Grad App Summary & Resignation

April 29th, 2024 (18 days ago) • 5 minutes

2 years ago, if you asked me whether I would ever go for another studies after my degree, I would have said no. So what changed since then? I guess I can't keep the dream of me living in the US out of my head plus going there with a friend of 11 years makes it even more exciting.

We applied to the same school, same program and eventually landed on similar scholarship at the same school - USFCA.

Schools we applied to and the results. I spent a total of $385 on application fees (about $95 for each school besides the one that got waived).

PhD

Northwestern - Got an interview but rejected
Boston - Rejected 🥲
NEU - Rejected 🥲
Princeton - Rejected 🥲
Rice - Rejected 🥲
Duke - Rejected 🥲

Masters

UVa - Accepted
Brown - Accepted
USFCA - Accepted 🎉

Out of the schools that I got accepted, I chose USFCA because of the location (it's literally at SF - in the middle of everything tech and weird). Also, they offered a practicum program which I thought would be a good opportunity to get some hands-on experience in the industry.

Why Grad School?

The reason I chose to try out PhD programs was mainly because of the opportunity to do research on topics that I was curious - distributed storage and computing. Plus it was fully funded which was definitely a big factor I was considering. But I knew that I had lesser of a chance since I didn't directly publish any papers during my undergraduate studies. Then, I applied to the masters programs as a backup plan and I'm glad I did.

Starting the Process

csranking helped a ton when choosing schools. It showed that your usual prestigious school might not be the best for the field you're interested in. Ivy leagues are not always the best in every field. But one thing I would admit is they are good for the network you get. In those school, you mingle around people with connections and relationships that could help you in the future.

From there, I only had a few schools to choose from since most school require a 4 year degree to apply for graduate school. Coming from an Australian university, I only had 3 years of degree which further limited my choices.

A very common sight across unis

Statement of Purpose

Then it was time to write the statement of purpose. The 1 document that you have to write to convince the school that you're the right candidate for the program. I spent a lot of time on this document. I wrote, rewrote, edited, and rewrote again. I referred to a lot of past reference such as these:

Of course, here is mine for Phd and then for Masters. Feel free to use them as reference but please don't copy them.

Letter of Recommendation

Once that is done, it's time for the recommendation letters. I asked 2 of my lecturers and my current manager for the letters. I chose them because they were the ones that I had the most interaction with. I also asked them to write the letters in a way that they could differentiate me from the rest of the applicants by giving them a list of things that I did during my undergraduate studies and my CV so that they could refer to them when writing the letter.

Some good reads before you ask:

Others Tips and Resources

Write a good CV. I used Jake's template for mine. It's clean and simple.
Start way earlier because SOP and LOR takes time to write and edit.
Reach out to the professors you want to work with beforehand to establish a relationship. I didn't do this but I heard it helps a lot.
Check for waivers. Most school have it if you joined certain info session or are involved in certain organizations.

From https://gradschool.princeton.edu/admission-onboarding/prepare/deadlines-and-fees

Check for scholarships. Some schools have scholarships that you can apply for.
Leverage on AI like ChatGPT for some help in your essays. Not saying to copy everything, but it's definitely helpful to get some ideas, rephrase sentences etc. My friend and I even went as far as building an app for this. Check out the demo here or code here.

General guides for getting a PhD Admit

p.s Today, I also finally did it. I resigned from my job. I'm so excited to start this new chapter in my life.

An internal sign we used at MoneyLion when someone is leaving