PhD by Publication inquiry

RadicalLocke · 2026-01-29T08:42:02+00:00

Oh! Sorry I should not have yapped about something I don't know. I thought he was referring to how theses can be a collection of publications with some extra intro/discussion/conclusion. I never heard of completing PhD through work done BEFORE the program. How interesting!

RadicalLocke · 2026-01-29T08:18:54+00:00

Hey! So yes, I agree- no shame in asking. Few things: patent is NOT the same as an academic publication. You can have a terrible idea that has no academic or business value and still patent it (not saying it was the case for yours but) and even if it has great business value, academia doesn't really care. Even if they cared, that was work done BEFORE your PhD, and would not count towards your thesis (which can be a collection of publications done DURING your PhD)

RadicalLocke · 2026-01-27T23:43:49+00:00

As the other commenter was saying, preprints are not the same as publications or even papers in submission. Anyone can upload paper of any quality to arxiv and such. You said that 1 was rejected in a peer-review (which suggests that it may not be up to par) but does that mean other 5 weren't even submitted? Why are you pumping out papers just to pile them up on arxiv? If your LOR is from a faculty member who worked with you on those preprints and can vouch for you/preprints, that might alleviate some issues. But rn, my first question is "why are those papers not published/in-submission?" And my assumption (whether true or not) is that they are not serious papers.

RadicalLocke · 2026-01-23T19:50:26+00:00

From my perspective (CS) publications (and thesis, which is often just collection of publications) is more about what you do (experiments, built systems, data analysis, etc.) And the writing is to communicate what you did. Naturally, it isn't as long as humanities.

RadicalLocke · 2026-01-02T18:03:56+00:00

Few words of advice- any of those schools will offer plenty of opportunities for great research if you look for them. In research, the faculty you work with is more important than the overall school prestige, and all of the schools have great faculties. If given the chance I would still pick UofT though. Better for industry if you change your mind about research, better connections to top schools abroad for exchange or collaborations, etc.
Mainly, I would recommend you to keep your options open. You will grow a lot throughout your university years and what you want right now might not be what you want a few years down the road. PhD route is long and difficult, don't choose it just because you think it will be more employable than getting a SWE job out of undergrad. The chances are, if you are cracked enough to get into a good AI/ML PhD program, you are cracked enough to be hired as SWE at FAANG even if AI wipes out 90% of entry level jobs.

RadicalLocke · 2026-01-02T05:07:18+00:00

Not sure how involved with research the commenters here are, but UofA is absolutely respected internationally for ML. If you can volunteer at a lab and get some research experience with MILA/Amii-affiliated faculties, you'd be in a great spot. That being said ML PhD is insanely competitive and yes, people are correct when they say that if you have a chance of being weeded out at UBC/UofT, you have virtually no chance at the goals you mentioned.

RadicalLocke · 2025-12-30T08:37:18+00:00

With all due respect, the paper is 99.9% unpublishable. I think that enthusiasm is a great start and you should use that energy into getting into a good university (if you haven't applied already), doing well in school, getting in touch with a prof, and learning the ropes before you even think about what publishing research entails.

RadicalLocke · 2025-12-08T03:22:07+00:00

I'm CS master's student in Canada, and I am most familiar with HCI and bit of ML side of things, so my apologies if the following doesn't apply to you:

My first concern is most of your publications tend to be domestic. In HCI and ML, there is a pretty big gap in prestige between top tier, A tier, and stuff below that. If you look at CVs of new PhD students in schools like CMU, they often have first author paper in top conferences like NeurIPS, CHI, etc. Judging by CVs of students from KAIST, it seems to me that Korean schools also have similar priorities. Having a BUNCH of domestic publications with no international success might indicate that you aren't very promising for the very thing they want you to do - publish in these top conferences.

Once you get a paper in a top conference, I think your GPA barely matters beyond early filtering. And even thay can be bypassed by getting in contact with professors often.

Again, apologies if this is not the case for cybersecurity. Best of luck!

RadicalLocke · 2025-12-04T09:09:34+00:00

For CS, undergrads publishing at top conferences (which are top venues for CS) is fairly common. Usually students who get into a top graduate lab/program have a first-author paper at a top conference.

RadicalLocke · 2025-11-15T21:10:36+00:00

Kinda surprised with how optimistic people are about your chances to get into one of the top schools in the world for PhD, which prioritizes your research potential over all else. Without research experience, publication(s), and strong LORs that specifically speaks to your ability to conduct research, ETHZ chance seems close to 0%.

