitfalls and Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
F.2 DoD NDSEG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
F.2.1 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
F.2.2 Common Pitfalls and Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
F.3 Common Tips for Both Fellowships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

G Writing in LATEX 105

Why you should write your academic documents in LATEX.

H Academic and Cultural Differences 106

H.1 Academic Integrity (Cheating and Plagiarism) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
H.2 Illegal Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
H.3 Costly Gifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
H.4 Maintaining Good Relationships with your Profs. . . . . . . . . . . . 107
H.5 Miscs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
I CSRankings: Rankings of CS PhD programs 110
[Link] is a ranking system based on faculty publications at top CS
conferences.

J History and Acknowledgement 112

 Part I

Introduction

1
Chapter 1

Should You Apply?

“Don’t make fun of graduate
students. They just made a
terrible life choice.”
The Simpsons

Many students, especially those from less well-known universities and smaller
countries, often wonder if they should apply to a CS PhD program in the US. Com-
mon concerns include (i) the difficulty of getting admitted and (ii) the cost of
graduate study in the US.
Much of these uncertainties stem from the lack of information and guidance on
the admission process in the US. Social platforms like Facebook and Reddit are full of
confusion and contradictory information. This book aims to address these concerns.

Not any harder than other countries Applying to a good US university should
not be any harder than at schools in other countries. It might even be more flexible
since CS PhD in the US do not require having an MS or a research topic, proposal,
or adviser in advance (§1.5 compares CS PhD study in the US to other countries).
It doesn’t even require having a CS background (§1.3). If you believe you have a
chance in other countries, e.g., South Korea, Singapore, Germany, UK, Japan, and
Australia, then you will surely have a chance in the US as well.

Funding is not an issue PhD students in CS do not need to worry about funding,
especially at good R1 universities in the US. If you are admitted, you will almost
certainly receive full funding (§12) to support your study. This includes tuition,
health insurance, and stipend (i.e., in STEM field you get paid for your study!).
For many students, the stipends provided are not only sufficient to cover your own
living expenses but also enough to support your families (e.g., spouse and children),
allowing them to live comfortably.
Moreover, you often receive additional benefits such as summer pay (§12.3.2),

2
laptops (§10.4), and traveling to conferences and workshops. Full funding for CS
PhD students is the norm in the US, and I’d go as far as to say that if you are not
admitted with full funding, you might want to not accept the offer.

1.1 What’s a PhD in CS?

A PhD in CS is a research degree. Unlike undergraduate or even Master’s programs
(§D), which focus on breadth of knowledge through coursework, a PhD is all about
depth and pushing the boundary of one specific area within a CS field (e.g., soft-
ware verification within the field of programming languages or formal methods) and
contributing something new to the field that has never been done before.

× Vu This series of pictures from Matt Might illustrates what a PhD means.

A CS PhD prepares you for careers that require deep technical expertise and the
ability to do independent research. Many graduates become professors or academic
researchers, just as many pursue positions in industry research labs, advanced en-
gineering teams, or technical leadership positions. The degree also opens doors to
national labs, government agencies, and startups, where the ability to solve open-
ended, complex problems are needed.
The PhD is not just a degree, it is a testament that you have mastered the art
of research. This includes identifying limitations or gaps in knowledge, formulating
hypotheses and ideas, establishing/proving theorems and designing/implementing
algorithms, conducting experiments and analyzing results, etc.

1.2 How long to complete the CS PhD program?

Typically, it takes 5–7 years for CS PhD in the US. This can be longer compared to
other countries (§1.5), which might require MS (§D.1) first.
The first two years you typically take coursework (somewhat equivalent to an
MS study), find an adviser, and learn how to do research. The next 2–3 years you
focus on your research, form a dissertation topic, and get results published. The last
1–2 years you continue to publish, write and defend your dissertation, and look for
a job. Within these 5–7 years, CS PhD students often take a “leave of absence” for
1–2 semesters or summer to do internships at companies and research labs.

× Vu: I start my PhD with an MS, and it took me 7 years (Fall’07– Fall’14). I
spent half a year doing an internship at the Naval Research Lab. My PhD did take
a bit longer than usual, but allows me to explore various research areas and topics.
Fig. 1.1: The “ambition” level of a PhD student over their years of study (they miss the
6–7th year when the ambition is “Just let me graduate”).

1.3 My undergrad was not in CS or related areas

You still can apply to PhD in CS as long as you can demonstrate you are ready for
it through your background, research experience, LoRs, statements, etc. You might
be even able to leverage this to make your profile stand out as mentioned in §11.3.
A main concern adcom (§2.1) has for a non-CS or non-STEM student is if you
have the sufficient technical background obtained through core CS courses. So you
need to show that you have such knowledge through your coursework, projects, or
research. For example, if you have taken a course on Algorithms, even online ones
like Coursera, you can talk about it in your SOP. If you have done a project that
requires knowledge of OS or have a professional certification (e.g., A+) through work,
you can talk about it. If you have done research that requires knowledge of Discrete
Maths, you can talk about it. You can also ask your LoR writers to talk about your
technical background. In summary, in your application, convince us that you have
the background to do CS PhD research.

Core CS topics Common CS knowledge that you should know are:

• Programming Foundation (e.g., programming concepts in some modern lan-

guages)

• Discrete Math (e.g., logic, set theory, proof techniques)

• Data Structures and Algorithms (e.g., linked lists, trees, sorting, searching)
 • Computer OS or Systems (e.g., memory management, file systems, processes)

In short, you do not need to formally take CS courses, you just need to show
that you have this essential knowledge, e.g., through the mentioned ways. Many
universities are well aware that incoming graduate students might not have all the
technical background, so they often have a “bridge” courses to help students catch
up. For example, Mason has four bridge courses corresponding to the four core areas
above that incoming students can take to catch up on their CS knowledge.

× Vu: I would advocate for a non-STEM student who shows that they have a
strong drive for CS by studying core CS knowledge through various channels (e.g.,
self-study through online courses, projects, etc.). I have seen many students with non-
CS backgrounds who are very successful in CS PhD. I also have seen many students
with CS background who are not successful in CS PhD. So it is not about your
background, it is about your drive and passion for CS research.

1.4 Is MS required for admission to PhD in CS?

No, while other countries often require an MS for PhD student in CS (§1.5), it is
common in the US to apply for a PhD program directly after a 4-year undergrad
program (e.g., after getting a B.S degree). Most CS PhD programs are designed so
that students can get MS degree “along the way” to PhD, e.g., after finishing the
2-year course work.
However, MS can help admission if it gives research experience or is from a more
well-known school than your undergrad institution (§6). Moreover, if you have an
MS then some course work might be transferred for course credits, which might save
some time. But in general don’t count finishing earlier just because you have an MS.

× Vu: I start my PhD with an MS in CS from a US university. I found that the MS

helped me in gaining research experience, but I still had to retake courses because I
did my MS at a different university. So in the end, I did not save any time because
of the MS.
In general, don’t worry if you don’t have an MS. But also don’t feel that you wasted
your time if you have an MS, as it can help you in research.

1.5 PhD in the US vs. Other Countries

Tab. 1.1 summarizes the main differences between CS PhD in the US and other
countries. Note that these differences can vary by institution and country. Some
countries might have a PhD program that is similar to the US. The following are
some common differences:
 Tab. 1.1: Comparison of the CS PhD program in the US and other countries

Aspect US PhD Programs Other Countries

Duration 5-7 years 3-5 years
MS Required Not required Often required
Coursework Required Yes (first 2 years) No
Research Proposal Required No Yes (in some countries)
Academic (Faculty) Job Direct Postdoc
Work Life Balance Less More

MS requirement and PhD duration: CS PhD programs in the US do not require

an MS degree (as mentioned in §1.2 and §1.4). In contrast, many other countries
require having an MS degree before joining a PhD program. This means that US
PhD programs are longer (5–7 years, 2 of which are coursework) than other countries
(3–4 years, no coursework).
Project proposal : in many countries, you have to choose a project and adviser
during the application process (e.g., you write a proposal to a potential adviser).
But this allows you to start your research right from the beginning.
In the US, you often start your PhD without an adviser or project and find them
later. Usually you have two initial years to take classes, explore and find an adviser
and research topic.
Course work : In the US ou will spend the first couple of years taking classes
and exploring potential adviser and research topics. After that, you have to pass a
series of exams during your PhD, e.g., qualifying exam, comprehensive exam, thesis
proposal defense1 .
In other countries, you often start your research right away and work on the
research project you proposed with the adviser you chose. Moreover, you might not
have exams like those in the US or only have to do a few of them.
Funding: In many countries, funding comes from the university or the gov’t.
This funding often has a fixed duration, e.g., 3 or 4 years. In the US (§12), funding
(e.g., RA) comes directly from your adviser (no fixed duration). There are also fewer
TA opportunities in European universities compared to the US.
Academic position after PhD: In other countries, PhD graduates interested in
academia typically apply for additional research appointments, i.e., postdocs, and
then consider faculty positions.
In the US, PhD graduates often apply directly for faculty positions. Postdoc for
US graduates is no longer a popular option as it was before.
Work-life balance: PhD students in the US are often said to be overworked
compared to other countries, e.g., in Europe. This is partly due to the longer PhD
1
ABD (all but dissertation) refers to a PhD candidate who has finished all course work and
exams and only needs to write and defend their dissertation.
program and that US PhD students are often paid through TA, which requires them
to do TA in addition to their own research. In contrast, PhD students in other
countries are often paid through fellowships, which might not require doing TA.

1.6 About this book

Who is this book for? While this book can be useful for all students, it would
most benefit international students from smaller countries and less well-known uni-
versities. It is also useful for domestic students from small US universities with no
PhD programs or limited research opportunities (§E).
Students from top schools with strong research programs and experience might
already know some of the information in this book. They likely have received guid-
ance from their professors or grad students who have gone through the process.
Students from smaller schools or countries, however, might not have access to such
resources and know where to start. My goal is thus to level the playing field by
providing info that is not readily available to less privileged students. I hope to
encourage more students with such backgrounds to apply and succeed.

Why this book? This book aims to be a comprehensive guide to the CS PhD
admission process in the US. It is based on my and other contributors’ experience
in the CS depart. I also try to explain the reasons behind the admission process.
While there are numerous resources online that tell you “what” to do, few explain
the “why”, e.g., why LoRs matter so much, why you should not draft your own LoR,
why you should contact professors, etc. Understanding the reason and mindset of
the admission committee and profs. can help you prepare better.
This book is a also personal project (§J) that I continuously update and refine,
especially during the admission season. I usually work on it when I procrastinate
from research or other tasks-it’s my way of telling myself that I am still productive!
Writing is a relaxing process for me, and I enjoy experimenting with new things in
LATEX along the way (§G). Thus, this book is an ever-evolving project!
Chapter 2

How is Your Application

Evaluated?

After you submit your PhD application, it will first be checked for general require-
ments, e.g., did you submit your transcripts and standard scores? Usually, this
screening process is done through a central university system, i.e., not by CS faculty.
After screening, your application is complete and forwarded to the CS department
for further evaluation. If you don’t pass screening, the system will tell you what is
missing and what you need to do. So pay attention to your email and check your
application status regularly.

× Hakan: At Mason, for full consideration, students should make sure to submit
ALL required documents by the application deadline, and should never assume that
some required documents (such as official TOEFL scores or official diplomas/tran-
scripts) will be waived by the admissions office. If something is listed and not marked
as “optional”, it is mandatory and they should plan for submitting all those.

2.1 Admission Committee (adcom)

Your applications are reviewed by a PhD admission committee or adcom that consists
of faculty members in CS1 . Adcom members have a wide range of expertise and
background to ensure diverse perspectives in the evaluation process. For example,
there would be faculty who specialize in various areas such as AI, systems, theory,
HCI, and so on.
The size and the review load of the adcom depend on the department size. At
Mason, the PhD adcom typically has 15–20 faculty, and each committee member is
assigned to review about 30 applications. Note that most large schools, including
Mason, have separate adcoms for MS programs (§D).
1
In some cases the committee can involve affiliated faculty from different disciplines.

8
 The PhD adcom typically involves assistant professors in the department (see
§14.2 for various types of faculty). This provides junior faculty the opportunities
to recruit students. The adcom chair will likely be a senior faculty, but they will
not review individual applications and instead assign them to committee members.
The chair will look at various factors such as research interests or mentioning faculty
names to assign the applications to appropriate faculty, e.g., I am often assigned to
review applicants interested in software engineering.
Each application is assigned to about three adcom members, who will evaluate
your profile and reach a consensus. They will consider various factors, e.g., research
experience, GPA, LoRs, SOP, test scores, and interviews. More details about these
factors are discussed in Part VI.

× Vu: At Mason, we usually decide that a full-time PhD candidate is either (i)
admitted with funding (§12) or (ii) rejected. In other words, in most cases, we either
admit you with full funding or reject your application. In some rare cases, we admit
without funding because you have funding on your own, e.g., supported by your
government or having external fellowships. We justify our decision (§15.2) with a
summary of your application, where we list strengths, e.g., came from a well-known
school, and weaknesses, e.g., weak and generic LoRs.

2.2 How applications are assigned to adcom members?

While adcom members (in fact, any faculty) can view any application, we only review
those that are assigned to us, which are already too many. Adcom chair will assign
applications to reviewers based on their expertise (e.g., if a student says they want
to do SE or interested in working with me), and reviewers will only review those
applications. Occasionally we might look at other applications, e.g., if we know the
student or have some special circumstances (e.g., if that student contacted me, I
know that student, they are from Vietnam, etc). However, even if we look at them,
we usually do not get involved in their evaluation.
Note that while the assigned reviewers are the main ones deciding your applica-
tion, other faculty in the department can also have access to your application and
provide inputs and opinions on your profile. Thus, it helps to contact faculty (§14.4)
and mention faculty you’re interested in in your SOP (§5).

2.3 How are decisions made?

After reviewers have evaluated an application, adcom chair will review all evalua-
tions, look at entered notes, and ask reviewers to discuss and resolve discrepancies
to reach a consensus (e.g., a reviewer wants to accept but the other wants to reject).
Typically, the decision is made entirely by the reviewers; there is no involvement
from the adcom chair, department chair, or others. In most cases adcom members,
even those reviewing the same application, make decisions independently and do not
talk to each other (just a common practice to avoid biasing). In some rare cases we
might (§2.4).
Even if all reviewers recommend acceptance, the application is not automatically
accepted, especially if no faculty is willing to advise the student. For example, if
the student is interested in a research area that no faculty is working on, or an area
where no faculty is taking new students (e.g., AI/ML where faculty likely already has
many students) then the student will not be admitted. This is increasingly common
as the number of applicants grows much faster than the number of available faculty.
Note that not every CS faculty can formally advise and graduate CS PhD students
(§14.2).
However, if the student has contacted a faculty member and that faculty is
interested in the student and has made this known to the admission committee, then
the student is likely to be admitted, even if the faculty does not review the application
or has funding (thus the benefit of contacting faculty as discussed in §14.4).
Similarly, if the student mentioned a faculty in their SOP, adcom might ask that
faculty to look at their application and if they are interested in the student. Even
if the student has a weak profile (but still passes the minimum requirement from
the university), they might be admitted if a faculty is willing to take them. Adcom
members, especially in the US, are very reluctant to go against the faculty’s decision
(e.g., if a faculty wants to admit a student, we are not going to reject them).

2.4 Do adcom members talk to each other?

We typically review applications independently and do not talk to each other. This
is to avoid biasing, e.g., if one reviewer says they want to accept, the other might
feel pressured to accept as well.
However, when there are discrepancies in evaluations, the adcom chair will ask
reviewers to discuss the application to reach a consensus. We might also talk to each
other for interesting or strong applications, e.g., how to recruit this student or who
should be the adviser. If the student mentioned a faculty member in their SOP, we
might ask that faculty if they are interested in the student.
Note that other disciplines might have different practices. For example, adcome
might select a top list of applicants and then discuss them in a meeting to determine
who to interview. In CS, both the reviews and interviews are often done indepen-
dently (§9.1).
 × From a prof. in Physics at an R1 university: We have a pretty well fleshed
out grading rubric for applications that has categories like grades, research, writing
ability, etc. I would say our rubric is weighted about 1/2 on academics (research,
LORs, grades) and 1/2 on the idea of “grit” or “resilience” (engagement, leadership,
working through obstacles).

The rubric helps a lot to standardize how committee members grade, and speeds
things up a bit because you know what to look for. We spent what seemed like
forever on the details of the grading system (e.g., what does a a score of ‘3’ vs a ‘2’
in writing look like?) but now it’s very helpful.

We also do roughly three rounds of selection: a first “triage” round to determine the
top 100 applications, a second round to determine about 25 people to interview, and
then a third round to decide the actual offers. That also helps to speed things up a
bit, since in the first round with all the applications you can move fairly quickly since
you just need to sort into “good” and “bad”. By the time we’re getting into the details
and reading everything more closely in rounds 2 and 3 most of the applications have
been removed from consideration. So for this method I do maybe 5 minutes per app
in round 1, but closer to 20 minutes per app in round 2, and usually round 3 is long
discussions about specific people.

2.5 Waiving the application fee

Some universities do waive, e.g., Rice, TTIC do not have fee for PhD applications
and many universities for domestic students (§C). Some programs also waive if
the applicants attend some of their opening sessions. Some programs waive if the
applicant provide proof of financial difficulties, e.g., a statement from a financial
adviser or a bank statement.
However most do not waive the application fee, which is typically a requirement
of the university. Individual departments and programs do not have the flexibility
to waive the application fee, even if they want to.

× Vu: In my opinion, requiring applicants to pay the fee helps ensure their
seriousness, as it filters out non-serious candidates. Most CS programs already
receive many applications and would be overwhelmed if the application pro-
cess were free. Even with application fee the competition is already very tough,
imagine if the application is free and the number of applications triples or quadruples.

Note that if you have financial difficulties, you can ask the department for a waiver,
but this is typically only granted in exceptional cases.
 Part II

Application Materials

12
 “Son, if you really want
something in this life, you have
to work for it. Now quiet!
They’re about to announce the
lottery numbers.”
The Simpsons

The goal of adcom is to evaluate your research experience, potential, and interest
to see if you fit into its PhD program! The emphasis here is fitting, which varies from
school to school, faculty to faculty, and even from year to year. The committee will
look at various factors, but the most important ones are letters of recommendation
(LORs), statements of purpose (SOP), and research background and experience, e.g.,
publications.
Chapter 3

Letters of Recommendation (LoR)

“To whom it may concern. . .
D’oh!”
The Simpsons

Recommendation letters (LoRs) are essential for PhD applications, as they offer
adcom a detailed assessment of your research experiences and potential. Most PhD
programs require at least two LORs to help adcom members evaluate your research
capabilities.
LoRs are important because (i) they paint a picture of your research ability and
potential from someone who has worked with you, and (ii) adcom trust the opinions
of your LoR writers, who are usually faculty members or researchers who have the
expertise and reputation to evaluate your research ability (§3.1).

× Vu When reviewing applications, I usually read LoRs first, then the SOP (§5). If
these impress me, I skim through the rest of the materials; if not, I carefully examine
other aspects before making a decision (§15.2).

14
3.1 LoR writers
Choose your LoR writers carefully, as they can make or break your application. LoR
writers are often your research advisers and professors who have mentored you in
research. A strong LoR is often from people meeting the following criteria:

1. Personal knowledge: They should know you well enough and have worked
closely with you through research projects (much preferred) or coursework.
This allows them to write a letter that is personalized and specific to you.

