Nlp two first author conference papers, few workshop papers.

CMU graduate with above average GPA. I was applying with 6 publications (First or second author) 2 in top-tier conferences and won a best paper award in ACL for one of my papers. Got a generic rejection email.

💔

Sociocultural

Area = ML. 2 ICML papers, and 1 NeurIPS paper (all 1st author). Great LORs, but from profs unknown to Stanford Adcom. I don't know what more should be done to get into top schools like Stanford being a student in a country where my research community is not very strong.

Area: NLP.

okay, I will go to MIT then

Let me tell you a truth. This school shows off a lot by saying terms like diversity, underrepresented students etc. But the truth is you cannot get into these programs if you don't have much connections (or at least they know your school name). Which one brings diversity? 1. A student from top US unis who have got the scope of internship in big companies and got good lors despite having little or no evidence of research papers? 2. A student from a lesser known uni but with good research papers in internationally recognized venues and lors (might be from people they don't know well). Stanford like school will accept student 1 whereas in reality if student 2 can produce good research from a lesser known school, imagine how potential he is.

I was taking a nap, and heard the buzzing of my phone. I guess it would be the rejection email from Stanford, so I went on with my sleep. After I woke up, now the dream comes true. ：）

ঘোড়ার ডিমের প্রোগ্রাম :)

ok then

Email from admissions chair

Email from admissions chair. Not at all surprised since this was my reach school. Good luck to everyone else!

Formally rejected, but unsurprised because I did not get an interview. Not as bummed as I thought I'd be, as I have an offer with a better fit.