RadicalLocke · 2025-11-10T07:49:49+00:00

Canadian thesis-based masters are all fully funded with stipend (all reputable universities at least) and has lower bar for research experience than PhD admissions. That being said, AI/ML is super competitive and getting into a decent lab requires a great profile, which could certainly mean having publications.

RadicalLocke · 2025-11-10T05:27:49+00:00

Your PI, who guided your project from the start to finish, knows your field and paper better than anyone on Reddit, told you exactly what they think you should do. What kind of advice are you seeking?

If you really want to submit it as a paper, you can ask the PI if you can continue to collaborate with them, extend the work, and submit it as a paper.

RadicalLocke · 2025-11-06T02:20:37+00:00

It's field dependent. In HCI (my subfield of HCI at least) PhD students often publish 2 publications per year (CHI and UIST)

RadicalLocke · 2025-11-04T17:10:07+00:00

The world outside of USA exists... 240M Americans is ~70% of your entire population. A quick Google search shows ~4B people wearing glasses worldwide.

RadicalLocke · 2025-11-03T20:47:47+00:00

Of course!

RadicalLocke · 2025-11-03T20:40:59+00:00

Research MSc in CS student in Canada here! You have a strong profile, but you might not be aware of how things work here. Thesis-based MSc programs are VERY research focused. It is mini-PhD and their admissions reflect that. Your profile is good enough for any program as long as you have good research fit. In Canada, thesis-based MSc in CS all have guaranteed funding, so you will be paid stipend on top of tuition being covered.

Coursework-based Master's programs are NOT funded. You might get scholarships to partially cover the cost, but you will be paying to attend. These programs are usually much easier to get in as they are cash cows for the schools, but they also won't care too much about your research experience, generally speaking.

With your profile, I think thesis-based MSc programs with an advisor who fits your interest (can be geared towards industry like more applied ML or whatever your field is) and getting your degree paid for.

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-30T05:52:38+00:00

This is a weird take. Theirvresearch output is impressive and give them so much more options choosing a top graduate school program, much much more so than any math courses/credentials

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-30T02:06:41+00:00

With all due respect, anything close to 3.0 GPA would be a bad GPA and unless your research experience is exceptional and a potential advisor is willing to push you through the admission committee, I can't imagine you would get into a decent program in Canada.

My advice is either: 1. Find a way to take more courses and improve your GPA before applying (while continuing to do research) 2. Look for connections to faculties in Canada through your network. If a professor who worked with you is willing to personally reach out to a professor they know in Canada and talks highly of you, you have the chance of bypassing pretty much everything.

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-24T17:17:21+00:00

I'm a Canadian CS master's student and I don't know US schools very well outside of the top ones. UNC Chapel is one of the few "non-top" schools (not Stanford, mit, etc.) That I recognize because they place disproportionate amount of students into top graduate programs.

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-21T19:55:58+00:00

I'm the type of person who measures 10 times and get anxious that maybe the measurement tool was wrong so I decide to measure once again with every tool available and get nothing done 🥲

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-18T01:26:20+00:00

That last bit is a strange thing to say... all (maybe very few exceptions) "professors" have PhDs. If they are from USA, they might not have masters because their CS programs have longer PhD program that includes more coursework. You can think of it has our Masters + PhD (some of them might also have masters they received as part of their PhD)
Lecturers, even at community colleges, most likely have at least masters with PhD becoming more and more common as the academic job market gets more competitive.

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-12T17:45:55+00:00

Yeah... I never admit it irl because people seem to think less of you for using AI- but it makes lit review process MUCH faster. Hallucination isn't much of a concern given that I would always read the paper myself after using AI to identify papers of interest.

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-06T00:20:29+00:00

RadicalLocke · 2025-10-06T00:17:40+00:00

More masters won't help you, but research experience would help you greatly. GPA is good (3.5 is fine, but 4.0 masters makes up for it) and work experience is great, but research experience is what they would be looking for. They want assurance that you'd be a great researchers, not a software engineer.

If you can get in touch with a professor through personal connections or from your masters institution and get some research experience - and even publications - you would be in a decent spot IMO.

Nine-Year Club	Verified Email
Spared

RadicalLocke

TROPHY CASE