2. Credibility: They should have sufficient expertise and reputation to effec-

tively assess and vouch for your research capabilities and potential. Ideally,
your recommender should be an active researcher with a PhD or extensive
research experience.

3.1.1 LoR from Well-Known People

Having a strong letter from a recognized researcher can significantly boost your ap-
plication. Such letters can outweigh other weaknesses uch as limited publications or
low GPA. Adcom members trust people they know or have heard about and respect.
A well-known researcher is unlikely to recommend someone who is not good because
it would damage their reputation.
However, don’t worry if you haven’t worked directly with well-known researchers.
A strong, personalized recommendation from someone who knows you well, even if
less famous, is far more valuable than a generic letter from a prominent figure who
barely knows you. So again, the emphasis is on personalized and research-focused
letters–the fame is a bonus, not a requirement.

× Vu: It is fine to get letters from a postdoc or even a senior PhD student who
has worked closely with you and can write a strong letter. An enthusiast letter from
a postdoc who has mentored you in research for the past six months is much better
than a generic letter (§3.1.3) from a well-known person.

× Didier Should letter writers have PhDs? In Rwanda, a lot of students interact
more with teaching faculty who might not have PhD.

Vu: This is an interesting detail that US faculty might not be aware of. Students
should mention this in their SOPs (§5). In general, someone with a PhD has been
through the research process and therefore can better evaluate your research ability.
But if you do not have such writer, then someone who can properly evaluate your
research ability is OK (and still better than someone who has a PhD but does not
know you well).
3.1.2 LoRs from Dept Chair, Dean, or Supervisor at Work
Many students try to get LoRs from high-ranking administrators in their universities
such as department chair/head, dean, or director. The students never worked with
these people (they might take a class or so with these profs), but mistakenly believe
that these LoRs are valuable due to the writer’s high position in the university.
However, as emphasized, a generic LoR has little value because the writer does not
know you well and can talk in depth about your research ability.
Moreover, while being well-known and respected in your local university, these
writers might not be very active in research (e.g., they haven’t published in recent
years). Thus they might not be well-known and recognized by adcom members.

× Vu: In my experience in reviewing applications, letters from admin people are

often generic and do not provide much value. In many case, the letter reads like it was
written by a student (§3.1.4), and thus is a red flag. So if you are in this situation,
you should find someone else to write for you as mentioned in this section.

Many students get letters from supervisors from companies where they did in-
ternships or are working. It is OK as long as it is a research-based personalized
letter. Again, the emphasis here is research, i.e., the letters should describe your
research experiences and potential. Letters focusing on non-research projects at a
company won’t carry much weight.
Finally, despite best intentions, the writers might not have the experience to
write a strong LoR or lack the ability to evaluate your research ability. This is
unfortunate but common, and if you are in this situation, you should find someone
else to write for you (see §3.1 and §3.1.1).

× Hung: A sad reality is that most professors in Vietnam DO NOT know how
to write a good letter, or are lazy in writing letters hence delegate the writing to the
students. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this problem.

3.1.3 Generic Letters are Bad

When the writers do not know much about the applicants (e.g., just taking some
course with them or not making any impression to write about), they might write a
generic and short letter, which is not useful and also considered weak.
This does not mean the professor is not good or does not care about you, but they
just do not know you well enough to write a strong letter. So it might be a good
idea to directly ask if the prof. is willing to write a strong letter for you. If not,
then you should ask someone else. For example, if a student I don’t know well asks
me to write a letter for them, I will explicitly tell them I don’t know them that well
to write much about them, and such a short, generic, and weak letter will not help
their case.
 × Vu:
Several international students mentioned that some professors are unwilling to write
letters or write weak ones because they do not want (good) students to go abroad or
only go to places where they want the students to go to. If you are in this situation,
you should find someone else to write for you.

Sometimes students would go to great lengths just to get letters from “top” professors
in their school (e.g., department head or dean). But as mentioned, if these professors
do not know you, their letters would likely be generic and carry little value (sometimes
red flags). Moreover, a top professor at your university might not be well-known to
US faculty (see more details in §3.1.2 and §6). So save the trouble and get letters
from any professors/supervisors who know you well and can write a good letter about
your research ability (§3.1.1). It’s better to have a good personalized letter about
your own research ability from someone who is less well-known than a generic/weak
letter from a well-known person.

3.1.4 Self-written Letters are Bad

Many profs. and letter writers ask students to write their own letters, which is a
common practice in some countries. Unfortunately, such letters have little value and
are considered weak by reviewers—why can you not even find someone who cares or
knows enough about you to write a candid personal reference letter? Instead of the
ref. writer talking about you, in it is you who write about yourself (and they just
sign the letter).
Self-written letters are easy to spot because an experienced professor would write
very differently compared to an undergraduate student. For example, they can
provide convincing and concrete examples based on their experience and compare
you to their own students, and of course the writing style is different. Worse yet, if
we suspect that the student wrote the letter, it is a red flag as we will question both
the student’s integrity and the letter writer’s credibility.

× Vu: Well-known and well-respected profs would not ask you to write your own
letter (in fact, even not well-known ones wouldn’t do this to students they care about).
This might be a common practice at specific universities and the students do not have
a choice as they need the letter. However, think about this: if a prof. does this often,
then they either don’t know how to write a LOR (more common than you would
think) or simply do not know or care enough about you. In any case, such LoRs are
not useful and might even hurt your application. So if you are in this situation, you
should find someone else to write for you.
3.2 Asking for LORs
As mentioned in §3.1, LoR writers should be someone who knows you well and has
the credibility to evaluate your research ability. In the US, it’s common for students
to explicitly ask if the writer would be willing to provide a strong letter, and the
writer are also very direct in their response. If they are not willing (you should be
thankful that they are honest with you), then you should ask someone else.
Below are some tips to approach your LoR writers:
• Ask in advance You should ask for LoRs at least a month before the deadline.
People have commitments and writing a strong LoR takes time (§3.2.5), so give
them enough time to write a strong letter for you.
• Waive your right (§3.2.1) You should always waive your right to see the
letter. This shows that you trust your writers and that you are not trying to
twist their words.
• Help your writers (§3.2.2)You should tell your writers the programs you
are applying to, their deadlines, etc. You can also share your SOP with them
and other details about your research experience and potential.
• Ask for feedback If the writer is very close to you and willing to, you can
ask them for feedback on your SOP (§5) and other application materials. If
the writer is a professor, they might have served in adcom committees, seen
many SOPs, and can provide valuable feedback.
• Follow up and Stay in touch Follow up with your writers to make sure
they have submitted the letters on time. Note that their letters might have a
different due date than your application (§3.2.3).
After your writers have submitted all of their letters, thank them (§3.2.4). Let
them know the outcome of your applications and stay in touch with them.
This will help you build a relationship with them and you might need them to
write for you again in the future.

3.2.1 Waiving Your Right

When you ask someone to write a letter for you, you should always waive your right.
Choosing not to look at a reference letter is pretty standard in school and job
applications. When you waive your right to see the letter, it adds a layer of trust,
showing you’re confident in your choice of referees and that you’re not trying to twist
their words. It’s also about keeping things open and honest between you and your
letter writers and encourages them to be real about your strengths and qualifications.
Plus, it keeps things private.
If you do not waive your right, the letter writer might refuse to write for you
or write a generic letter that does not help your case. Reviewers also might raise
concerns about a letter that is not waived, e.g., if you do not trust your letter
writers, then you should find someone else to write for you. In short, it’s a standard
practice and a way of keeping things straightforward and respectful in the whole
recommendation game.

3.2.2 Helping your LOR Writer

As mentioned above in §3.1.4 and §3.1.3, do not write your own letter and generic
letters do not give much value. Thus, to help your writer to write a strong, cus-
tomized LoR, you can provide them details or unique things about yourself. For
example, let them know about your GPA, research and work experience, papers (if
any), or anything you want them to mention. If the GPA in your program is highly
competitive (§6.2) and they know that, remind them to talk about it in the LOR.
You can also provide them with a draft of your SOP so that they can see what you
are saying about yourself and complement that with their own perspective.
Sometimes your writer will explicitly ask you for such information, but if not,
you should provide it anyway (especially if you have not interacted with them much
or have not done much research with them).

× Vu: If your grading system is not US standard, or you are from a good school
unknown outside your country, you can ask your reference writers to explain that
in their letters. For example, “Bach Khoa” are the top universities in Vietnam for
STEM studies but few people outside Vietnam know about them. So if you are from
there, you should ask your reference writers to mention that.

3.2.3 Reminding Your Writers

After entering your writers’ information in the application system, you should tell
your writers about that and let them know they will soon receive an email from the
university to submit their letters. You should also tell them when you submit your
application and remind them to submit their letters on time if they haven’t done so.
Note that most places only have deadlines for the applicant, but are very flexible
with the letter writers. In many cases your LOR writers are not given any deadline.
Fig. 3.1 lists several LOR invitation emails I received from various universities in the
past few years.
Also, many places do not begin the admission review process right after the
deadline and work on application reviews in the next semester (mid-January).
Thus you do want to send reminders because professors can be quite busy and
might forget to submit their letters, especially when there is no explicit deadline.
However, do not send too many reminders as that can be annoying to the writers.
‡

No deadlines: Examples with no deadlines given

Sample 1: .. is applying for admission into the Computer Science (Ph.D.) program in
the Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has listed you as a
reference.
They have waived their right of access to see your reference.
You may submit your reference online via the Graduate Reference Center, which is located
at .. Please use the email address and code shown below to log in to submit this reference.
A timely response is important for this applicant to be favorably considered. Please be
aware that the applicant’s admission could be contingent on your prompt response.
Sample 2: Dear ..
.. has requested that you write a letter of recommendation for their Illinois graduate ap-
plication. We greatly appreciate your feedback on X’s ability to succeed in their graduate
studies at Illinois.
In an effort to make this process as easy as possible for you, we offer the ability to upload your
recommendation letter online through our secure website. To submit your recommendation,
please use the link below. This link is unique to this recommendation and should not be
shared or forwarded.
Thank you!
Sample 3: .. is applying to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has named you as a
recommender. This applicant has waived the right to view your recommendation.
Please complete our brief recommendation form (or if necessary, decline to recommend).
Should you experience any technical difficulties or require assistance with your account,
please contact CollegeNET Support.
Thank you.

With Deadlines: Examples with deadlines given

Sample 1:
Dear Dr ..
.. has listed you as a reference in an application to the EECS graduate program at MIT.
If you are not .., please ask .. for the correct letter submission information. Please submit
your letter here: ..
The deadline for the applicant is Dec 15; we start the admissions process immediately after
that date, so we would appreciate receiving your recommendation by then. The applicant
can see if you have submitted a letter, and may remind you.
Even though the applicant knows the link for submitting a letter, the applicant is unable
to read your submitted letter. The https URL ensures that you connect to MIT’s graduate
admissions server. That server accepts letter submissions, but will not reveal a submitted
letter. The link .. provides a bit more information on MIT’s approach to collecting letters
of requests.
Thank you!
Sample 2: Dear Recommender,
The applicant listed below has applied to a graduate program in the School of Computer
Science at Carnegie Mellon University and has requested a letter of recommendation from
you.
Applicant: ..
Click Here if your mail system provides html content or use the URL below to enter your
letter of recommendation in PDF form only.
Your letter of recommendation is due by 12 p.m. (Noon) EST on December 10, 20XX.
Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Fig. 3.1: Examples of LOR invitation emails

3.2.4 Thank Your Writers
After your application is submitted and your writers have submitted their letters
(i.e., the wait begins), you should send a quick thank you note, which serves both
as an acknowledgement that you know they have submitted the letters and as an
appreciate for their help.
You should also let them know the outcome of your application, regardless of
whether you are admitted or not. In addition to being a common courtesy, this can
also help maintain a good relationship with your writers, which can be useful in the
future (e.g., if you need another letter for another round of applications or for a job
reference).

3.2.5 How is a LoR written?

If a student asks me to write letter for them, I will agree as I believe it is my
responsibility. I will ask them to waive their right to see the letter (§3.2.1), and will
not write if they do not do so.
I will also let the student know if I cannot write a strong letter for them (e.g.,
I don’t know them that well), and suggest they find someone else. If they insist,
then I will write for them. While I try to say something positive, e.g., the student is
hardworking and receive good grades, the letter will still be short and weak (§3.1.3).
Usually it takes me about 5–10 minutes to write such a “weak” letter.
Strong letters take a lot longer as it will be personalized. While I have a general
template for LoR, it still can take me an hour or more to write it. I often ask the
students to provide information (§3.2.2) and what they think I should highlight in
the letter. They can also provide me their SOP (if they already have written one)
so I can complement what they say with my own perspective. I often do not share
what I write with the students, just to keep it more genuine and honest.
My letter always has the university letterhead, my signature, and is signed and
dated. While using a letterhead or signing the letter is not required (I never paid
much attention to these when reading LoRs), it makes the letter more official and
professional. This website has the template of the letter with letterhead and signa-
ture: [Link]
I usually submit a letter for a student in batch (e.g., I submit to all universities
that student is applying to at the same time). Typically, each submission takes from
5–10 mins, depending on the application system. I will also let the student know
when I have submitted the letter, and ask if I miss any.
Chapter 4

Research Experience
“I’ve got to study harder and
publish faster!”
The Simpsons

Here we look at publications and other research experiences that can strengthen
your application. §E provides more information on how to find research opportuni-
ties, e.g., during your undergrad study.

4.1 Publications
The most concrete evidence of research ability is having papers in reputable interna-
tional journals or conferences. Having published papers, especially at top venues, is
a sign that you have been successfully involved in research.
Publications are never required for application, however given the competitive-
ness of CS admission, they can significantly strengthen your application and are
becoming the norm. Applicants admitted to top schools, especially in popular fields
or areas of Researchfields such as ML and NLP, often have multiple first-authored
papers at top places. Fig. 4.1 shows examples of applicants to Stanford CS PhD.

What if I don’t have any publications It is understandable that many students

do not have the opportunity to publish papers. Thus, other writings, even those
under submissions or even rejected, would still help. Be sure to upload your these
with your application (§8.2) and mention them in your SOP (§5). Adcom members
can quickly skim over the paper to determine its quality (§15.2).
Note that local conferences and non-English journals or conferences do not carry
as much weight since their quality is often unknown. However, if you have published
in such places, you should still upload them, mention them in your statement, and
explain why they are good.

22
Fig. 4.1: Applicants to top CS programs have multiple first-authored papers at top places.

I am not the first author Being the first author is good because it indicates you
own the work. However, it’s perfectly OK to be second or third or even last. Adcom
members know it is difficult to publish a good paper, and so being a co-author is
still a good sign about your research experience. In any case, especially in the case
when you’re not the first author, you should explain the work and your contribution.
Better yet, have your LoR writers (§3.2.2) talk about your work and contribution in
their letters.

× Craig: Mason and many other universities allow you to upload your published
papers and other writing samples (§8.2). In many cases, even if the papers were not
published at top places, we can still determine their quality by simply skimming over
the paper.

× Vu: Many international students mention Scopus Q1, which consists of various
journals from IEEE, Elsevier, and many other publishers. I don’t know/recognize
many of the journals listed in Scopus Q1. This might be something to be mindful
of, as CS faculty might not be too familiar with Scopus or journals listed there, so
devote some part in your statement to discuss the significance of your papers.
 × Thanh: Due to academic culture, professors in Vietnam usually aim for (inter-
national) journals instead of conferences. Could you give some tips on how to know
whether a journal is good (CSrankings, unfortunately, only consider conferences)?

Vu: One way is looking at what well-known researchers publish. For example, if you
are interested in a field X, you can use CSRankings to look at active faculty in X,
and then look at their websites to see what journals they publish at.

4.2 Work Experience

Work experience at well-known research laboratories, such as Microsoft Research,
can strengthen your application. The emphasis here is research places, not software
development or non-research work. For example, working at a FAANG (Facebook,
Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) company as a software engineer does not count as
research experience, although it can be helpful for MS applications ()§D). Similarly, a
LoR from your supervisor for non-research experience might not count much (§3.1.2).
So do not spend much time talking about development job in your SOP.
Note that adcom reviewers might not be familiar with all research labs, espe-
cially those outside the US. For example, while VinAI is well-known in Vietnam and
potentially in Asia, it might not be very well-known in the US. So you or your LoR
writers should explicitly say something about them in your statement or letter. In
general, if you did some good research work, then you should mention that in your
SOP and ask your supervisor to write about it in their LOR (§3).

4.3 Competitions
Winning internationally recognized competitions can demonstrate your research po-
tential. For example, participating in Math Olympiads if you want to do theory
or winning ACM programming contests if you want to “build” systems, e.g., soft-
ware analysis. So do talk about them in your SOP (§5) and have your LoR writers
mention them in their letters (§3.2.2).
Chapter 5

Statement of Purpose (SOP)

“All my life I’ve had one dream:
to achieve my many goals.”
The Simpsons

While you might not have control over LORs (§3) or where your go to school (§6),
you do over your statement of purpose (SOP) or personal statement1 ! A well-written
SOP also shows that you can communicate, which is very important in research, and
that you can effectively teach and communicate with students, which is important
for TA funding (see §12). Many SOP samples for CS are available here.
In your SOP, focus on research potential (§4) and convince us through your expe-
rience, e.g., published papers (§4.1). Back up your claims with concrete evidence.
For example, if you say you have experience with teaching, then show what you did,
e.g., undergrad TA or mentoring someone. If you say you work on a research project,
then show some results, e.g., paper submitted (or even rejected), achieved certain
performance improvement over the state of the art.
1
Few schools separate these documents and ask you to write both: SOP, which focuses on
research experiences, and personal statement, which is everything more personal, e.g., why PhD,
challenges, diversity, etc

25
 You should talk about things that adcom members might not know about and
can help make you stand out in the application pool of thousands of applicants, e.g.,
your personal Github project with hundreds of stars or your regular contributions to
well-known open-source projects (see §11.3 for increasing your admission chance).
This is a simple task often overlooked by many applicants: tailor your SOP to
the institution you’re applying for, e.g., why do you apply here? who do you want
to work with? Provide names of professors who you’re interested in (if they are not
already in the adcom, your application might get forwarded to them for evaluation;
and they might be interested in interviewing and recruiting you). This shows that
you’re serious and have done homework on places you’re applying to. Adcom will
look for this part (§11.2).
Finally, have your SOP reviewed by your LoR writers (§3.2.2) and professors,
especially those who have served in adcom, or even postdocs or PhD students as
they have been through this process.

× Vu: I often read LORs and SOP first (§15.2). If I am persuaded by then, I
would skim over other factors and advocate for admission (unless I see red flags in
other parts). However, if I am not convinced, then I will likely recommend rejection
(unless I see something stand out in other parts).

Do careful research on professors, don’t mention emeritus or adjunct faculty (§14.2).

Also, be careful not to send statements to the wrong schools or provide wrong infor-
mation (e.g., talking about school X but mentioning working with profs. at school Y;
and do not talk about George Washington when applying to George Mason). I have
seen such statements more times than I should.

5.1 Kiss of Death in SOP

• Too personal Don’t talk about your personal issues, e.g., family, health,
relationship, etc. This can raise concerns about your ability to handle the
PhD. Also, don’t talk about religious or political beliefs (§H).

• Criticizing your current or previous institution or professors. Just like in a

job interview, don’t badmouth your current or previous employer because it
raises concerns about your ability to work with others.

• No concrete evidence to back up claims: e.g., saying you are passionate

about a research topic without showing any experience. This is where specific
names (work submitted at conf. X), numbers (outperformed SOTA by Y %),
and examples (worked on project Z) can help. These names, numbers, and
stats are harder to fake and concretely show your experience and potential.

