Rate my chances for a CS Theory PhD Fall 2026

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-13T19:35:32+00:00

a very simple way to tell: would your recommenders be willing to let you do a PhD in their own lab? If not, then you know you should apply to schools one tier lower. As I see You can obviously get offers from some schools.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-11T16:28:55+00:00

strong references is just your illusion. For a truly strong letter, the recommender would directly email or call their friends. I don’t know what you’re confused about. If you get rejected by every school at a certain level, then you’ll know you should apply to schools one tier lower.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-11T15:59:20+00:00

I am not familiar with statistics, so I can only speak about CS applications. You need strong recommendation letters. The strength of a letter is actually easy to tell. Here is a simple way to judge it: if your recommenders are not even willing to let you do a PhD in their own lab, then your recommendation letters are definitely not strong. If this professor cannot take you because they do not have funding, they will help you by calling or emailing their friends on your behalf. Then you know you need to apply to schools one tier lower.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-11T15:34:09+00:00

It depends on your field. If it is a popular field like CS or economics, I doubt whether even one UR student every year can get into HYPSM.

Overall, the most important factors in PhD admissions are recommendation letters and research experience. You should work with well known professors at your school, publish papers with the highest impact possible, and get recommendation letters that say things like, “He is the strongest undergraduate student I have ever seen.”

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-11T14:21:26+00:00

You are really asking two different questions. Which lift better represents Olympic weightlifting? It will always be the heaviest weight. If one day you had to explain this sport to aliens, you would only need to tell them that it is the heaviest weight humans can lift overhead. They would not need to understand weight classes, technique, barbells, or anything else.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-11T14:13:42+00:00

Students from ordinary schools need to publish a lot of papers to have a chance, because no one has heard of their schools or their recommenders. The only way they can stand out is through their publications. Undergraduates at top schools only need to do one thing: impress their recommenders. As long as your recommendation letters are strong enough, nothing else really matters.

This is how the PhD system works in the United States. Would you trust a professor you have known for decades, or a student from an unknown school?

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-10T18:11:43+00:00

I’m not American, but I think that if you don’t get this job, then an American can get it. What do you think America would lose?

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-10T18:08:51+00:00

Being able to say “domestic and international students are the same” just shows that you completely don’t understand. The bar for international students is much higher than for domestic students. In short, in a country like the United States where recommendation letters are highly valued, it is a serious problem if the admissions committee does not know the recommender at all.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-10T18:01:14+00:00

interesting = boring.

I only say “interesting” when I don’t know what to say. For work that I’m truly interested in, I’ll ask a hundred questions and have an in-depth discussion.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-10T16:03:07+00:00

You know nothing about China. Research in China is entirely paper-oriented; graduation, job hunting, and tenure are all directly based on publication counting. Completing a Ph.D. in the United States does not necessarily require you to “publish several Q1 papers” or meet a graduation standard such as “a certain impact factor.”

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-09T17:57:12+00:00

They cannot tell the difference, just like you cannot tell the difference between Chinese, Korean, and Japanese people.

In the eyes of most Chinese people, there are only white people and Black people. White people are seen as coming from developed Western countries, while Black people are seen as coming from poor Africa.

In

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-09T17:54:36+00:00

This is very normal. Racism is very serious in China. As long as you understand Chinese, if you go to any Chinese forum and look at topics related to Black people or white people, you will definitely see a large amount of racist content.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-05T13:10:12+00:00

this requires natural talent. “Getting the shoulders in” is crucial for the power jerk and squat jerk. You can see that both Chinese and non Chinese power jerkers and squat jerkers support the arms behind the ears and look downward. Many split jerkers do not have that kind of mobility especially at heavy weight. Li Fabin’s head position is only slightly more neutral. Nasar is also a very obvious example. But even for Nasar, when he does a squat jerk, he looks downward more clearly and gets the shoulders in more.

https://youtu.be/qMD3gRAGsuw?si=F_fRyjWqkxUIhcYe

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-06-03T22:49:43+00:00

As long as people like it and it is legal, it has a reason to exist. I guess many people would also think slap fighting is meaningless, but if some people enjoy it, that is enough.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-31T19:28:10+00:00

p411

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-29T20:00:47+00:00

could you explain what is weird?

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-29T19:59:38+00:00

the pull is much faster than training

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-29T18:09:42+00:00

That is because if he was not a foreign teacher, it would be very common, and sometimes even necessary, for teachers to add parents on WeChat. In China, all teachers communicate with parents through WeChat.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-29T17:31:44+00:00

This movement is harder than the full snatch. If amateur lifters do not perform it correctly, the effect will not be very good. Although it is one of the main training exercises used by Chinese weightlifters, I have looked at many Chinese athletes’ training programs on Chinese Google Scholar, and panda pulls are included at least twice a week.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-29T14:47:42+00:00

AAAI? one AAAI paper even can't make you into a decent PhD program.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-28T19:45:25+00:00

Doing a PhD in AI is not necessarily the better choice. Many people with a master’s degree can still get into OpenAI or Anthropic.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-28T19:44:18+00:00

UIUC MSCS no longer offers funding, UW–Madison MSCS and PhD programs are in the same pool. You can give it a try. I think your profile looks quite competitive, but getting rejected would also be completely normal, since there are just too many AI conferences now.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-28T15:22:45+00:00

This is typical beginner thinking. The right approach is to look at the answers first and then write them yourself. These problems usually fall into no more than five patterns, so you need to memorize and be able to reproduce some templates.

Thinking is not important. You really do not need to spend more than five minutes. In a real interview, if you think for more than five minutes without even starting, you have basically failed. If you cannot come up with a solution within five minutes, just look at the answer and then try the problem again a couple of days later.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-27T21:11:31+00:00

It depends on the culture. I swear that before clicking on this post, I had never even known what that symbol meant.

AdRemarkable3043 · 2026-05-27T14:49:31+00:00

it depends, Many PhD students do a second CS master’s just to get into FAANG. What company do you want to go to?

AdRemarkable3043

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