• Use flowery and AI-like language. Don’t use AI to write your SOP. Not
that hard to raise suspicion. Though you can ask AI to check your grammar
 and spelling.

• Not customized to the program: If your SOP can be sent to multiple

programs with few changes, it is too generic. Do some research and mention
why you want to spend the next 5–7 years there.

• Mentioning wrong professors: do not mention emeritus professors or those

who have left. Teaching and adjunct faculty are often not active in mentoring
PhD students (§14.2). Do your homework and mention profs who are till active
in research.

• Too Long and Fancy Format: As mentioned, keep it under 2 pages. Don’t
use too much coloring or fancy fonts (like those in Words). Don’t use left
alignment (seems to be default in Words) as it is hard to read. CS academics
like using LATEX (common way to write our papers and other documents), so
write your SOP using LATEX (with Times or default font, 11pt, and 1-inch
margin as described in §G).

Additional Resources
• Writing your statement of purpose by Chris Blattman

• How to Write a Grad School Personal Statement by Mike Hicks

• CS PhD SOP database by [Link]

Chapter 6

Your School and Grades

“Woohoo! I’m a college man! I
won’t need my high school
diploma anymore”
The Simpsons

6.1 School
Graduating from top universities that adcom members recognize helps. For example,
if you are an international student and your school is well-known, then it is “top
foreign”, which is a plus. However, if we do not know much about schools in your
country, then we are uncertain about the quality of your school and likely treat your
school as “unknown foreign”, which can be a minus point.
The reason is similar to LoRs (§15.2). If we know your school has a good rep-
utation, then we can trust the education and grades from your school. If we do
not know your school, then we are uncertain about its quality and the grades you
received.
Many international students mistakenly believe that their school is well-known,
but in fact, it is not, e.g., many Vietnamese students believe that “Bach Khoa”, which
is one of the best universityies in the country, is well-known, but it is not (and their
confusing acronyms HUST and HCMUT only make it worse). So if you think your
school is well-known, mention it (and back up with some evidence like rankings or
awards) in your SOP. You can ask your LOR writers to talk about your school as
well (§3.2.2). Of course, if you’re interested in working with Vietnamese, consider
CS programs in the US that have Vietnamese professors.

28
 × Vu: Sometimes PhD adcom in the US will share a document such as this one,
which lists the top schools in several countries. We also ask other faculty and stu-
dents if we think they know about the place. For example, when I was a postdoc at
UMD, members of their CS PhD adcom asked me to evaluate applicants from Viet-
nam. During my time at UNL and now here at Mason, I have looked at Vietnamese
applications (whether they are assigned to me or not) and provided input to their
reviewers, e.g., X is the top tech school in Vietnam and so it should be top instead
of unknown foreign, which makes a huge difference.

× Deepak: If an applicant is anxious about their school not being known outside
their country, they can provide information about their school and department, with
independent sources where such information can be verified.

6.2 Grades
Compared to other factors such as LoRs (§3) and research experiences (§4), grades
generally do not matter much for CS PhD admission. PhD in CS is a research degree
and doing well in undergrad courses does not necessarily mean you can do research
(other factors such as research experiences, pubs, LoRs are more important). In fact,
many CS faculty members themselves have bad grades in undergrad courses (and
some were proud of that!).
Nonetheless, if you are from a well-known school (§6), having good grades do
help (not a lot though), e.g., adcom members often note details such as "good GPA
from well-known school (§15.2). However if your school is not well-known, having
top grades or rankings usually will not help because we cannot evaluate them (e.g.,
we don’t know how hard it is to get a 4.0 or A’s at your school). This can be an
issue for students in many top international universities where the competition is so
high that very good students can still have low rankings from these schools (and be
overlooked by adcom).
As with school reputation, you and your LoR writers can mention the grading
system of your university if you think that is helpful for adcom to evaluate (§3.2.2).
 × Thanh: Vietnamese universities typically offer specialized programs, such as the
talented engineer program at HUST, that have highly competitive entrance exams
and a limited number of available slots (e.g., 30 per year). However, these programs
often set higher requirements for students, including more demanding tests and as-
signments, resulting in lower GPAs and overall rankings. For example, 3.5 GPA stu-
dents from such talented programs are typically much better than 4.0 GPA students
not in those programs. Similarly, variations in GPA standards exist among different
universities, with technical universities generally having lower GPAs than economic
universities. These make gaining admission in the US difficult as US faculty are not
familiar with these issues.

Vu: Vietnamese students and even faculty often lament how this grading system
hurts Vietnamese students applying abroad. One way to mitigate this is to make
these issues known in your SOP. Universities with Vietnamese profs are probably
aware of them, but in general your letter writers and you can explicitly mention
these in their letters and your statement.

Bad Grades While having good GPA might not help much (again, because of
other much more important factors), having bad GPA can hurt your application.
Many universities have a minimum GPA requirement (e.g., > 3.0) and will auto-
matically reject applications with lower GPAs. If you have bad grades, you should
explain them in your SOP or better yet, have your LOR writers explain them in
their letters if they know the reasons.
Moreover, having bad grades in relevant courses, e.g., Math and CS, can be a
red flag. Adcom members often scan through transcripts (§15.2) looking for C and
lower grades in Math and CS courses and might raise concerns if they see several
of them. Note that bad grades in non-relevant courses, e.g., e.g., about politics or
history, are not as concerning.
Should you explain bad grades in relevant courses in your SOP? If you have just
a few, they do not matter much, so don’t spend much time explaining them (many
adcom reviewers themselves have bad grades in relevant courses!). But if you have
many bad grades for an entire semester or year due to some specific reasons, then
you should explain them in your SOP.
Chapter 7

Standard Tests (GRE and IELTS)

“I’ve got to study harder.
Everyone knows standardized
tests are biased against the poor,
the lazy, and the stupid.”
The Simpsons

7.1 GREs Are Optional and Do Not Matter for PhD

Admissions
While a few schools still require taking the Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
exam (e.g., UCF), most good CS PhD programs in the US no longer require it.
The reason is that GRE scores do not correlate well with research ability, which is
the most important factor for PhD admission. It is also worth noting that many
faculty members themselves did not take the GRE or have bad scores.
Thus, if you have bad GRE scores or haven’t taken the GRE, then don’t waste
time (re)taking it. Being optional really means optional, and not taking it will not
hurt your application. However, if you took it and have really good scores then it
might be worth it to include (and perhaps talk about) them in your application, but
don’t expect them to make much difference. But if your scores are bad, then you
should not include them in your application, which can be a red flag.
Note that while GRE is not important for CS PhD admission, it might be required
or important for MS admission (§D). This is because MS programs are more course-
based and thus care more about grades and standardized tests.

7.2 English Tests (IELTS, TOEFL)

Unless your degrees are from the US or certain countries such as these, you will need
to take standardized English tests. On one hand you will need to show some level of

31
English proficiency, but on the other hand, you do not need to have very good scores
in these tests (many adcom members themselves were once international students
and struggled with English). You should just do well enough to pass the minimum
requirement set by the university. Just as with grades (§6) and GRE (§7.1), having
high scores in these tests might not help, but having too low scores can be a red flag
and sometimes results in an automatic rejection (§11.2), e.g., below the minimum
requirement.

× Vu: Here is the minimum requirements at Mason. Being above this might not
mean much, but below is a red flag.
• GPA: ≥ 3.0 in your undergrad (but we also consider the rank/prestige of your
school)
• GRE: not required
• English proficiency requirements (one of the below)
– TOEFL: 80 OR
– IELTS: ≥ 6.5 OR
– DuoLingo Graduate English: ≥ 120 OR
– Pearson Test of Academic English: ≥ 67
Chapter 8

Miscellaneous
“I’m not a college graduate. I’m
not even a high school graduate.
But I’m a pretty good judge of
character.”
The Simpsons

8.1 CV
The CV provides a summary of the applicant’s achievements. Most schools require
you to upload your CV with your application.
Prepare your CV in such a way that allows reviewers to quickly scan to iden-
tify major achievements, e.g., Publications, Programming Competition Awards, and
Teaching Experience. Moreover, you don’t need to adhere to the 1-page rule of
resume in job searching, CV has no such requirement and is often longer.

× Vu: Unlike a job application, CV is not as important for PhD admission because
we do not screen applicants based on their CV. Moreover, we care and pay attention
more about your LOR, SOP, etc. So do not spend too much time on your CV,
just make sure it is easy to skim through (§15.2) and well-organized around research
activities and achievements.

8.2 Writing Sample

It is a good idea to upload a writing sample, e.g., a paper you wrote, a report,
or a thesis. Whether the paper is published, not published, or already on Arxiv,
you should upload it. Because samples are part of the application package, adcom
members can quickly skim through it to see your research and writing abilities.

33
8.3 Online Courses and Certificates
These do not carry much weight as they do not show research ability. We do not care
much if you have taken an online Coursera AI course or have a professional certificate
from Microsoft. However, as mentioned in §1.3, if you do not have a CS background,
you might be able to use these to show you have sufficient CS knowledge.
 Part III

After You Apply

35
Chapter 9

Interview and the Waiting Game

Bart: “Are we there yet? Are we
there yet? Are we there yet?”
Homer: “No!”
Bart: “Okay, how about now?”
The Simpsons

After you submit your applications, the waiting game begins! For many students,
this is a very stressful time. This section provides some information and tips to help
you get through this time.

9.1 Interviews
After you apply, you might get interviews. The most common case is that a prof.
is interested in working with you and wants to chat, e.g., to offer RA (§12.1.2). In
some cases, the interview is done by several professors, e.g., to see if a student fits
in their group or to recruit a very strong student to their program.

When do interviews happen? The timeline for interviews varies. Faculty set
up interviews based on their busy and erratic schedule. Some try to get interviews
done before the winter holidays, while others do them after the holidays. Do not
be surprised if you get an interview invitation at the last minute. Some profs. are
informal and may just email you to chat (e.g., “could you chat in an hr?”), while
others might schedule a formal interview (e.g., “can you chat at 2 pm on Friday or
10 am on Monday?”).
Some programs do not do interviews at all (§9.2). They review applications
and make decisions based on them. If you do not get an interview, it does not mean
you’re out.

36
 × Vu: At Mason, faculty are encouraged to interview candidates. For very
strong candidates, the interview is actually to recruit them. In some cases a faculty
interviews a candidate that they see potential and want to advocate for their
admission. Without the interview, such applications may be more likely to be
rejected.

In short, getting an interview is a good sign; it means that someone is considering you.
If we are not interested in your application, we will not proceed with an interview.

Preparing for interviews Typically, an interview takes about 15–30 minutes,

and one important aspect of evaluation is your ability to effectively communicate,
including speaking and understanding English. You might be asked to talk about
your research experience and interests and to read a paper and discuss it. In some
rare cases you might also be asked to solve a problem (one of my colleagues at Mason
often does coding interview).
You should treat the interview as an informal chat. Prepare an “elevator pitche”
about your research experience and interests. You might also want to have a 5-
minute presentation about your research. If a prof. asks you to read a paper, do
it and be prepared to discuss it. You should also ask if you need to prepare for
coding. Finally, the interview gives you an opportunity to ask questions, e.g., about
the program and the professor’s research. You should definitely ask as it shows that
you’re interested. See some questions you can ask.

Follow-Up Emails If you had an interview and have not heard back, you can
email to ask about the status of your application. See §10.1 for how to check status
and follow-up emails.

Updating your profile You should not send emails to update your profile. How-
ever, if you have new publications or other big achievements, you can ask them to
update your application (though no guarantee that they will consider them).

9.2 Not Getting Interviews

While it is generally good to get an interview, not getting one does not mean you’re
out. Many programs do not have the tradition of interviewing applicants. For
example, at Mason, most admitted students with TA (§12.1.1) do not go through
interviews.
However, no interviews mean that you will not likely get an RA (§12.1.2), which
is offered by an individual faculty (if they want you to do research for them, then
they likely will interview you first). If you have no interviews, your application (and
TA/fellowship funding) is decided by the adcom.
9.3 Notification Timeline: Why rejection letters are sent
so late?
Some schools send out admission letters in batches, some do rolling admission, and
some do not send anything out e.g., you’re on their waitlist. You should hear back
from most schools by mid-March, though rejection can come out much later.
Not much you can do other than to be patient and wait. Do not send emails ask-
ing about interviews or status (unless you have interviewed specifically with someone
then you can ask that person for status updates and other questions (§10.1).

Acceptance Letters Universities prioritize sending out acceptance letters first.

This allows the admitted students to make decisions and plan for their studies.
Read carefully on the acceptance letter for terms and conditions, e.g., funding and
other benefits (§10.3).
Some universities have rolling admission. Others have a specific date when they
send out the first round of acceptance letters.

Response Deadlines Accepted students are usually given a deadline to make

decisions on their offers, often around April 15 in the US. After this date, CS
programs can gauge how many slots remain unfilled.

Waitlist Most CS programs have a limited number of slots for PhD students, and
thus put many good students on a waitlist. If accepted students decline the offer,
then offers are sent to students on the waitlist. So if you see people getting accepted,
that does not mean you are out yet.

Rejection Letters Schools typically start sending out rejection letters to remain-
ing applicants after they have finalized their admissions decisions. Thus, rejection
letters are often sent out late (e.g., after April 15th or even much later). Not much
you can do here. You can try to contact the school to ask about your status, but
they might not reply, they might say they are still reviewing applications, or give
you inaccurate information (e.g., you will hear in two weeks). In short, you just have
to be patient and wait, and also beware that some schools do not send out rejection
letters at all.
Chapter 10

Getting Admitted
“Oh... and how is education
supposed to make me feel
smarter? Besides, every time I
learn something new, it pushes
some old stuff out of my brain.
Remember when I took that
home wine-making course and I
forgot how to drive?”
The Simpsons

By around mid-March you should hear back from most PhD programs that want
to admit you. But you likely won’t hear back from schools that do not want to admit
you (§9.3), e.g., you’re on their wait list.
If you receive offers, congratulations! Now you’re at a different game because the
schools that have admitted you will try to get you to accept them! Look carefully at
the offer letters (§10.3) for the terms and conditions of the offers. Other important
factors to consider include the reputation of schools and professors (§13), and funding
availability (§12). You will have to make your decision (§10.1) by a certain deadline,
e.g., April 15.

Open House Most schools have Open House or Visit Day events, which are a
great resource to learn about the school, department, faculty, research, living, etc.
Even if you can’t come in person, you should attend virtually and meet with
individual faculty. During the event, you get a chance to learn more about the
program, and talk to individual faculty and current students. Take notes of faculty
who make you excited, and count those taking in new students (if they meet you,
likely they are considering new students!). Talk to students about their advisers, the
dept, the area, and the funding situation. Ask about anything you want to determine
that they deserve you.

39
 × Vu: Mason has Virtual Open House (VOH), e.g., [Link]
io/cs-phd-voh-s23/. We invite all admitted PhD students to the VOH through
Zoom to learn about the CS program, the department, Mason, and the DC area in
general. Students also get opportunities to chat with professors and current students.

What’s next? Make a decision, accept, reject, or defer the offers (§10.1). Ask
to meet with potential advisers (e.g., through Open House or separately) and even
their students. Ask about computer equipment and software, office space, and other
resources; in many cases these will be provided for free by your adviser or department
(§10.4).
Also, do not forget to update and thank your LoR writers and others who have
supported you through this process.

10.1 Checking Status, Accepting, Postponing, and De-

cline Offers
Students often ask about what to do after they get an interview or an offer from
a professor, e.g., if they can followup to find out about their status, or is it OK
to postpone or accept/reject offers?, and most importantly, how to do so without
offending anyone.

Checking your application status and following up emails If you have in-
terviewed and not heard back from a professor after a few weeks or especially around
the time when universities send out their admission decisions (around late Feb– mid-
Mar), you can email to check. You can follow up the interview invitation and say:
“Thanks for chatting with me. I am very excited about the opportunity to work with
you. Could you please let me know if you have made a decision or if you need more
information from me?”. If you have new updates, e.g., new publications or new
fellowship awards, or even new offers from other professors or schools, you can also
mention that.
Profs. are often very busy, especially during admission time when they have to
many reviews and interviews. They might not have time to respond to every email.
If you do not hear back after a week, you can send another email to check again. If
you still do not hear back, you can assume that you are not selected.

Accepting an offer If you decide to accept an offer, you can say: “Thank you for
the offer. I would like to accept it and look forward to working with you. Could you
please send me more details about the offer and what to do next?”. The prof. will
likely send you more details about the offer and what to do next. If you decide to
accept an offer, do so quickly.
Postponing an offer If you need more time to decide, you can ask for more time:
“Thank you for the offer. I am very excited about it. However, I am still waiting
for other offers and need more time to decide. Would it be possible to postpone the
decision for a few weeks?”. This is perfectly fine and professors will understand and
might even appreciate your honesty. They will likely give you a few weeks to decide.
If you need more time, you can ask for more time. But do not ask for too much
time, e.g., more than a month. You also should not postpone the offer multiple
times, which will annoy people.

Declining an offer If you decide to decline or reject an offer, you can say: “Thank
you for the offer. However, I have decided to accept another offer. I appreciate your
time and consideration. I hope we can work together in the future.” Professors will
understand and wish you luck. If you decide to reject an offer, do so quickly.

Accepting an offer and later rejecting it I’ve seen many students, especially
international, face a dilemma when they commit to a graduate offer but then receive
a better one. Advice given in online forums is often along the line that it’s okay to
switch, using reasons like you haven’t yet had a strong relationship with the prof.
or you should prioritize your personal benefit.
In my opinion, these reasons are not strong enough to justify retracting an ac-
ceptance. A more valid reason is using the April 15 resolution, in which many
universities participate. Among various things, this resolution states that students
are free to accept a new offer from a different institution until 4/15, even if they
have already accepted an offer elsewhere.
However, in general, retracting an acceptance can have ethical implications.
When you accept an offer, you are committing to work with that prof, who then
might stop looking for other students. So by retracting your offer, you are breaking
your commitment and also causing a great deal of inconvenience to the prof and also
taking away the opportunity from other students. Ultimately, this choice is personal
and involves a balance between personal benefit and ethical considerations.

10.2 Negotiating PhD offer (e.g., having multiple offers)?

Negotiating a TA stipend is unlikely, as it is determined by the university (§12.1.1).
For RA (§12.1.2), advisers have more leeway as it is funded by their grants. However,
they will likely do not negotiate RA stipend as they have to be fair to other students
and also have to follow departmental standards. Note that the university typically
automatically increases these stipends each year by a small amount. Typically, the
most wiggle room is funding in the summer (§12.3.2) where the prof. might be able
to pay you more from their grants. However, they typically only do this after you
have been with them for a year or so and they see your potential.
 For a specific start date or TA assignment (e.g., TA’ing a particular course), you
can ask for it. Also, there is typically no moving allowance for PhD students. In
short, standard things set by the university or department are unlikely negotiable.
However, you can ask for things such as books and computer equipment (§10.4).

10.3 Offer Letters and Terms

Your admission notification will likely come with an offer letter (in some cases it
might come separately). This letter is essentially a contract between you and the
school, and lists the terms of the offer, including stipend, tuition waiver, health
insurance, and other benefits. The letter might also have some conditions, e.g.,
maintaining a certain GPA, etc. You will likely need to sign and return the letter to
accept the offer, e.g., by April 15–the deadline for many schools.
Fig. 10.1 shows an example of a GRA offer letter from Mason. It shows the
9-month stipend1 , the funding source (i.e., the prof. who provided the RA), tuition
waivers (9-credit, which is full time for grad student), and health insurance.
It is unlikely that you can negotiate things like stipend and such, as it is standard
across all students. However, you might ask your prof. for computer equipments and
others (§10.2).

× Vu: You might receive “informal” offer from the prof., e.g., through email or
verbally. This is typically as the profs. are excited to have you and want to give you
important details such as stipend. You can “informally” accept the offer, but you will
still need to sign the official offer letter to make it official.

10.4 Buying Computer Equipment

Students understandably get excited about their upcoming PhD journey and want
to buy new computer equipment and electronics to prepare. However, you should
first check with your professor. They might have funding to buy you computers
and other equipment (e.g., software, books, keyboards, headphones, tablets, etc).
Many CS programs also provide budget or computer equipment to incoming PhD
students (e.g., a laptop). Keep in mind that these computers and equipment would
be university property, which might be monitored and have certain restrictions, e.g.,
do not install illegal software on them (§H.2). You will likely need to return them
when you graduate.
However, do not assume that your prof. will automatically provide you a new
laptop and other equipments. Some professors have grants or discretionary funds to
do this, but it’s not a guarantee. So do check with your prof. first.
1
Note RAs often get additional summer funding from their prof. (§12.3.2), but this is not shown
in the offer letter.
 College of Engineering and Computing
Office of the Dean
Nguyen Engineering Building, Suite 5100
4400 University Drive, MS 4A3, Fairfax, Virginia 22030
Phone: 703-993-1500; Fax: 703-993-1734

Jul

Dear :

It is my pleasure to offer you the position of Graduate Research Assistant. I believe you will find George Mason
University an exciting and rewarding environment in which to work, and a place where the contributions of
graduate students are valued.

This offer is subject to the terms and conditions of the “Graduate Appointment Terms and Conditions of
Employment”, attached hereto as “Attachment A”, which is incorporated herein by reference.

The terms of this offer are as follows:

• Term: August 25, 2024 through May 24, 2025

• Appointment: Graduate Research Assistant

• Stipend: $29,000 paid over 18 pay periods

• Level: PhD

• Assignment: You are assigned to the Department of CS, within CEC, and will report
to Professo . You will work 20 hours per week.

• Tuition Benefit: Up to 9 credits of tuition per semester at the in-state tuition rate and the
mandatory student fee.
**Contingent upon arrival prior to the first day of class**

• Health Insurance: Upon acceptance of this offer and the meeting of all eligibility requirements,
University paid health insurance through Aetna Student Health will be
available to you. Please visit
[Link]
students/for a listing of eligibility requirements and for further details.
(Contingent upon arrival prior to first day of classes)

• Other Terms: Qualification for subsidized student health insurance, in-state tuition rates,
tuition grant or waiver.

PhD students are provided full tuition, up to the maximum of nine credit hours. Tuition waivers are applicable only to
tuition and the mandatory fee. Additional fees incurred relating to registration and course related fees are not
covered by tuition waivers and are the responsibility of the student. Additionally, credit to the student’s account will
only be granted for the amount of the student’s tuition and will be applied only after other scholarships or fellowships
are processed to the student’s account. Students must be registered in order for the tuition wavier to be applied to
their account.

Fig. 10.1: An example of a GRA offer letter.

Chapter 11

Dealing with Rejection

“You tried your best and you
failed miserably. The lesson is:
never try.”
The Simpsons

Rejection is a common part of the PhD application process. In fact, rejection is

part of academia (e.g., you will get rejected for papers, grants, jobs, etc). Don’t take
rejection personally and to learn from it.

11.1 Try Again!

If you do not get admitted to any schools or don’t want to go to the ones that
admit you, try again next year! Grad. admission can involve randomness and noise.
In the meantime, you can work on improving your profile, e.g., get more research
experiences, publish more papers, improve your connections for stronger LoRs, etc.
See rejection reasons (§11.2) and additional advice to improve your chance (§11.3).
You can consider applying to MS programs, which are typically easier to get in;
but you likely need to pay (§D.2). A university that rejected you for PhD might
accept you for MS. If you get into an MS program at a school of your choice, you
can contact professors to work with them. If you do well, you can ask the professor
to support you to convert to PhD. You will likely need to apply again, but you will
have a much better chance because you have the direct support of a professor there.

Should I ask for feedback? No, don’t bother. You will likely not get any useful
feedback. We are not willing (sometimes not allowed) to reveal your evaluation
results or give you feedback on how to improve your profile. So just move on. If you
really want advice, ask your professors, collaborators, ref writers, or those who have
previously applied.

44
11.2 Why did you get rejected?
Many students lament that they get no interviews or are rejected and that the
admission process seems random. However, while it is true that the process is not
perfect, it is not random. It might be that your profile is not as strong as you think
it is. Even if it is strong, you still can get rejected, e.g., not a good fit, overqualified,
having redflags, etc.

11.2.1 Your profile is not as strong as you think

I have seen multiple cases where students think they have a strong profile, but they
do not. Here are some common examples.
Your LoRs (§3.1) might not be as strong as you think. Your ref writers might
not be very well-known, or active in research, or know how to write a good letter.
Your school (§6) might not be as good as you think. It might be T1 in your
country (or in your own definition), but US faculty does not know about it, e.g.,
most US faculty would not know about schools in Vietnam.
Your research (§4) might not be as strong as you think. Doing research does not
mean much (or anything) if there is no results, e.g,. publications (§4.1). Publications
might not have much value if they were published localled or through unknown
places. Even papers at top venues might not be as good as you think, e.g., many
AI/ML/NLP faculty are not too interested in “dataset” papers at NeurIPS.

11.2.2 Other Common Reasons for Rejection

Even with strong profile (e.g., research potential, GPA, LoRs, SOP, interviews), you
can still get rejected for various other reasons as follows.

You aim too high You have applied to schools that are way too high for your
profile (§13.1.2). Many students simply just go for very top schools (e.g., top 10) and
are surprised when they are rejected to all of them, in multiple years, and completely
get shut out. This is very obvious but many students still do this (§15.1). An analogy
is a person who has never hike but wants to climb Mt. Everest (which btw if you
could, you might have a better admission chance as mentioned in §11.3).
While being ambitious and aiming high is good, you should understand how PhD
admission works (e.g., by reading this handbook and realizing things such as having
a good GPA (§6.2) or GRE (§7.1) doesn’t mean much to top programs), that in the
US there are many good schools, and just be realistic.

Not a Good Fit and Bad luck You could have an excellent profile (e.g., strong
research and LoRs), but if you are interested in a research area that the program
does not have, you will not be admitted. Similarly, if no faculty is willing to advise
you (e.g., they are on sabbatical or personal leave, do not have sufficient funding, or
already have too many students), you will not be admitted. This is actually good
for you, as you don’t want to be in a program where no one can advise you.
Related to this is that you just have bad luck and apply at the wrong time. For
example, since 2024 there has been a huge surge in students interested in AI and
NLP (thanks, ChatGPT!). Consequently, AI/NLP faculty might be overwhelmed
and cannot consider many candidates, even those with excellent profiles.
Before applying, you should talk to your professors and ask them to give you an
honest opinion on where you should apply. To increase their chances, many students
apply to a range of schools, including “safety” ones.

Overqualified or Lack Interest This might be paradoxical and is the opposite

of aiming too high. However if adcom believes that you are likely to get admitted
and go to a better program, they might not be so enthusiastic to admit you and
want to save the spot for someone else.
A related reason is that you did not show enough interest in the program. For
example, you did not respond to professors interested in interviewing you (which
might be considered unprofessional and burn bridges), or during the interview you
showed little knowledge, interest, or enthusiasm in the profs or program (because it
is your safety).

Low English exam scores (e.g., IELTS or TOEFL) Profs. might not care
much about these, but the college or the university often sets a minimum that you
need to pass to be considered, especially for TA funding (a low English score causes
concern that you might not be able to communicate well with students as a TA).
Thus, while profs. are willing to argue for your case, they might be reluctant to go
against the requirement of the university.

Red flags Various types of red flags can cause concern to the adcom. Common
examples include many STEM courses with low or withdrawn grades, plagiarism,
cheating, or other academic dishonesty. Another one is that you have a history of
jumping from one program to another. Adcom members might have contacts in
other programs and heard about your stories, or your LoRs might mention them.
If you think you have these issues, you should address them in your SOP or ask
your letter writers to do so. In general, these things are rare, but they do happen
and cause concern to the adcom.
11.3 Increasing your admission chance

Given the high number of quality applicants and a limited number of spots, in
addition to having a good application profile, you want to show something that
makes you stand out. For example, even if you do not have research experience,
you can talk about your personal projects, as long as they show you can do research.
For example, if you have an open-source project that has lots of stars in Github,
mention it. If you often write technical, research-like blogs with many viewers, talk
about them too.

× Vu: In his post, Matt Might was initially unsure about an application. However,
upon learning that the applicant had led a 100km hike in the Himalayas, he decided
to accept the applicant. This is a good example of being stand out, and I would also
advocate for that student as this shows they have the persistence and determination
required for research.

There are other things you might not think are important but can make you
stand out. For example, if you have a strong background in a non-CS field but can
be integrated with CS, e.g., you have a degree or background in dance or music and
want to integrate them with CS, do talk about it. Are you a female or a minority
in CS? Do you participate in outreach activities that help increase diversity and
inclusion in CS? Diversity is valued in CS programs in the US, and experiences in
these areas can make you stand out and get noticed from reviewers.
 Part IV

Funding, Schools, and Profs.

48
Chapter 12

Funding
“Bart, with $10,000, we’d be
millionaires! We could buy all
kinds of useful things like ...
love!”
The Simpsons

If you’re admitted to a good CS PhD program, you should not have to worry
about funding! In the US, the common types of funding for PhDs are graduate
teaching assistant (GTA or TA), graduate research assistant (GRA or RA), and
Fellowship. RA is paid by a prof. for you to do their research. TA is paid by the
dept. for you to help with teaching. Finally, fellowship is independent funding that
can come from a school, a company, or an organization.
Tab. 12.1 summarizes the differences. Note that funding is typically more avail-
able for PhD students than MS (§D.2.3).

12.1 Graduate Assistantship (TA/RA)

The most common type of funding is graduate assistantship, which is either TA
or RA. Both TA and RA come with tuition waiving (you don’t have to pay tuition),

Tab. 12.1: Different types of PhD funding. All cover tuition, insurance, and stipend.

TA RA Fellowship
From School Profs. School/External
For Teaching Assist. Research Research
Cover All? Yes Yes Yes
Summer? No Maybe Likely
Pros Research Freedom Get to do research Research Freedom
Cons Teaching Duties Research Restriction Competitive, Limited

49
health insurance (this takes care of your insurance, which is a must-have in the US),
and most importantly, your stipend (i.e., your salary). Some universities also give
significant discounts or pay insurance for spouses/children.
Several things about stipends. First, the amount of stipend varies and depends
on factors such as location (e.g., a stipend in the DC area is likely higher than in
Lincoln, Nebraska due to higher living costs). Second, an academic year (AY) year
is typically 9-month in the US, so the stipend is for 9 months. Third, you might get
paid over the summer (§12.3.2) through funding from your professor or fellowship
(typically no TA over the summer). Fourth, like most sources of income in the US,
you will have to pay tax on your stipend. Finally, private universities might pay
more for stipends, but they could have extra activity fees or some other hidden ones
(e.g., you may need to pay some fees for each credit hour).

× Vu: TA and RA at Mason have similar benefits in tuition waiving and insurance.
The college and department will set the rate for a 9-month graduate assistant
stipend. TA, which is paid by the department, will likely be that amount but RA
might be higher depending on the prof and the stage of the student (1st year vs
ABDa ).

At Mason, CS TA/RA is paid the highest. First, CS is under the College of Engi-
neering and Computing (CEC), which already has a higher TA stipend than other
colleges. Second, CS is the largest department in the college, and has the higher TA
stipend than what CEC suggests. Finally, it is a tradition that CS faculty pay their
RAs more than the department’s TA rate. So a winning combination for CS PhD
students.
a
acrlongABD: close to graduate.

Having health insurance is required at many US universities. Do not assume that

you’re young and healthy and ignore insurance (§H.5). At Mason, and most CS PhD
programs, your GTA or GRA comes with full insurance. In fact, at Mason your
spouse/children will get a significant discount rate for health insurance. So you will
never have to worry much about health issues for you or your family here.

12.1.1 Teaching Assistant (TA)

TA is common in the beginning when you haven’t found an adviser who would pay
you RA. It is also common to sandwich between TA and RA (e.g., when your prof.
does not have sufficient funding or you want to try the TA experience).
Your TA is paid through the school or department, i.e., they hire you to help
teach. As a TA, you spend up to 20 hrs/week and help with classes (e.g., grading or
teaching labs/recitation). During a semester, a TA might work with several courses
and professors (not necessarily their adviser). TA funding is not typically available
during the summer (§12.3.2), which has few courses.
How to get TA? Unless you have other funding such as RA or fellowships, TA is
typically the default for CS PhD programs. In your application, just simply indicate
that you need financial assistance. Typically, adcom will either admit you and give
you TA, or reject you. We do not admit a student without supporting them (§15.2).

× Vu: At Mason CS, admitted PhD students have 4 years of GTA guaranteed, and
also receive a stipend for the first summer (§12.3.2).

Even if you have other funding and do not need a TA, you still should do TA at
least once. This allows you to see what teaching is like, which is especially helpful
for a research career where you often give talks and tell people about your work.
Mason sometimes has classes that a more senior student can teach. In that case, you
will be paid as GTA or even sometimes as a lecturer. This is a good opportunity for
students to get teaching experience and you might even get paid a bit more.

12.1.2 Research Assistant (RA)

RA is provided through a professor through their funding so you can work on their
project. You do not need to teach as an RA, so you can focus on your research.
Depending on the professor, RA may be available during the summer. §12.3.3 gives
more details on RA budget.
How to get RA? When a professor recruits you, they might offer you an RA
right away (so you start with an RA). However, a more common scenario is that you
first get admitted with TA, and then after a year or two find an adviser to support
you with RA.
It is important to note that RA is never guaranteed as it depends on the funding
situation of the prof. So you should also pay attention to TA, which is a good backup
plan (remember, typically TA and RA have quite similar benefits). This means you
should also check if TA is readily available for PhD students in the program.

× Vu: If you got recruited and offered an RA by a prof., you will likely get admitted.
For example, if a prof., even if not in PhD adcom, wants to fund you, adcom will
likely respect that decision and admit you.

12.2 Fellowships/Scholarships
Fellowship is another type of funding that students can get from the university,
industries, or government. Fellowships are typically competitive and generous, giving
pretty much all benefits tuition/insurance that a TA/RA has. They might even give
higher stipends (including summer) and open doors for job opportunities such as
internships.
 How to get Fellowship? Many schools provide fellowships to attract students.
You likely will not need to do anything and adcom will recommend such fellowships
to strong students. Some schools automatically offer a fellowship to all accepted
students, while others only award it to a limited number of admitted students, such
as the top percentile.
For external fellowships including those from the US government, e.g., see §F
for NSF GRFP and DOD NDSEG, and tech companies (e.g., Google, Microsoft,
Facebook), you will need to apply. Prestigious external fellowships typically require
a clear and good research plan (the GRFP also requires broader impacts discussion).
So it might be a good idea to wait until your second year to have research experience
and even publication before applying. Remember, you’re competing with the top
PhD students at top universities worldwide.

× Vu: PhD applicants at Mason are automatically eligible for a Presidential Fel-
lowship. It is at least as good as GTA but the most important thing is that as a
fellowship it is truly free money (i.e., you do not depend on any prof. or TA). Adcom
members nominate applicants for this fellowship and the whole committee will decide.

In general, fellowships, especially those that are open to everyone, are highly
competitive and prestigious, and you will stand out if you get one. Every PhD
student has pubs, but only a few would have NSF Graduate (GRFP1 ) or Microsoft
fellowships. In fact, these are so prestigious that even if you didn’t get it but make
it to the final round or even “honorable mentioning”, your school will still mention
you on their website, and you should put it on your CV. §F discusses the evaluation
processes of the NSF GRFP and DoD NDSEG.

12.3 Miscs
12.3.1 Low Stipend?
Students often think their stipend is too low and not enough to live on. For example,
if you look at the stipend at Mason, which is around $30K for 9-month, and then
compare it to the cost of living in Fairfax, VA, which says you need $70K to live in
a 1-bed apartment, then you might be in a panic.
However, in almost all cases, the stipend is enough to live on. You might not be
able to live in a 1-bed apartment by yourself, but you can live in a shared apartment
or house with other students (most grad students shared apt). You might not be
able to buy a new car, but you can use public transportation (actually, most my
students buy a used car after being here for a year or so). In short, while the stipend
is not high, it is not bad, and you can live comfortably with it.
1
[Link] is a good starting place for the GRFP
with lots of proposal examples.
 In fact, it might be enough to support your spouse and kids. Many CS PhD
students have their families with them (a student of mine lives with his wife and
1 kid in a 1-bed apartment and they are doing fine with just his stipend). So
don’t worry too much about the stipend. A good school would know that it has to
be competitive to attract students. For example, at Mason, every year we try to
improve the benefits, and especially stipend, for our graduate students.
For a full breakdown of how much a graduate student costs, see §12.3.3.

12.3.2 Funding In the Summer

Students often get confused about summer funding, e.g., if they will get paid during
the summer. This is a good question because PhD students have no classes over
the summer and so are often more productive and produce good research. However,
summer salary is largely depending on your funding source.
First, recall that an academic year (AY), which consists of Fall and Spring
semesters, is typically 9 months, so your stipend is for 9 months (and many places
allow you to spread it over 12 months).
If your funding source is TA (§12.1.1), you typically do not get paid over the
summer, which has few courses. Some CS departments offer summer funding, but it
is not guaranteed and might not be a lot. For example, at Mason, we offer summer
funding for 1st-year PhD TA students. The amount over the 3-month summer is
similar to their monthly stipend (i.e., their 9-month stipend divided by 3 for the 3
summer months).
For RA (§12.1.1), it depends on your prof. and their funding. When writing
grant proposals, profs. typically include summer funding for their students (§12.3.3).
However, funding is never guaranteed, e.g., the prof might not get the grant.

× Vu: For my students, I have been fortunate to have funding to support them over
the summer. Over the 3-summer months, I typically pay them 1/3 of their 9-month
stipend. I prioritize summer funding for my students because Mason has very good
TA resources so they never have to worry about funding during the AY.

Finally, for fellowships (§12.2) you might get paid over the summer depending
on your fellowship (§12.2). Good ones, e.g., from NSF, Google, and Microsoft, will
pay you the whole year.

12.3.3 How much do you cost?

PhD students often ask why their salary is low compared to the large grants their
advisers get. They also wonder why their offer letters sometimes show that their
benefits are higher than what they receive (i.e., stipend).
Tab. 12.2: GRA cost breakdown. F & A is Facilities & Administrative Cost Base and MTDC
is Modified Total Direct Cost. These are things that the university can charge overhead to.

Budget Cost $ Notes

GRA (9-month) 30K
GRA (summer) 10 3-month, 20hrs/week
Total Salary 40K
Health Insurance 3K full year
Tuition (In-State) 15K ($680/ Credit + $150/Student Fee/ Credit)* 9 credits =
$7470 ($6120 + $1350) per semester
Total Tuition & Insurance 18K Full year tuition + insurance
Conference Registration 500
International Travel 1800
Domestic Travel 700
Total Travel 3K
Total Direct Cost 61K Salary + Travel + Health + Tuition
F & A (MTDC) 21K Direct Cost - GRA Salary
Total Indirect Cost 12K 58.9% of MTDC
Total (Direct + Indirect) 73K Budget for a GRA

Tab. 12.2 shows the budget breakdown for a GRA per year. These numbers are
based on my experience at public universities in the US. Private universities may
have different numbers. For simplicity, I will assume the department has a 9-month
stipend of $30K and a 3-month summer of $10K (a third of the 9-month stipend).
I will also use Mason tuition rate of about $15K/year for full-time study (which is
quite cheap compared to private universities, e.g., Univ. of Chicago is a whooping
$70K) and a 58.9% rate on indirect cost, which is a typical rate charged for overhead
or administrative costs (yes, after all, universities are businesses!). Finally, I assume
the students take two conference trips per year, one domestic and one international
(conf. registration, airline tickets, taxi, meals, etc are all included).
In the end, the total budget comes out to be $73K/year to support a PhD
student. The summary is that over your 5–6 years of your PhD, you cost about
$400K, and while your stipend is X, your adviser probably pays 2X for you. But of
course, the nicest thing is that you do not have to pay for any of this! You get to
gain the knowledge, do research, travel, (and don’t even have to buy any research or
computer equipment as mentioned in §10.4) and also get paid!
Chapter 13

Choosing Schools
“It’s not the school you go to, it’s
what you do while you’re there!”
The Simpsons

Choosing a school and an adviser is clearly among the most important things in
your mind when you apply and especially when you get admitted. This is further
complicated due to cultural differences and the unfamiliarity of international students
with the US higher education system. This section aims to mitigate some confusion
and help you make informed decisions.

13.1 Choosing a University

We will first discuss universities in the US that offer PhD in CS. Then we will talk
about how to select them.

13.1.1 Schools offering PhD in CS

Most US universities have CS programs, but many of them do not have a CS PhD
program. These universities might offer just Bachelor’s degrees (e.g., BS) and no
graduate studies (i.e., no MS or PhD degrees), or they just offer MS programs (but
no PhD). For example, Penn State in University Park has PhD in CS, but Penn
State in Harrisburg only has BS and MS in CS, and Penn State in York only has BS
in CS. On the other hand, multiple locations of the University of Texas, e.g., Austin,
Dallas, and Arlington, have PhDs in CS.
Thus, if your goal is PhD in CS, you have to aim only for schools offering such
a degree. While this can be confusing due to the large number of universities in the
US, a little research, e.g., searching for PhD in CS from the school website, will help
you find out. Schools listed in §I have PhD programs in CS, so you can start there.

56
13.1.2 Selecting and Ranking Schools

Many students put universities into two bins: (i) top schools that they dream
about, and (ii) everything else. They often use rankings from US News, which is not
transparent and questionable1 . Sometimes they evaluate based on the reputation of
the school’s undergrad program or the reputation of the school’s non-CS programs
such as medical, math, or physics. Many international students rank universities
based on popular places they know in the US, e.g., California, Texas, and New York.
Instead of these superficial criteria, you should specifically consider the CS pro-
gram and the research interests of faculty members. You can learn about these using
resources such as [Link]. You will be very surprised to learn that a school
that you didn’t know much about can have very strong research in your topic (and
vice versa, a school you thought highly about might have no faculty working in the
research field you’re interested in). This is also a good way to learn about individual
faculty, e.g., who works on what, and well-known CS conferences2 .

× Dat: Most Vietnamese students, including those from top schools, do not
know about CSRankings. Maybe applicants who worked at top research places such
as VinAI would know about it.

What matters to you? While many find CSRankings useful, it is still superficial
as every other ranking. You should consider other factors that matter to you. For
example, you might prefer places with a large community from your country (e.g.,
Northern VA has a large population of Vietnamese). You might prefer places with
high-tech companies (Seattle or Silicon Valley), with many outdoor activities (e.g.,
hiking, skiing), or with better weather (“PhD can be depressing, so would you rather
be depressed in California or New York?”). You might need to think about the cost
of living, e.g., living in California is more expensive than in Virginia, or places with
1
[Link]
2
In CS (and probably only in CS), conferences, not journals, are often the main venue to publish
research findings (see why here).
high crime rates (note that while some universities might be in a high-crime city but
the campus itself is safe).
If you get admission to several places, you should consider attending Open Houses
(§10) and contact profs. that you’re interested in at those places and talk to them.
They would be more willing to chat with you now that you have been admitted. Ask
questions about their work, how they manage students, and their expectations. You
can even ask to contact their students.

× Hung: I always encourage the students I admit to talk with my students and the
students of other faculty in other schools who admitted them. You will unlikely hear
straight-out complaints from current students in a prof’s group. But sometimes what
is important are things that they (current students) don’t tell you. Pay attention to
their “level of excitement” being in the group.

× Xiaokuan: Chinese students often only look at US News rankings when selecting
their PhD universities (I did that, too, when I was applying for PhD positions). Now
that I am a professor, I find it to be the least promising way. The reason is that US
News does not provide a good metric for evaluating the quality of the PhD program.
If you want to do great research, CSRankings is the best way to find good and
active professors (which did not exist when I was applying), since it solely focuses on
publications at top-tier CS conferences. Also, I think PhD is not only about research;
you need to also consider your daily life there since you will (probably) stay for at
least five years. You might regret it if you did not consider this seriously before
applying.

13.1.3 PhD in other related fields: CE, IST, Cybersecurity

You do not need to do a PhD in CS to work in CS areas. For example, in addition to
a traditional CS department, Mason has IST and Cybersecurity departments, both
of which have faculty with PhD in CS and work on CS topics (e.g., AI, Security,
Robotics). So you still can do CS research and publish in CS-focused venues even if
you’re not in a traditional CS program. It is common to see faculty with PhD in CS
in a non-CS department as well as faculty with non-CS PhD in a CS department.
However, if your goal is a PhD in CS, then you need to be in the CS dept
and advised by a CS faculty. A non-CS faculty can serve in the PhD dissertation
committee (common) or co-advise (somewhat rare), but your main PhD adviser will
likely be a tenure-line faculty in CS (§14.2). For example, a prof. in Stats or Math
might be able to serve as a co-adviser, but not as a sole adviser of a student in a CS
PhD program. If in doubt, check with the CS department for their requirements.
For this specific reason, CSRankings includes only faculty who can advise CS
PhD students. I also have compiled a list of Vietnamese faculty who can advise PhD
students. §14.2 talks more about who can serve as your PhD adviser.
Chapter 14

Choosing an Adviser
“It’s not easy being a mentor.
But it sure is funny to watch
other people screw up.”
The Simpsons

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to finding an adviser. The best adviser is the

one that you can work well with. But how do you find such a person?
Fortunately, while some non-US programs require finding an adviser and research
topic before starting the PhD (§1.5), CS PhD programs in the US will typically give
you a couple of years to “shop” for advisers and research topics. This is especially
true if you’re admitted with TA (§12.1.1), which gives you time to explore and find
an adviser.

14.1 Finding an Adviser

Assuming you’re not familiar with any particular one, then first search for profs.
that share similar research interests. For example, in CSRankings, if you want to
work with PL, you can search for those published in PL conferences. If you want to
work with SE and AI, you can search for faculty who work in both SE and AI.
After that, you can research about that prof. by going to their website, looking
at their research achievements and awards (§14.5), checking their research lab and
group, seeing if they have recent publications, and reading their papers. Sometimes
they would explicitly say they are looking for students. If you find a prof. that you
like, you can reach out to them (§14.4).

59
 × Xiaokuan: Whether the student’s research interest matches that of the adviser
is very important; if there is a mismatch, either the student or the adviser has to
make compromises, which often leads to disagreements or conflicts. IMO, the adviser
should be the one who guides students to do research while allowing students to
pursue their own interests, instead of dictating their research.

Another way is taking graduate-level courses in the topics you are interested
in. Many profs teach special topics courses and research seminars, and they might
be recruiting students. Do well in the class, answer questions, talk to the prof.
after classes, etc—being stand out. Many profs, including myself, prefer taking in
new students this way. It gives both the prof and student more time, e.g., a whole
semester, to work and evaluate the relationship before making any commitment
(sounds like a marriage!).
You can also ask to do an independent study or research with a prof. This can
be informal (no credits) and takes place during the summer or winter break. For
example, I do this with several students, some of whom are undergrads. Many will
drop out because they find they don’t like my research, but some find that they like
the work.
Ultimately, choose a prof. that fits you by communicating with them, taking their
courses, meeting and asking them questions, and talking to their current students.
It will take time and effort, but since you will be working with this person for 5+
years, it is important to try to find the right one.

× Thanh: In my opinion, having a well-suited adviser is crucial for a successful

PhD and research career. One effective approach to finding a suitable professor
is by working with a professor during your undergraduate studies. An exemplary
instance is VinAI’s residency program, where residents collaborate with professors
from the US for two years before applying to PhD programs. Many VinAI residents
have achieved remarkable results and gained admission to prestigious US universities.
Unfortunately, VinAI’s resident program is limited to AI research.
In other fields, e.g. Software Engineering, Vietnamese students face challenges in
reaching US professors. Do you have any tips for Vietnamese students who want to
connect with US professors and work as research assistants?

Vu: §14.4 shows how to contact a professor for research opportunities. Many will say
no (or do not reply) as they do not have the bandwidth to take on random students,
but some may say yes if they see a potential fit.

Additional Resources
• The Definitive “what do I ask/look for” in a PhD Adviser Guide
14.2 Types of Faculty: Who can serve as a PhD adviser?
Not every faculty can serve as your official PhD adviser. Understanding the different
types of faculty roles will help you avoid common mistakes—like contacting the wrong
person (§14.4) for research opportunities or listing in your SOP (§5) someone who
can’t actually supervise PhD students.
You’ll encounter terms like tenured, tenure-track, teaching, research, adjunct,
and emeritus professors. Here’s a quick guide to what these roles mean, and which
faculty you should focus on when applying to PhD programs.

14.2.1 Faculty Types

At most research-intensive (R1) universities, faculty generally fall into two broad
categories:

• Tenure-line faculty (tenured or tenure-track)

• Non-tenure-line faculty (e.g., teaching, adjunct, or research faculty)

The key distinction is in their responsibilities, i.e., whether they are expected to
conduct research, secure funding, and supervise PhD students.

Tenure-Line Faculty These faculty members are expected to perform research,

publish in top venues, get funding (§12.1.2), and mentor students, especially PhD
students. They typically teach fewer courses—often just one per semester—and are
the main group eligible to serve as primary PhD advisers. Tenure-line faculty consist
of two subcategories:

• Tenure-track faculty are on the path to tenure and are often actively recruiting
students.

• Tenured faculty have already earned permanent status and usually have well-
established labs.

ñ If you’re reaching out to professors about potential advising, focus

on tenure-line faculty. These are the faculty that most likely to have funding,
institutional authority, and the capacity to take on new PhD students. See §14.3 for
more on choosing between tenured and tenure-track faculty as advisers.

Teaching Faculty Teaching faculty (also called instructional faculty, professors

of practice, or lecturers) primarily focus on teaching. They often teach three to four
courses per semester and are not typically expected to conduct research, publish
papers, or apply for funding.
 Thus they usually do not have the resources or institutional role to advise PhD
students, especially as the main adviser. In some universities, they may co-advise a
PhD student alongside a tenure-line faculty member, but this is rare and varies by
institution.
Do not contact teaching faculty to ask about PhD advising or research
positions. They’re usually not involved in PhD admissions, and such emails can be
annoying to them.

× Vu: Why teaching faculty are not typically involved in PhD admissions or
research, some are active in research and mentor undergrad students, eg., during the
summer. So if you’re an undergrad (§E) and want to try research, you can contact
them (usually after taking their class and doing well).

Research Faculty and Scientists Some universities have research faculty or

research scientists (e.g., postdocs are sometimes called research faculty), who focus
almost entirely on research and often have little or no teaching duties. These faculty
members can apply for grants, publish regularly, and, in some rare cases, are allowed
to serve as advisers for PhD students. In many cases, they are required to co-advise
with a tenure-line faculty member.

Adjunct and Emeritus Faculty

• Adjunct faculty are typically part-time instructors who may have full time job
outside academia (e.g., in industry). They may teach one or two courses per
year but are not involved in research or PhD advising.

• Emeritus faculty are retired professors and are usually no longer active in
research or advising.

Because of their limited roles, adjunct and emeritus faculty do not serve as PhD
advisers. So, do not contact them to ask about research openings.

× Vu: This Reddit thread shares an example of a student being rejected after listing
emeritus professors in their SOP. This was a sign that the applicant did not do their
homework and thus was not a good fit for the program. This is a common mistake,
especially for international students who are not familiar with the US system.

Faculty from Other Departments Most universities also restrict who can advise
PhD students based on departmental affiliation. For example, even a tenured faculty
member in another department (e.g., Electrical Engineering or Math) may not be
allowed to serve as the primary adviser for a CS PhD student unless they have a
formal joint appointment (§13.1.3).
14.2.2 Ranks (Assistant, Associate, Full, and More)
Regardless of type (tenure-track or teaching), faculty are generally assigned one of
three academic ranks:

1. Assistant: typically an early-career faculty member

2. Associate: mid-career, often after tenure or promotion

3. Full: senior, often with a strong record of achievement

Tenure-line faculty generally start as assistant prof. (unless they have strong
research record, e.g., from the industrial research lab), undergo a rigorous review
around year six, and if successful are promoted to associate prof. with tenure. Note
that getting tenure is a huge deal, and it might change the way they work with
students (§14.3).
The timeline for becoming a full prof. varies widely; some do it within a few
years after tenure, others take a decade or more, and some become emeritus faculty
without ever reaching full prof. status. Teaching and research faculty may also
progress through these ranks, though the promotion criteria and timelines differ.
In addition to these ranks, some faculty hold special titles that indicate prestige
or recognition.

• Endowed Chair and Named Prof.: funded by a private donor; typically awarded
to highly accomplished faculty or to attract junior faculty.

• Distinguished Prof.: recognized by the university for exceptional achievement

• University Prof.: a title reserved for a small number of faculty with extraordi-
nary impact

Professors with these titles are often tenure-line faculty, and therefore can advise
PhD students. However, they may not be as available, especially if they are in
high demand or have administrative responsibilities. For example, most department
chairs are endowed chairs or distinguished professors, and they might not be too
active in research or advising students.
14.3 Tenured or tenure-track faculty?

Now that you know a bit about tenured and tenure-track faculty (§14.2). Which
one should you choose as your adviser? Either can be a good adviser, but they have
different strengths and weaknesses.
Tenure-track faculty, e.g., assistant professors, are likely young and active in
research (they have to, to get tenure). Thus, they will devote more time to work
with you and push you to do research and publish. However, you might not be
too independent when you graduate because they have been too hands-on with you.
Also, they may not have as much experience in managing students and may not have
as much funding (yet).
Tenured faculty, e.g., associate and full profs., are likely older, more well-known,
and have more experience in managing students. However, they might not push you
as hard and expect you to figure things out yourself, i.e., you need to be independent.
Some tenured faculty are also no longer active in research and are more involved with
administrative responsibilities or with their startup companies (this means they will
likely not take new students).
14.4 Contacting a Prof. How to get a desired reply?

Faculty often receive “cold” e-mails from prospective students. Most of the time,
we ignore these emails (§14.4.3), but on some rare occasions, we do answer them. So
how to write an email that gets our attention?
First, if you want to contact a prof. to ask about your admission chance, please
don’t. We don’t know and can’t answer because as explained in §2, we don’t make
individual decisions and might not even be assigned to evaluate your application.
It is the same as sending a paper draft to a journal editor and asking them if your
paper has a chance.
So how to get someone to look at your profile and give input? You could ask
your professors, LoR writers, collaborators, or those who have previously applied.
For this kind of feedback, ask someone you have a personal connection with.
On the other hand, if you want to contact a prof. to ask about research op-
portunities, or GTA/GRA support, then yes, I believe you should—it is worth it.
However, you really need to put effort into it and do it the right way.
First, read the prof’s website, and see if they say something about contacting
them. Many profs. explicitly state how prospective students should (or should not)
contact them, e.g., using specific email subjects. In general, the best way to catch
the prof.’s attention is to customize your email for them. For example, read their
papers, know what they work on, and see if you are interested in their research. Then
email them and talk about how/why their work would match yours. In contrast, if
you write a generic email that can be sent to multiple professors (e.g., if you just
change some names and keywords in the email or copy and paste paper titles), you
will not get a response.
Below is a good example:
 ‡
Dear Prof. Nguyen,

I am writing to inquire about potential research opportunities as a GRA in your

group at Mason. Currently I am an undergraduate student in Computer Science at
UNIV and plan to graduate in May 2023.

I have read your TSE’21 paper on numerical invariant generation, and I am interested
in this line of dynamic invariant research. I have worked (optional: with prof. Y at
Z) on static program analysis and I think it could be used to tackle the spurious
issues mentioned in your paper. I have a short paper at conference/workshop C and
a project on symbolic execution (Github repo G).
...

This is a good example because it is written just for me. It shows that the student
knows about my work on invariant generation and has a related background (paper
C and project G).

Finally, profs. are very busy so don’t take it personally if you don’t get anything
from them (though I would be very surprised if such thoughtful emails get no replies!).
See §14.4.1 for common mistakes in emails and §14.4.2 for interpreting replies.

× Xiaokuan Applying for PhD and contacting a potential PhD adviser is a classic
‘why me, why you’ problem, similar to looking for a job in a company. On a high
level, you need to show that you have done your homework regarding the professor
and the university, and clearly explain: 1) why do you think you are a good fit in
professor A’s group? 2) why do you want to be advised by professor A, not B? 3)
why do you want to apply for university X, not Y? If you don’t want to spend time
doing your homework, the chance of getting a reply is close to zero.

× Deepak: In my view, cold emails are not welcome by most faculty members
and should be avoided. However, if one is already admitted to a program in some
department, by all means, email the faculty you may be interested in working with,
but do mention right at the beginning that you are already admitted to the program as
well as several other universities. State specific areas (preferably specific topics-ML,
robotics instead of AI).

Additional Resources
• A Note about Emailing Professors by Yonatan Bisk

• §10.1 How to accept/postpone/decline PhD offers (and do it gracefully)

14.4.1 Kiss of Death in Emails
• Send emails to the wrong prof.. Many students do not pay attention or
know about this, but a very common reason why you don’t get a reply is that
you send email to profs. who do not / cannot advise CS PhD students (e.g.,
adjunct, emeritus, teaching, non-CS). See §14.2 for details. While these profs.
might be able to co-advise, they typically do not have the bandwidth, funding,
and the desire to mentor students for research (they are already overloaded
with teaching and other service duties).
So do some homework before sending emails, e.g., most CS profs. who are
active in research will have a website with their work (publications) and stu-
dents; some also have lab website dedicated to their group. Most teaching and
adjunct profs. do not have a research group or students listed on their website.

• Generic. You should already know this! A copy and paste kind of email or
those that can be sent to multiple people with very little modifications show
the lack of interest and will be treated as spam. Most likely we will not reply
to these emails.

• Self-focus. Focusing too much about you and your achievements but not why
you are interested in the prof.’s work (§14.4). Mention why you’re interested
in their work and how your background can contribute.

• Too long. Keep it to about 3–4 short paragraphs. Less is more and too long
emails are often not read and discarded. Don’t attach course transcript or
test scores in the first email. If they are interested they will ask for them.
Attaching CV is OK. Sample papers (§8.2) and links to your Arxiv papers or
GitHub projects are also OK if they are relevant.

• Flowery greetings and language. Don’t use “Dear esteemed professor”. Do

not call the prof. by their first name in the first email (some don’t care but
you don’t want to take the risk – you don’t know them that well yet). Do not
use Mr., Mrs., etc. To be safe, use Prof. Lastname or Dr. Lastname (§15.4).

• Ignoring the Prof ’s guideline and asking questions that are already an-
swered on their website. Many profs. put very specific information on how to
contact them on their website (e.g., email subject, what to include). Following
this helps you stand out and increase your chance of getting a reply.

• Fancy format. Do not use colors, fancy fonts or formats. While not really
a kiss of death, it is very annoying, especially for people in CS (and probably
many other fields) who often prefer plain messages.

• Mass emails. I’ve seen it many times when a student mass emails all profs
in a department (e.g., through CC or even BCC—we know because faculty
 talk to each other). This will result in no reply or a very harsh one on how
unprofessional you are.

• Do Not Call. Not related to email but sometimes students get desperate and
call the prof. This is a big no-no, especially for CS ppl who often prefer email
over phone calls.

14.4.2 Interpreting Response

Even if you avoid the kiss of death emails (§14.4.1), you might still not get a reply.
This is very common and you should not take it personally. There are many reasons
why you might not get a reply, e.g., the prof. is not interested, they are too busy
(§14.4.3), they are not taking students, they are on vacation, etc. Here are some
common responses and what they mean:
Some generic responses are:
• No reply. This is by far the most common response (see why in §14.4.3). It
means they are not interested. You might try again in a few weeks or months,
but don’t expect a reply. And after a couple of tries, you should move on. It
simply means they are not interested.

• Not taking students but encourage you to apply. Polite way of saying
not interested and referring you to the admission process. Note that this
does not in any way mean that they think you have a good chance of getting
admitted.

• Not taken student this year (but encourage you to apply next year).
Polite but generic response. And like the previous one, encouragement to apply
does not mean they think you have a good chance of getting admitted.

• Come talk to me after you’re admitted. Generic. Refer you to the

admission process. But if you get admitted then you can reply to them and
say you’re admitted and would like to talk.

• Cannot admit you directly. Need to go through admission process.

Generic. They are not interested and refer you to the admission process.

• I am not taking students but I co-advise/can serve on your commit-

tee. While this might sound good, it’s still generic because it says once you’re
admitted and have an adviser, then contact me again.

• I am not taking student but Prof. X might be. Not common as most
profs. will not refer you to their colleagues. However, this is better than the
previous responses. While they cannot take you, they think you are a good
fit for X. So follow up with a thank you and say you’ll contact X. And then
contact X and say that Y referred you to them.
 In short, all of these replies mean the prof. is not interested. The best positive
response is that they want more information from you, e.g., your CV, transcript,
paper, or a chat (like an interview).

14.4.3 Are profs. so busy that they completely ignore emails?

Profs. are busy. We have many deadlines, meetings, and emails, many of which
are from prospective students looking for research opportunities. we also have a life
outside of work, e.g., family, hobbies, etc.
However, this is not why we “ghost” you and provide no response (§14.4.2). It is
because we want to avoid misunderstandings. A response (§14.4.2), no matter how
clear we think it is, might be misinterpreted by the student. For example, if we say
we are not taking students but still (strongly) encourage to apply, then the student
might take it as a positive sign of admission. Or if we say we are not interested,
the student might take it as a personal rejection and not apply at all. So it is not
because we are too busy to reply, but because we do not want misunderstandings
and have to deal with them later.

× Vu: I skim through every email sent by students for admission and research
opportunities (many of which are from undergrads and highschool students). So that
means I do read your email, and it doesn’t go to my spam/trash folder. However, I
only reply to those that I think are a good fit and ask them to chat with me.

14.5 Research Achievements and Awards

When exploring potential advisors, students often come across various research
achievements showcased on faculty websites, CVs, or departmental news and awards
pages (e.g., at Mason and UWash).
Unlike common metrics like publications in top-tier venues or citation counts,
these highlighted achievements are genuinely exceptional and offer more meaningful
glimpse into a researcher’s impact and standing in the field. After all, you rarely
see departments celebrating someone’s paper acceptance or h-index, but they will
spotlight the awards and honors such as these below.

Early-Career Funding Awards

These refer to prestigious grants and fellowships for early-career faculty, e.g., assis-
tant professors who have not yet received tenure (§14.2.). In addition to coming
with major funding, these awards are highly valued and can significantly boost the
tenure case and career of the recipient.

• NSF CAREER Award A very popular and prestigious early-career award

for junior faculty demonstrating research and educational excellence. It comes
 with a 5-year research grant, which is substantial for early-career researchers.
In many cases, the CAREER implies tenure and thus is such a big deal that
some faculty would delay major life events (e.g., marriage and children) to
focus on it. In some cases, faculty may consider moving to a better school
after getting this award.
– NSF CRII (CISE Research Initiation Initiative) A “mini” version of
CAREER for junior faculty in CISE (Computer and Information Science
and Engineering) directorate. It comes with a 2-year grant and many
faculty use this as a stepping stone to apply for the CAREER.
– PECASE (Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers)
A small number of CAREER awardees are selected for this recognition.
While is it not a funding award, it is a prestigious recognition of early-
career researchers (it comes with a medal and a handshake from the U.S.
President!)
• YIP (Young Investigator Program) Given by defense agencies such as the
DoD, DARPA, ONR and have the similar goals as CAREER but strictly for
US citizen or permanent residents. They are not as popular as CAREER, focus
on very restricted topics (e.g., only in DoD’s interest areas), and have a shorter
duration (e.g., 3 years instead of 5). YIP recipients can also be considered for
the mentioned PECASE recognition.
• Sloan Fellowship Comes with a $75K research grant over 2 years for junior
faculty with exceptional potential in their field. Unlike the CAREER or YIP,
these are nominated by their institutions and are not open to self-application.

Other awards that junior faculty can get include the ACM Dissertation Awards
and early career awards from the industry. The ACM SIGs (Special Interest Groups)
such as SIGPLAN (programming languages) and SIGARCH (architecture) have dis-
sertation awards for best PhD dissertation in different areas of CS. These are typically
given after the student has graduated and thus are given very junior faculty who
recently graduated. Some industry labs, e.g., Google and ( Microsoft
(((( (used to), have
fellowship programs for early-career faculty. These are very competitive and come
with funding for one or two years.

14.5.1 Research Awards

These refer to awards given to more senior researchers for their outstanding contribu-
tions to their field. These are typically for specific papers that have made significant
impact in their area of research (i.e., test-of-time or most influential awards), or
for their lifetime achievements in the field (e.g., ACM or IEEE Fellows). Note that
these do not include Distinguished or Best Paper Awards, which are typically given
at conferences and not as prestigious as they might not have long-term impact.
 ‡ “It is highly noteworthy that has earned two 10-year test-of-time awards
for papers . Senior
computer scientists count themselves fortunate to earn even one such award at some
point in their careers, but it is highly unusual and commendable that has earned
two of these awards already, less than ten years after completing PhD ...”

Fig. 14.1: LoR for a junior faculty (some texts endacted for anonymity).

• Test of Time, Most Influential, and Impact Awards Typically given to

papers that were published 10+ years ago at a top venue and made a lasting
contribution to their area of research, i.e., have stood the test of time. Unlike
Distinguish or Best Paper awards, which are typically given at the conference
where the paper was presented, these are given years later to recognize the
long-term impact of the work.

× Vu: While typically given to senior researchers, some junior faculty have
received these awards for their work as shown in Fig. 14.1.

• ACM and IEEE Fellows Reserved for researchers with long-term contri-
butions and leadership in computing fields. These are typically given to very
senior researchers (e.g., full professors). Note that there are also ACM and
IEEE Senior Members, which are a step below Fellows and can be self-applied.

• McArthur Fellowship Also known as the “Genius Grant” and given to indi-
viduals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise
for more in the future.

• Turing Award The highest honor in CS for lifetime achievements and contri-
butions to the computing community. It comes with a $1M prize and is often
called the “Nobel Prize of Computing.” If you see someone having one, you
already know they are a giant in the field.

× Vu: In addition to showing faculty’s publication count, CSRankings also high-

lights if an individual is an ACM Fellow or Turing Award winner. It is also worth
noting that most Turing Award winners have very low publication counts as they are
very senior and might not be active in research anymore.

Industrial and Other Awards

CS faculty also aim to win awards from industry, which can be a sign of their impact
on real-world applications and industry relevance. Some well-known ones include:
 • Google Scholar Award Once a year for a wide-range of research areas and
is specifically for junior faculty. It is given as a gift (unrestricted funding).

• Amazon Research Award (ARA) Typically open twice a year for a wide-
range of research areas. It also comes as a gift of up to $80K but is highly
competitive as it is open to all researchers (not just junior faculty).

There are other ones that are given to a selected list of universities that the
company has a partnership with (e.g., from Intel and Qualcomm) and thus the
competition is not as high.
 Part V

Miscs and FAQs

73
Chapter 15

Miscs and FAQs

“I want to share something with
you – the three little sentences
that will get you through life;
number 1: Cover for me,
number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss,
and number 3: It was like that
when I got here.”
The Simpsons

15.1 “Chance me” on getting admitted to T10 programs

Many international students aim for very top schools such as Stanford and MIT, and
Ivy League. Every year Reddit and other forums have numerous students asking for
evaluation of their chances of getting into these schools (the so called “chance me”
or “roast my CV/profile” posts) and then later posts on being “ghosted and rejected
everywhere”.

You are unlikely to get in these schools While being ambitious is always good,
it is important to be realistic, and the harsh reality is that it is very unlikely that
you will get in MIT or Harvard unless you are very exceptional (in which case you
would not be asking for chances on Reddit).
People who do get in these schools often were explicitly encouraged by their
mentors and LoR writers, who themselves might be alumni of these schools or are
academic celebrities who’ve sent many of their students there. If you are not in
this category (doubt you are, because you’re asking random people on the internet
instead of your trusted LoR writers), then you’re likely not going to get in, and MIT
and Stanford would glady take your application money.

74
“Your” top might not really top in CS Harvard and the Ivies? yes good for
many things but usually not coding marathon and typically MIA at top CS confs
(ok, they are still good, but a school somewhere in Maryland, Wisconsin, or Urbana
Champaign cornfield would likely beat them by far in CS). MIT and Stanford? yes,
they are top, but many are equivalent, and there could be CS areas where they are
not as strong as other schools. Caltech and John Hopkins? ... are you confused CS
with Physics and Medicine?
You’re missing out some serious CS PhD programs: UCSD, UW, UMD, Michi-
gan, Purdue, Stony brook. These all have super strong CS programs but rarely get
mentioned. Utah, Rutgers, Buffalo, Penn State, UVA, Ohio, UC Riverside, George
Mason ... any of them rings a bell? These might not ranked very high on QS or US
News and are not household names to you, your friends, mom and dad, but they
are excellent CS schools where graduating students from your dream schools often
apply for faculty positions (e.g., see GMU stats). You can go to these places and be
superstar there.

You don’t need to be top Top schools will open doors to more opportunities.
In countries like Vietnam, there are usually only a few top schools, and if you don’t
get into them, you are doomed (or so you think). But that is not the case in the
US. There are simply too many good schools, and it is not a binary choice between
top X or nothing. In fact, “equity” is emphasized in the US and “smaller” schools
are often given more resources and attention to help students succeed.

ñ Don’t aim for just the moon and the stars, also try the sky, clouds, or even just
the trees. You might find much happiness and success there, which then can catapult
you places beyond the moon and the stars. This is the American dream, which is
strongly embodied in the its higher education system.

Note that what said above might not apply to BS or even MS degrees, which
often do not involve research and thus are more about the school name and your
grades. For PhD, it is all about the research.

15.2 How long does it take to evaluate an application?

In the schools I’ve been at, the application deadline is in Dec, and adcom meets
when school starts in mid or end of Jan. Adcom chair sends out review assignments
to adcom members, about 30ish per faculty (§2.1). We usually have about 2 weeks
to review all applications. As mentioned in §2.4, adcom members review applica-
tions individually and independently. We only discuss when there are disagreements
(adcom chair will determine which applications to discuss).
I typically reserve a whole day (or two days) to review all applications. On aver-
age, I spend about 10–15 minutes reviewing each application (less for clear rejections
and more for potential acceptances). While this seems short, it is not that difficult
to tell if an application is good or bad. In fact, this is twice what other faculty spend
on average, e.g., Philip Guo spent 3–5 minutes per application.
For each application, our system compiles a single PDF file, which consists of
a summary (degrees, GPAs, etc), transcripts, test scores, LoRs, a CV, SOP, and
writing samples. I usually read in this order. I start with the summary, checking
for low GPAs or test scores below the university minimum (§7). I then skim the
transcripts for low grades in relevant courses, noting issues like “many low grades
in main courses or unknown international school with good GPA”. These are not
as important as LORs or SOP but I read them first because the review system has
questions about them (e.g., “is GPA good? is IELTS sufficient?”)
I read carefully strong LoRs and skim weaker ones, noting either strong letters
from well-known professors/researchers and talk about research experiences or weak
letters with generic content (e.g., “student was in my class”). I skim over CV and
look for publications, research experiences, and notable achievements. I take notes
of things like “published papers in top venues” or “gold medal in an international
competition”.
I skim weak SOPs but read strong ones carefully. I note whether the SOP is
exciting, research-oriented, standing out, and tailored to our program (e.g., if they
are familiar with the work of some faculty or have talked to them). These notes are
entered into the evaluation system.
Finally, I enter my decision, which is usually either a rejection or an offer of
admission with full funding (e.g., from TA). I also recommend very strong candidates
for the University Presidential fellowship., which is a fellowship from GMU that
provides funding similar to an RA (§12). Note that while the system has other
decision options, eg., admit without funding, provisional admission (e.g., if they
need to take some courses), I do not use them, simply because we either reject or
admit with funding.
Note that I do not need to interview a student to make a decision. I can tell from
the application if they are strong or not. However, if I want to recruit a student,
I will ask them to chat with me. This is quite different than in other discipline
where reviews, interviews, and selection are done in multiple rounds (see §2.4 for an
example in Physics).
Of course my recommendation is just one of the three or four faculty who review
the application. The adcom chair will compile all recommendations and make a
decision based on them (§2.4). If there are disagreements, adcom chair will ask the
reviewers to discuss the application. Unfortunately, even if all reviewers recommend
a student, they might not be admitted (§11.2) if there are too many students or they
are not a good fit for the program (e.g., no one is willing to advise them).
15.3 Checking for AI in SOPs
As AI/LLM’s become more popular, many students wonder if they could use it to
help with their statements and university/adcom reviewers would check and penalize
AI-assisted writing.
While I cannot speak for others, I do not check your statements for AI contents.
First, I do not have the time to do that. It is much easier for me to just read the
statement and see if it makes sense and stands out (§15.2). Hint: AI-generated
content reads very strangely and faculty is just too experienced in reading essays
and SOPs from students to not notice it. Second, AI-checking technology is very
unreliable and inconsistent (e.g., a checker might claim that 80% of an essay is AI-
generated while another says it is 0%). Finally, while it causes concern (as it is both
easy to detect and just feels wrong), I think it is fine to use it to help you polish
your writing, e.g., the “proofread” feature in Apple’s Writing Tools is quite useful
for fixing writing issues.

15.4 How to call or address a professor?

If you’re reaching out to a professor for the first time, address them as Prof.
or Dr. Lastname (if they do not have a PhD, then use Prof.). Many international
students use Prof. or Dr. FirstName LastName, but this can come across as if you’re
simply copying and pasting names. So just stick with Prof. or Dr. Lastname. Using
Prof. is generally the safest option.
Furthermore, do not use Mr., Mrs., Ms, or Miss. This rarely happens, but I have
seen new students (e.g., undergraduate freshmen in the US) sometimes use these,
which are used in K-12 schools but not in higher education.
Moreover, do not call the prof. by their first name at first. As you become more
familiar with your prof and depending on their preferences, you may transition to
addressing them by their first name. For example, I prefer that my students and
colleagues call me Vu. Some students call me Dr. Vu, which I find a bit amusing
but am totally fine with it.

× Kapur: I was amused to read this as if I recall correctly, you never called me
by my first name when you were at UNM. You always called me Prof. And, many
times, I would jokingly call you back as Prof. Vu.

Vu: Yes, for some reason I enjoy calling you “Professor” (without appending a last
or first name). The use of Prof. Vu may have foreshadowed my future in academia.

Note that in some universities the formal title Dr. Lastname is preferred over
Prof. Moreover, be aware that not all faculty members may hold a PhD, in which
case using Prof. Lastname is a suitable alternative. You just need to observe and
follow the conventions at your particular institution. One way to determine how to
address a professor is to observe how they sign their emails or how they introduce
themselves in class. For example, I introduce myself as “Vu” in class.

Referring to professors you know When referring or talking about a prof (e.g.,
your mentor) that you know, you can just informally use their names if they are OK
with it as mentioned above (or Dr./Prof., if you want to be formal). You can also
include their institution if it makes it more precise. For example, I can say: “I did
my postdoc with Jeff Foster at Univ. of Maryland”.
Do not include ranking (§14.2), e.g., Assistant, Associate, Scientist, ..., when
referring to someone. I see many international students include a lengthy title of
people they know, e.g., I am advised by Asst. Prof. X, and I also collaborate with
Distinguished Scientist Y.
This is not necessary and makes it look like you’re trying to show off your con-
nections. These nuances represent some cultural and academic differences that you
may encounter and will gradually adapt to. More on these differences in §H.
 Part VI

Appendices

79
Appendix A

Glossary and Acronyms

80
Glossary

adcom chair The faculty member who leads the admission committee. This person
is often not involved in individual admission decisions but oversees the process
(e.g., resolve disputes, ensure fairness) (§2). 9

adcom members Faculty members who are part of the admission committee. Peo-
ple who review applications and make admission decisions (§2). 4, 9

adviser/superviser A faculty member who guides and mentors a PhD student

throughout their research. This person typically plays a crucial role in a stu-
dent’s academic journey. In the US, the term “adviser” is more commonly used
than “supervisor”. 6,

April 15 The deadline for most US universities to accept or decline offers of ad-
mission. This date, set by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), states that
students are not required to accept offers before this date. Note that, some
universities might not follow this deadline, so check with the university you
are applying to. 6, 38, 39, 42

cohort A group of students who start a program at the same time and take classes
together. You should get to know your cohort as they will be your colleagues
and friends during your PhD. See selecting and ranking schools in §13.1.2.

fields or areas of Research Specific areas of study or research. Fields within CS

include Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Software Engineering, etc. 22

In-state vs. Out-of-state In-state tuition is the tuition rate for students who are
residents of the state where the university is located. Out-of-state tuition is the
tuition rate for students who are not residents of that state. In-state tuition
is typically much lower than out-of-state tuition. PhD students typically do
not have to pay tuition as it is covered by their funding, but this might be
important for MS students.

International vs. Domestic students International students are loosely defined

as those who would need a visa to study in the US (§B). Domestic students

81
 (§C) are those who do not need a visa, typically US citizens or permanent
residents.

Ivy League A group of eight private universities in the US known for their academic
excellence and social prestige. The Ivy League schools are Brown, Columbia,
Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the UPenn, Princeton, and Yale. These schools
are typically known for their undergraduate programs more than their graduate
programs. Moreover, most top CS programs such as CMU, UIUC, UCSD,
UWash, MIT, Stanford, are not in the Ivy League.. 74

R1 Research 1 (R1) universities are universities with the highest level of research
activity across various disciplines. Currently, 146 (out of 4000) US universities
are classified as R1. R2 universities also have a high level of research activity
but not as high as R1 universities. R1 universities are typically larger, and
have more funding and resources for research. R2 universities are also good
but might have fewer resources and funding. 3, 11, 61, 112

Research Lab A group of researchers (profs. and students) working on a common

research area, e.g., a Software Engineering Lab. Typically a lab is led by a
single professor, but sometimes it can be co-led by multiple professors. For
example, my lab DynaROARS focuses on my own research area (software ver-
ification), but I am also part of the more general SWE Lab at Mason with
other faculty in Software Engineering.

rolling admission Applications are reviewed as they are received (instead of all
at once after the deadline), and decisions are made throughout the admission
cycle. Rolling admission is more common for MS programs and less common
for PhD programs (e.g., at Mason, MS is rolling and PhD is not. 38, 92

stipend A fixed regular sum paid to students as part of their funding package (i.e.,
salary). This is typically paid monthly or bi-weekly. Stipend is typically paid
to PhD students and not MS students. 2

top-tier conferences and journals These are the most prestigious venues for pub-
lishing research in CS. For example, in Software Engineering, top-tier confer-
ences include ICSE, FSE, and ASE and top-tier journals include TSE and
TOSEM. Publishing in these venues is highly competitive and prestigious, and
can significantly improve your chances of getting admitted to a good PhD
program. 58, 84
Acronyms

Admission Committee (adcom) The group of faculty members who review ap-
plications and make admission decisions (§2.1). 4, 8, 13,

All But Dissertation (ABD) A PhD candidate who has finished all course work
and exams and only needs to write and defend their dissertation. 50,

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) A doctoral degree that represents the highest level
of academic achievement in a particular field of study. In CS it typically
requires original research and a dissertation.

Graduate Record Examination (GRE) A standardized test that is an admis-

sions requirement for many graduate schools in the US. However, it is not
required for most CS PhD programs (§7.1). Thus unless it is explicitly re-
quired, don’t worry about it. 6, 31,

Letter of Recommendation (LoR) A letter written by a professor or supervisor

that assesses your qualifications and potential for graduate study (§3).

National Science Foundation (NSF) A US government agency that supports

research and education in science and engineering. NSF is a major source of
funding for RAs in CS research. There are other agencies that support RAs
but they might require US citizenship or permanent residency. , 97

Principal Investigator (PI) lead researcher on a grant or research project, e.g.,

a PI on an NSF grant. Prospective students often use this term to refer to a
professor they are interested in working with. However, we do not use it this
way in academia, e.g., “who is your PI?” might only make sense to fellow Reddit
applicants, but might not be understood by others, “who is your adviser?” is
what you want to use.

Research Assistantship (RA) A main type of PhD funding where you work on
a research project for a professor (§12.1.2).

83
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) A program funded by the
NSF to provide research opportunities for undergraduate students. , 90, 97

Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Fields in or re-

lated to these areas are considered STEM fields. CS is a STEM field.

Scopus Q1 Journals (Q1) Commonly mentioned by international students to re-

fer to top-tier journals in CS. Q1 is very well-known in CS in the US (also CS
often focuses on confs. rather than journals), and many CS faculty in the US
might not know what it means. If you want to refer to top-tier journals, you
should mention the specific journals, e.g., TSE in Software Engineering. 23,

Statement of Purpose (SOP) A document written by yourself to explains your

research interests, background, and reasons for applying to a PhD program
(§5).

Teaching Assistantship (TA) A main type of PhD funding where you help a a
professor with teaching, e.g., grading assignments (§12.1.1).

Underrepresented Minority (URM) Refers to groups that are underrepresented

in higher education, e.g., Black, Hispanic, and Native American students in CS.
Deferred Admission An option allowing admitted students to postpone their start
date, typically by one year.
Appendix B

Visa for International Students

“I didn’t do it. Nobody saw me
do it. You can’t prove anything!”
The Simpsons

As defined in §A, international students are those who would need a visa to
study in the US. In most cases, F-1 is the main visa needed to study full-time at an
accredited institution. Here are some key points about F-1:

• Employment: You are allowed to work on-campus for up to 20 hours per

week during the academic year (because you still need to take classes)
and full-time (typically 40 hrs) during official school breaks (e.g., summer
and winter breaks). Off-campus employment requires authorization, which
can be obtained through CPT and OPT programs described below.

• Curricular Practical Training (CPT): CPT allows you to participate in

internships or practical training that is an integral part of their academic cur-
riculum. CPT must be related to your field of study and can be full-time or
part-time. It requires prior authorization from your university and must be
completed before graduation.

• Optional Practical Training (OPT): OPT provides up to 12 months of

work authorization for students before or after completing their degree. For
students in STEM fields, there is an additional 24-month extension available.
OPT requires prior application and approval from USCIS.

• Full-time Enrollment: You must maintain full-time enrollment status during

the academic year. This means taking a minimum number of credits each
semester, as defined by your program. Dropping below full-time status can
result in loss of visa status.

86
B.1 For Spouses and Children
The spouses and children of F-1 visa holders can enter the US under the F-2 visa
status. The F-2 visa allows family members to live in the US with the following
conditions:
For Spouse:

• Work Restrictions: F-2 spouses are not permitted to work in the US.

• Education: They can study part-time but cannot enroll in full-time degree
programs.

For Children:

• Education: F-2 children can attend K-12 schools but cannot pursue higher
education full-time.

• Work Restrictions: Like F-2 spouses, children are not allowed to work under
any circumstances.

F-2 visa holders must leave the US if the primary F-1 student visa holder loses status
or completes their program.
Appendix C

Domestic Students
“I’m not a bad guy! I work hard,
and I love my kids. So why
should I spend half my Sunday
hearing about how I’m going to
Hell?”
The Simpsons

Most of what is written in this handbook applies to both domestic1 and inter-
national students. However, there are some differences and benefits that domestic
students should be aware of and can leverage to improve their chances of admission.

Standing out §11.3 There are few domestic applications compared to interna-
tional ones, i.e., domestic students are the minority in the CS PhD application pool.
Many US universities want to increase the number of domestic students in their
programs (and as mentioned later, there are specific fellowships and funding for
domestic students). That makes you stand out and can help your case.

Fee Waiving §2.5 Some schools might offer application fee waivers for domestic
students. You should check with the school you’re applying to.

School §6 Adcom already knows about your school, which is a plus. You are also
more familiar with the US education system and academic culture (§H).

Standard Tests §7 You do not need to take TOEFL or IELTS because you already
did your undergrad (or MS) at a US university. You might also be more comfortable
communicating in English, e.g., contacting professors (§14.4).
1
As mentioned in §A, domestic means you do not require a visa to study in the US.

89
Transcripts You do not need to get your transcripts evaluated/translated (which
can be a hassle and inaccurate). You can just send your official transcripts directly
to the school you’re applying to.

Funding §12 You have more opportunities for funding, e.g., through government
scholarships for US citizens and permanent residents. You can also apply to spe-
cific programs before you start your PhD, e.g., NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Program (GRFP) and Hertz Foundation Fellowship. These fellowships are very
competitive (§F) and can significantly improve your admission chances.

Research Experience §E You might have many opportunities to do research as

an undergraduate, e.g., through REU programs and internships at your undergrad
university. Highlight such experience in your application.

Open House §10 It is easier for you to attend open house events in person. This
can help you make a better decision on which school to attend.
Appendix D

MS Admission

While both MS and PhD programs are graduate degrees, they are very different
in terms of objective, admission requirements, course requirements, duration, and
funding. This section discusses the differences and provides guidance on applying to
MS programs.

D.1 Differences between PhD and MS

Tab. D.1 summarizes the main differences between MS and PhD programs:

• Objective: an MS is typically to prepare you for industry, while a PhD is to

prepare you for research and academia. Some MS has thesis option but in
general research is not a focus in MS programs.

• Admission requirements (§D.2): MS also requires a good GPA, LoRs, SOP,

and test scores, but research experience is not required. PhD requires all of
these, but research experience is a must.

• Course requirements: MS has a specific number of courses that typically can be

done in 2 years. You graduate with an MS when you’re done with the courses.
PhD also has coursework requirements, which are typically taken in your first 2

Tab. D.1: MS vs. PhD

MS PhD
Objective Industry Research
Admission Req No research experience Research experience
Coursework Req Yes Yes (but research is much more important)
Duration 2 years 5–7 years
Adviser Req No Yes
Funding No Yes

91
 years (§1.2). However, after (and also during) coursework, you focus mainly on
research. You graduate with a PhD when you have done enough research and
written a dissertation, which usually takes much longer time than coursework.

• Duration: an MS typically takes 2 years while a PhD takes 5–7 years (or even
longer). Many students get an MS along the way to a PhD, e.g., after finishing
the 2-year course work.

• Adviser: MS students typically do not have an adviser (if you do thesis option
then you will have one), while PhD students need an adviser who guides them
in their research.

• Funding: MS is typically not funded, while PhD is (§12). See §D.2.3 for more
details on MS funding.

D.2 MS Admission
In most cases MS CS programs are much less competitive than PhD programs, i.e.,
you’re likely to get in if you can afford it. Many think of MS programs as a cash cow
because students are often not funded and have to pay tuition.
While admission requirements are similar to PhD programs (e.g., GPA, SOP,
LORs), research is not a focus in MS programs. In most cases, the main requirements
are that you have sufficient background in CS, e.g., through your undergrad degree.
This does not mean MS programs are easy to get admitted, but the requirements
are much lower compared to PhD programs.

D.2.1 Admission Committee

MS admission also involves an adcom that reviews applications and makes admission
decisions. However, MS admission is typically rolling, i.e., applications are reviewed
as they come in and decisions are made throughout the admission cycle. Moreover,
unlike PhD that has multiple reviewers for each application, an MS application
typically involves only one reviewer and does require much time to review compared
to a PhD application (§15.2).
 × Vu: Mason has a very large the number of MS students in CS (1000+ MS vs
200 PhDs). In contrast, other similar size universities often have much smaller MS
CS programs (or none). Location plays an important role as GMU is close to DC
with many developer professionals who want to get an MS, which are often covered
by their employers. Our MS program is geared towards working professionals, e.g.,
all of our MS courses are offered in the evening and online.

The CS department has three separate committees for MS admission: MS in CS (the

traditional one, which is the largest), MS in Software Engineering (SWE), and MS in
Information System. Each committee has its own chair and members. For example,
I am often in the MS SWE adcom, which has about 3 adcom members (including the
chair who also does the review).

D.2.2 Application Materials

You will submit similar materials as in a PhD application, e.g., transcripts, LoRs,
SOP, and test scores. However, research experience is not required, and LoRs can
be from anyone who can speak about your academic or working abilities. Moreover,
your SOP should focus on your academic and work background, why you want to
get an MS, and how the program fits your goals. As with PhDs, GREs are often not
required. Some MS programs do not even require LoRs or SOPs.

Undergrad Background and GPA Since research is not required, your under-
grad background is more important in an MS application. You should have a strong
background in CS, e.g., through your undergrad degree. GPA is also important, as
it is often used as a filter for MS applications.

SOP Your SOP should explain why you want to get an MS, how the program fits
your goals, and why you’re a good fit for the program. You don’t need to mention
about working with specific professors unless you want to do a thesis option. You
still need to customize it for each school (e.g., you picked GMU due to its strong
SWE program or the DC area has many job opportunities).

LoRs Unlike PhDs, your LoRs do not need to be from professors or talk about
research experience. Many MS programs do not even require LoRs.

Test Scores Unlike PhDs, which often do not require GREs, MS programs often
require GREs. However, some schools do make them optional, and you should check
with the school you’re applying to. If you have a low GPA, a high GRE score can
help offset that.
As with PhD, English proficiency tests (TOEFL/IELTS) are required for inter-
national students (but just passing the minimum requirement is often enough §7.2).
Note that just as with PhD, English tests are are waived if you did your undergrad
at a US university.

D.2.3 Funding
Unlike PhD programs, which often have funding (§12), MS students are typically
not funded. This is because MS students do not focus on research and thus are not
funded through RA and PhD students have priority for TA positions.

RA Profs. are not willing to take MS students as RAs because they are not around
long enough to be productive. It can take a while for a student to get used
to research and start being productive, and by that time (1–2 years), they are
about to graduate. Moreover, the goal of most MS students is to get a job,
not to do research, so they are not as motivated to do research.

TA MS students are typically not given TA positions because PhDs are given
priority as they will stay much longer (§1.2). Many depts. do not have enough
TAs for PhD students and so they cannot afford to give them to MS students.

D.2.4 Exceptions
While MS students are typically not funded and do not focus on research, there are
always exceptions. Some MS programs are fully funded, e.g., those that are research-
oriented and have a strong research component. Moreover, some schools have TAs
for MS students, and you can apply for these positions. For example, Mason CS has
quite a few TAs for MS students, and my courses in the past two years have MS
TAs. Finally, if you have a strong background and can demonstrate that you can be
productive in research, then a prof. might be willing to take you as their RA. Some
of these students convert to PhD students after having this research experience.

D.3 Selecting and Ranking Schools

Because of the differences between MS and PhD programs (§D.1), you should con-
sider different factors when selecting and ranking MS programs. For example, you
might want to consider factors such as location, industry connections, and job place-
ment instead of research areas and advisers (§13).

• Location: In addition to living in a place you like (e.g., warm weather, his-
torical city, etc.), you should also consider the job opportunities in the area.
For tech industry, consider MS programs in tech hubs like the Bay Area and
Seattle. For government jobs, look at schools in the DC area. For example,
many students at Mason work for the government or defense contractors in the
DC area and take classes in the evening or online.
• Industry Connections: Universities often have strong connections with local
companies and can help you get internships and jobs. For example, Microsoft
and Amazon look for students in the Washington area while Google and Face-
book recruit those in the Bay Area. Mason students natural get jobs from the
government, defense contractors, and Amazon, whose 2nd HQ is in Arlington.

• Ranking: Unlike PhD programs where the adviser and research are likely the
most important factor, in MS programs the ranking of the school is typically
more important. Thus, you should consider the ranking of the school in CS,
especially in the specific area you’re interested in. For example, if you’re inter-
ested in software engineering, you might want to consider schools with strong
SWE programs.

• Living Cost: MS students are typically not funded (§D.2.3), so living cost
can be a big factor. You should consider the tuition and living expenses of the
area. Note that sometimes living costs, e.g., renting, seem scary at first but
students often find way to make it work, e.g., by sharing an apartment with
other students.
Appendix E

Research Opportunities
“Kids, you tried your best and
you failed miserably. The lesson
is: never try.”
The Simpsons

As discussed in §4, having a successful research experience can greatly strengthen

a PhD application. Research experience gives you opportunities to try out research,
determine what research area you’re interested in, publish papers (§4), connect with
researchers, and get strong LoRs (§3). This section provides some guidance on how
to gain research experience as an undergraduate student or student at a smaller
college where research opportunities might be limited.

E.1 Locally
Start looking for research opportunities at your institution. If you did well or liked
a class, you can check with the professor of that class for research opportunities.
You can also go to the department directory and then professors’ websites and see

96
if they are looking for undergraduate researchers. Even if they say they are looking
for graduate students, you can still contact them and ask.
Many universities have programs to encourage undergraduate research. For ex-
ample, Mason has the OSCAR program, UNL has UCARE, and NSF has REU’s
(for US citizens and permanent residents).
You can also take honor thesis or independent study courses with a professor.
This is a good way to get research experience and also get a LoR from the professor.
You can also ask your academic adviser or other faculty members for suggestions.
Finally, you can also ask your peers who are already doing research. Use the method
described in §14.4 to contact professors

× Vu: I enjoy working with undergrads (e.g., I have mentored over 15 undergrads)
and always actively recruit. I often get undergraduate researchers through my
classes, e.g., asking students who did well in my class if they are interested in
research. Occasionally I was introduced to students by other students or faculty.

While most undergrads are understandably not super productive in research, some
are and I have published multiple papers with them. I also have written strong LoRs
for them and have helped them get into good PhD programs.

At Mason we pay undergrads about $15/hr and about 10 hrs/week. This is flexible
and can be increased as needed.

E.2 Open Source Contributions

Places such as GitHub offer many research opportunities, even though they might not
appear so (e.g., they do not explicitly mention research). In many cases, professors
or research labs put their projects on GitHub. For example, my research group,
Dynaroars, has many open-source projects that undergrads can contribute to.
By contributing code, fixing bugs, implementing new features, or providing docu-
mentation, students can gain practical research experience and interact with experi-
enced developers and researchers in the field. Not only you gain research experience,
but you might be able to get a LoR from the project maintainer, and you should
write about this experience in your SOP (§5.)

E.3 Virtual Research Opportunities

This is less common but several places offer virtual internships and research programs
aimed at providing hands-on research experience. These programs often involve
working remotely under the guidance of experienced mentors and collaborating with
a team of fellow researchers. For instance, UIUC+ Summer Undergraduate Research
in Software Engineering offers an unpaid remote internship for software engineering
students all over the world to collaborate with mentors from University of Illinois at
Urbana Champaign.
Appendix F

Fellowship Applications

Having an external and major fellowship can significantly relieve the financial bur-
den of your PhD and improve your chances of getting into a good PhD program
(§12.2). Among the most prestigious fellowships for CS PhD students who are US
citizens or permanent residents are the National Science Foundation Graduate Re-
search Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) and the Department of Defense National
Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (DoD NDSEG). These fellow-
ships provide multiple years of full financial support, which includes a stipend and
tuition.
The GRFP and NDSEG websites have detailed information on the application
process and eligibility requirements. This section focuses on how your application
is evaluated and tips on improving it. Note that while these are specific GRFP and
NDSEG, the general advice can be applied to other major fellowships (those for
non-US citizens or permanent residents).

F.1 NSF GRFP

The NSF GRFP is a prestigious fellowship for US citizens, nationals, and permanent
residents who are in the early stages of their graduate study in STEM fields, including
both MS and PhD students. The GRFP is highly competitive, with many applicants
from top schools, with strong LoRs and research experience.

F.1.1 How Applications are Evaluated

• Each applicant is assigned to about 3 reviewers who have expertise in the ap-
plicant’s research topics. This means reviewers can be quite knowledgeable in
your field and your work, your LoR writers and their work, and thus can eval-
uate your application quite in depth. This is different from PhD applications
where adcom reviewers (§2.1) might not be in your field.

99
 Note that if sometimes an original reviwer is no longer available then someone
who is not in the field might review your application. Thus you want to make
your statements accessible to a general CS audience.

• Reviewers typically try to compare applicants within their cohort level. This
means that we do not compare an undergrad, who is still applying to grad
school, to a 2nd year PhD student who already has an adviser and published
multiple papers. This ensures that each applicant is evaluated fairly based on
their level.

• Unlike CS PhD applications that focus on research potentials in which papers,

research experience, and LoRs are important, NSF GRFP looks at both re-
search potential and broader impacts, e.g., how you can help society, how you
can mentor others, etc. It is not expected that you have published papers
or have a lot of research experience (recall that MS students can also get the
fellowship). Instead, you need to convince the reviewers that you have the po-
tential to be a good researcher (technical merits) and that you can help society
(broader impacts). More in §F.1.2.

F.1.2 Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts

Your application will be evaluated based on two criteria: Intellectual Merit (IM) and
Broader Impacts (BI).

Intellectual merit (IM) IM evaluates your research potential, e.g., your research
experience, your potential to do research, and how you can contribute to the field.
Unlike a normal project or research proposal, in which the evaluation is entirely based
on the merits of the proposed work, in the GRFP, the evaluation is not entirely about
the research plan. Reviewers are repeatedly reminded to not focus too much on the
research plan as many applicants are still applying for PhD programs and might not
even get into the field or work with a prof. that fit their research plan.
Instead, the evaluation is based on your potential of being a good researcher us-
ing various criteria, e.g., your research experience, what others think of you (LoRs),
research plan, etc. This also means that even if you have very little research expe-
rience, you can still get the fellowship if you can convince the reviewers that you
have the potential to be a good researcher. Vice versa, if you have a lot of research
experience and in very top places but cannot convince the reviewers that you have
the potential to be a good researcher, you will not get the fellowship.

Broader impacts (BM) BM is a common and important component in NSF

application. It is about how you and your research can benefit society. Many students
just mention how their research is cross-discipline and thus has broader impacts (e.g.,
improve software quality and thus help society). This is too common and not enough.
You also want to talk about how you, as a grad student with your research, can help
society, e.g., through outreach, mentoring, etc. As mentioned below, you will want
to be specific and concrete, e.g., “I will work with highschool students ..” is not as
convincing as “I have had experience in mentoring highschool students X and will
continue to do so through Y,Z ...”.
Writing BM is often difficult, not only for students but also new faculty. You
should ask someone who has experience writing NSF proposals to review your BM.

F.1.3 Common Pitfalls and Tips

These are common pitfalls that many applicants make in their GRFP applications
and tips on how to avoid them.

• Too Technical or Narrow. Remember that you’re writing to a general

audience in CS, not experts in your field. While NSF tries to match reviewers
with your field, CS fields are simply too broad and you might get a reviewer
in the field but not in your specific area or familiar with the problem you’re
working on. So avoid technical jargon and explain things in simple terms. If
the reviewer cannot understand your research plan, they will likely give you a
low score.
You should ask your professor or someone who’s familiar with writing NSF
proposals to review what you wrote. They can tell you if it is too technical or
narrow and help you improve it.

• Preliminary Work. Your research plan should have some preliminary work
to convince reviewers that you have thought about the problem and have some
initial promising results. It does not have to a lot, e.g., you don’t need pub-
lished results or an implementation, a small experiment done by hand on some
small examples would suffice. Moreover, it should be concrete and convinc-
ing, e.g., “When being applied to the program in Fig 1. of the paper published
PLDI’19 that approach X failed, my idea worked and was able to ...”. This will
set you apart from others who just have a plan but no results.

• Related Work and Challenges. Many research plans motivate the problem
well but do not discuss limitations of existing work, making it questionable
if the problem is important or if you are aware of the challenges. Thus, you
should do a thorough literature review and discuss what people have done and
their limitations. Your research plan should then talk about how you plan to
address these limitations, i.e., fill the gap in the literature.

• Do not BS. Many research plans include technical details or proposed work
that are vauge, unrealistic, or even impossible. This is similar to a student
taking an exam and write a lot of nonsense and hope for partial credits. As
mentioned, reviewers are often chosen based on their expertise in your field
 and can detect B.S. Again, do your homework and ask someone who knows
the field, e.g., your advisor or LoR writer, to review your research plan.

• Overexaggeration Lors. Many GRFP applicants have LoRs from professors

that are very good at writing. However, they often use flowery language and
completely overrate their students. Reviewers can sense this overexaggeration
and might not trust the LoRs. This is similar to overclaiming research conri-
butions when writing papers. So you should mention this to your LoR writers
so that they can tone down the language and and be specific with concrete
examples to demonstrate why you’re “the best”.

F.2 DoD NDSEG

The NDSEG is another prestigious fellowship supporting U.S. citizens pursuing ad-
vanced degrees in STEM fields critical to national defense (such as CS). NDSEG
has several differences from NSF GRFP, e.g., it redacts more information from the
reviewers and focuses more on application to DoD.

F.2.1 Evaluation
Redacted info. Unlike the NSF GRFP, reviewers only see redacted versions of
your submitted materials (applicants are asked to provide full and redacted versions
of your research plan, CV, and other materials). Thus, we do not know what schools
your went to, where you did your internships, your publications or research experi-
ence. We also do not see your LoRs, i.e., we do not know who wrote them or what
they wrote.
Reviewers mainly get to know you and evaluate your application by reading your
research plan and personal essays. This is for fairness and avoiding bias based on
the school you went to, places you published at, your LoR writers, etc. Nonethless, I
felt I am missing too much information. However, it could be that external reviewers
like myself help with the first cut based on the redacted materials, and then there
are internal reviewers who makes the final decision based on the full materials.

Non-expert NDSEG reviewers hold advanced degrees in STEM fields. However,

NDSEG reviewers are more general and might not be in your specific field. For
example, in GRFP I mostly review applications in PL and FM, while in NDSEG
it seems that I review applications in all areas of CS and even non-CS. Thus, you
should make your research plan more accessible to a general audience.
 × Vu: I find a bit difficult to evaluate NDSEG applications because I do not have
the full picture. For example, a student mentioned that they have published in the
topic they proposed but redacted all information about the publication, so I have
no idea where they published, what the paper is about, etc. It is also difficult to
evaluate the academic background of the student, e.g., some student just started
grad school and so their transcript is essentially blank. It is also annoying to see
CVs with so many blanked out information. They might as well should just submit
a blank CV one.

In the beginning I find it surprising that I don’t get to see the LoRs, but I understand
the reasoning behind it and gradually think it is a good idea. As mentioned above,
LoR writers for NSF GRFP (§F.1.3), especially those from top schools, often overrate
their students and thus can bias the evaluation. So I don’t find I am missing much
by not seeing the LoRs.

F.2.2 Common Pitfalls and Tips

These are some common pitfalls I see in NDSEG applications and some tips to avoid
them. Some of these are similar to NSF GRFP (§F.1.3) while some are specific to
NDSEG.

• Customize your research to DoD, e.g., through specific project from

DARPA or ONR. Make this prominent, e.g., in the introduction or in its own
section. This is different from NSF GRFP where you want broader impacts to
society.

• Unclear research plan. You should aim to have (i) clear problem statement,
(ii) why it is important (esp. to DoD), (iii) what has been done and their chal-
lenges/limitations, and (iv) what you plan to do to address the challenges.
Moreover, research is often quite technical and ambitious, so you want to show
some preliminary work, e.g., a small experiment by hand on some small exam-
ples, to convince reviewers that you have thought about the problem and have
some initial results.
Unlike GRFP where we have more things to evaluate, in NDSEG we mainly
evaluate you based on your personally essays and especially research plan. So
you should do proper research on what you propose and make it clear and
convincing.

• Personal stories and essays should be unique and interesting. Many

essays and stories I read are quite generic and do not tell much about the
student. For example, being an URM, involving in a robotics club or mentoring
underrepresented students are quite common and do not tell much.
You should pick a few thing and provide concrete examples and details. For
example, provide a concrete experience in being minority and how it has af-
 fected you, talk about what you have accomplished in your robotics club, e.g.,
you built a robot that won a competition, or you mentored a specific URM
student who then went on to do great things. Just a small, interesting detail
can make your essay stand out.

• Not using all allowed pages. Many research plans use only 1/2 or 2/3
of the number of allowed pages, which themselves are already quite short.
Such documents are often not detailed enough and do not provide enough
information for reviewers to understand and evaluate the research plan. So
use all allowed pages to provide enough details about your research plan. This
is especially important as we do not know much about you due to redacted
materials.

F.3 Common Tips for Both Fellowships

• Use LATEX to write your research plan and essays (§G). This is the
standard in CS and engineering and will make your application look profes-
sional. Moreover, do not use the default Word settings, e.g., left justification,
as it is not standard in CS and engineering and difficult to read.

• Ask your LoR writers and adviser to look at your writing/essays.

You are new to the field and research writing, and your ideas might not be
accurate or have already been explored. It’s better that they tell you now than
for you to find out later from reviewers.
Appendix G

Writing in LATEX

If you’re applying for a PhD program, the NSF GRFP, or the DoD NDSEG, you
should strongly consider writing your statements in LATEX instead of MS Word. In
CS and most other scientific and engineering fields, LATEX is the de facto standard
for writing documents—papers, proposals, dissertations, and letters. Most faculty
reviewers are accustomed to seeing formatting that LATEX produces, and many find
Word’s default left-aligned, uneven layout distracting and amateurish.
This isn’t about snobbery—it’s about professional norms. Reviewers will not
penalize you for using Word, but subtle irritations can affect how they read your
work (after reading dozen of applications, these small things add up). Given that
using LATEX is free and easy to use (e.g., see Overleaf), there’s no excuse not to
use it. This is a small, easily fixable detail that indicates that you understand and
respect the academic and technical culture you’re trying to enter. Paying attention
to these details can only help your application!
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry}
\begin{document}

\title{Research Statement}
\author{Your Name}
\date{}
\maketitle

\section*{Personal Background and Future Goals}

I have always been fascinated by the intersection of theory and systems...

My long-term goal is to become a faculty member and lead a research group...

\end{document}

105
Appendix H

Academic and Cultural Differences

“As intelligent as you are, you
have to learn to appreciate other
points of view.”
The Simpsons

This section lists some general academic and cultural issues that students, espe-
cially international ones, might want to pay attention to.

H.1 Academic Integrity (Cheating and Plagiarism)

Plagiarism and cheating (e.g., exams and assignments) are a BIG no-no in the US.
If you’re caught cheating, you will face serious consequences and likely be expelled
from the university (e.g., after the second time at Mason). This is quite different
from many international countries where cheating is common and often tolerated.
Faculty is extremely good at detecting cheating (we have been dealing with these
situations so many times over so many years), and will report cheating cases. In
short, whatever you do, don’t cheat—not worth it.
Here are the typical steps: (i) a faculty suspecting a cheating case will report
it to the Office of Academic Integrity (OAI) at the university—the report often has
supporting evidence, e.g., a copy of the exam or assignment; (ii) OAI will investigate
the case, e.g., by interviewing the student and faculty, and checking the evidence;
(iii) OAI will make a decision, e.g., whether the student is guilty or not; and (iv) if
guilty, OAI will decide on the punishment, e.g., a failing grade for the assignment or
exam, a failing grade for the course, or even expulsion from the university, especially
for repeat offenders.
So after receiving the report from your prof., OAI completely takes over and
makes its decision. This means begging your professor will not help because they
simply are no longer involved in the case and cannot do anything.

106
H.2 Illegal Software
Using illegal/cracked software is very common in many countries (and even in the
US). However, do not install or use them on university computers, even those given
to you by your adviser. It is unlikely that the university will track you down, but
it is the software company that will. They have very sophisticated tools to detect
illegal software and will sue your university/department. Imagine your department
or adviser being sued for a large sum of money, and it is you who caused it. If you
need to purchase software, ask your adviser or the department (§10.4).

H.3 Costly Gifts

In many countries, it is customary to give professors costly gifts (e.g., expensive
liquors, jewelry, or even money), often during the holidays, to show respect and
appreciation. In the US, this is can be considered inappropriate and discouraged.
However, if you’d like to offer small souvenir-like tokens, it’s a thoughtful gesture
that’s appreciated. Some professors proudly display their gifts, which can come
from students and colleagues (e.g., when they travel to their home countries or
conferences). In summary, small gifts are fine, but avoid anything that might make
your professors uncomfortable.

H.4 Maintaining Good Relationships with your Profs.

There’s a misconception that in the US it’s all business, with professors as bosses
who pay students for their work and that lab mates are just work colleagues; and
that doing nice things means expecting something in return.
However, the reality is quite the opposite. While people can be straightforward
and appear “cold”, they are also informal, friendly, and very caring (in ways that
might surprise you). With lab mates and colleagues, you will often work and go to
lunch together, confide in each other, help each other navigate the academic journey,
and often become lifelong friends. With your professor(s), you can call them by their
first name (§15.4), disagree with them and argue (and gain respect doing so), seek
their help (even on personal matters), come to their houses for parties or gathering
(e.g., my lab always come to my house for Thanksgiving), and give them small
thoughtful gifts that they put on their desks (§H.3). Many people maintain lifelong
relationships with their professors and colleagues, staying in touch through cards,
emails, and visits, even after they no longer work together.
 × Vu: I maintain a close relationship with my former professors and mentors.
When there is a new event in my life (or theirs), I often email them or call them,
e.g., when I get married, have a new baby, new job, etc. When I was having issues
at UNL and considering leaving, I talked to my PhD advisers Deepak and Steph. I
think this does not bother them a bit; they are genuinely interested in knowing and
helping solve these “dramas” in my life.

I also visit my former professors when I am in their area. I meet Thang Bui (my MS
adviser) at least once a year when I come back to Harrisburg to visit my parents.
When Steph was in DC for a meeting, I invited her to to give a research talk at
Mason. I have also collaborated with them after I graduated e.g., I recently got an
NSF grant with Deepak.

In short, while I am a bit closer to my former advisers and mentors than most people
(e.g., I still keep in touch with my middle school teacher in Hawaii), it is always a
good idea to maintain a good relationship with people who have helped or worked
well with you. A simple, short email or text once in a while (e.g., a “Hi X, I heard
you just got promoted ... Congrats!”) would suffice. They will appreciate it, and you
never know when you might need their help.

H.5 Miscs
Several other common surprises for international students (and foreigners in general)
in the US. Note that I skip topics involving politics, religion, tax, and racism as these
happen in many countries and are not unique to the US.

Small talks People often engage in small talks, e.g., about the weather, sports,
or weekend plans. This is a way to start a conversation and how social interaction
starts in the US.
Moreover, avoid asking personal questions, e.g., about salary, age, relationship
status, or health, as these are considered private. Talking about kids’ activities or
schools are OK. Also, do not talk about politics or religion. In fact, we often do not
talk about these taboo subjects with our family and friends to avoid conflicts.
Sometimes foreigners are surprised by how Americans do not talk about their
personal lives, e.g., sharing details about their families, health, or relationships, and
that their conversations are often not very “deep” or “mind-provoking”. This is just
a cultural norm about privacy and personal space.

Healthcare System You (and your spouse) will need health insurance! Otherwise
you will be charged a lot for healthcare services when you need them. However, as
mentioned in §12, your TA/RA (and fellowships) will cover health insurance. Your
spouse/children also get health insurance or significant discounts under your plan.
 Note that even with insurance, heathcare services might still be expensive. So
you should know what your insurance covers and be prepared for unexpected costs.
Moreover, healthcare system has many confusing jargons such as HMO, PPO, de-
ductibles, co-pays, and coinsurance (try take a look at the Explanation of Benefits or
EoB statement you received from your insurance company). It’s arguably the most
complicated system in the US and even Americans often do not understand it (and
politicians often exploit this to their advantage). Do not hesitate to ask your HR or
the insurance company for help.

Tipping Culture Unlike many other countries, tipping is expected for various
services, especially in restaurant. So adding an extra 15–20% to your bills is common,
especially in restaurants.
You should also tip for other services, e.g., Uber, taxi, haircuts, and hotel services.
The minimum wage for tipped employees is lower than the standard minimum wage,
so tips are an important part of their income.

Car Dependency Most places in the US are highly car-dependent. If you do not
have a car, you will need to rely on friends, Uber, or public transportation, which can
be inconvenient and time-consuming. Many international students end up getting a
driver’s license, which is highly convenient and replaces many documents (e.g., ID,
passport) and buying a car.
These are considered private and should not be asked. Also, do not talk about
politics or religion in general (in fact, we do not even talk about these with our
family and friends to avoid conflicts).
Appendix I

CSRankings: Rankings of CS PhD

programs
“The whole damn system is
wrong!”
The Simpsons

110
Tab. I.1: The top 50 CS programs in the US from [Link], a ranking system based
on faculty publications at top CS conferences. (CSRankings, Jan. 2025). ∗ indicates that
the university has Vietnamese prof. that can advise CS PhD students.

1 Carnegie Mellon 26 Northwestern University

2 Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign∗ 27 Pennsylvania State University
3 Univ. of California-San Diego 27 Univ. of California - Riverside
4 Georgia Institute of Technology 29 Univ. of California - Santa Barbara
5 MIT 30 Duke University
6 University of Michigan - Ann Arbor∗ 30 Rutgers University∗
7 University of Washington 32 University of Utah
8 Univ. of California - Berkeley 33 George Mason University∗
9 Cornell University 34 Texas A&M University∗
10 University of Maryland - College Park 34 Univ. of California - Santa Cruz
11 Stanford University 36 North Carolina State University
12 Northeastern University∗ 37 Ohio State
13 Purdue University 37 University of Virginia
14 New York University 37 Yale University
14 University of Texas at Austin 40 Boston University
16 Princeton University∗ 41 Univ. Of California - Davis
16 University of Pennsylvania 42 Brown University
18 Columbia University∗ 42 Harvard
19 Univ. of California - Los Angeles 42 University of Illinois at Chicago
20 University of Wisconsin - Madison∗ 45 Arizona State University∗
21 University of Southern California 45 University at Buffalo∗
22 University of Massachusetts-Amherst∗ 45 University of North Carolina∗
23 University of Chicago 48 Oregon State University∗
24 Stony Brook University∗ 48 Rice University
25 Univ. of California - Irvine 48 University of Colorado-Boulder
48 University of Minnesota
Appendix J

History and Acknowledgement

History This book was conceived during a lunch with a faculty at Mason. We
talked about why Mason was not able to attract good Vietnamese and other inter-
national students, despite having a much stronger CS program than many schools
that these students want to go to (part of the reason is described in §13.1.2). We
wish there were a way for international students to know about PhD programs in
the US.
I was also a member of the large VietPhD group on Facebook and often browse
Internet forums (e.g., Reddit/gradadmission and GradCafe). There I saw many
questions from students about PhD programs. However, most participants are stu-
dents, many of whom in non-CS fields or not in the US, and their answers are
typically not accurate and often lead to more confusion. So I thought it would be
useful to have a handbook that is specific to CS PhD programs in the US from an
insider perspective.
I started writing this book in May 2023 and have been updating it since then
(mostly around deadline time when I procrastinate, i.e., productive procrastination!).
The book was initially intended for international students but has been updated to
include domestic students (§C and §F). The book is open-source and available on
GitHub so that others can contribute to it.

About Me I am an associate professor in the CS dept at George Mason University

(Mason). Before Mason, I was at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Both
UNL and Mason are R1 research universities in the US and have many international
students in their CS graduate programs. I work in Software Engineering and Formal
Mehods. My personal and lab website is at [Link].
I have been involved the PhD admission process at Mason and UNL for many
years. This allows me to have a good understanding of the process, the challenges
students face, and what faculty are looking for. Currently I am the program director
of the MS program in Software Engineering at Mason (thus also have experience with
MS admission—which is quite different than PhD as discussed in §D). I also have

112
served in the panels of PhD fellowships including NSF GRFP and DoD NDSEG,
which allows me to provide some insights on external fellowhip applications (§F).
Though I was not an international student, many of my students and collab-
orators are/were. I also mentor students from Vietnam and have close colleagues
and friends who were once international students. I hope to capture the diverse
challenges and experiences they’ve faced in this book so that it can be a valuable
resource for prospective international students. Finally, my upbringing in the US
provides a perspective aligned with American culture, allowing me to shed light on
various issues, particularly those related to cultural differences (§H).

Acknowledgement Many people have contributed to this work. Profs. Craig Yu

(Mason), Hakan Aydin (Mason), Xiaokuan Zhang (Mason), Hung Le (UMass), and
Deepak Kapur (UNM) provided valuable input in the early version. Other Mason
faculty members also have provided feedback and contributions. Many students in-
cluding Didier (Mason), Thanh (Melbourne), and Dat (Melbourne) have contributed
valuable questions and feedback.
Also thanks to NSF for encouraging faculty to be creative in research and edu-
cation, which allows me to work on this book.