how to get into stanford university

 || How You got into Stanford university? MS in CS application experience, tips and tricks ||

Contents of the article:

1. Profile
2. Admits and rejects
3. Shortlisting Universities
4. Letters of Recommendation
5. Statement of Purpose
6. CV
7. GRE
8. TOEFL
9. Other Essays
10. Timeline

1. Profile

Field of Interest: Systems and Networks

Undergraduate: Bachelor of Technology (Hons.), Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur.

• GPA: 9.94 / 10
•  Department Rank 1, Institute Rank 2
• GRE: 328 / 340 (Quant — 170 / 170, Verbal — 158 / 170), AWA — 5 / 6
• TOEFL: 118 / 120 (Reading — 30 / 30, Listening — 30 / 30, Writing — 30 / 30, Speaking 28 / 30)
• Research Experience:
• Bachelor’s Thesis: My thesis was based upon adaptive 360-degree video streaming. It was also awarded as the best Bachelor’s Thesis among all Computer Science students at IIT Kharagpur.
• 2 months of international research internship at Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan in 2018. It was based upon extracting small clips of car accidents from youtube videos, which could be used to train the autonomous driving model at ITRI.
• A couple of research projects in graduate-level courses that I took as electives at IIT Kharagpur.
• Work Experience:
•  2 months as Software Development Intern at D. E. Shaw India Pvt. Ltd. in 2019.
• 1.5 years of work experience as Member Technical at D. E. Shaw India Pvt. Ltd. from June 2020.
• Publications: 1 publication published from my Bachelor’s Thesis at The Web Conference 2021 (WWW’ 21).
• Course Projects: A couple of relevant course projects in OS / Networks / DBMS.
• Extra-academics / PoRs:

1. Mentor at Desh ke Mentors program by Delhi Government in 2021
2. Volunteer at National Service Scheme, IIT Kharagpur from 2016–2018
3. Student Mentor at Student Welfare Group, IIT Kharagpur from 2017–2020
4.  Silver medal in Open IIT Mathematics Olympiad at IIT Kharagpur in 2019
5. Business Development Advisor at Ehtiyaat, Enactus Khalsa and Enactus CVS from 2020–2021
6. Editor at Awaaz, student media body of IIT Kharagpur: 2016–2020

3. Shortlisting Universities

The first step in MS Applications is to shortlist a bunch of universities where you want to apply. Generally, prospective students divide the universities into three categories:

• Ambitious: Those universities which are really difficult with your profile, but definitely not impossible. A university where you think there might be around 10–15% chance of you getting an admit would generally come under ambitious.
• Moderate: These are those universities for which you know a bunch of people with a profile similar to yours getting an admit. A university where you think there might be around 40% chance of you getting an admit would generally come under moderate.
• Safe: These are backup universities for which you are almost sure you’ll get an admit unless your luck isn’t by your side. The rough chances of getting an admit in a safe university could be more than 50%.

The major question is: how to shortlist universities for these three categories?

There are few steps that you could follow:

• Look into the Computer Science graduate rankings from US News. Don’t refer to QS rankings. US News is generally considered more legitimate for universities in the US. It is better to look at the rankings by subject instead of overall rankings.
• Another common rankings used by students is csrankings.org, which sorts universities based upon number of publications.
• There are multiple portals where students upload their profile, admits and rejects for various universities. You can use these portals to check what kind of profiles got accepted for each university. Compare them with your profile to classify that university into one of ambitious, moderate and safe.
•  Some portals include: YMGrad, admits.fyi, TheGradCafe, Yocket
•  Disclaimer: NEVER blindly trust these portals. Since they are mostly anonymous, you can find a few spammers posting fake admits. Use these portals only to get a rough idea about the kind of profile that got accepted.
• There are multiple facebook groups / discord servers for MS in US (and some specifically for CS) as well, you can easily find them by searching for them on facebook / google respectively. People generally post the details of their profile there and others suggest some universities that might fit that profile.
•  Disclaimer: Again, DO NOT trust these recommendations blindly. These are just some suggestions based upon the suggestor’s bias. Perform your research thoroughly.
• You can also take suggestions for what universities to apply to based upon your profile from your professors or seniors who have had a similar profile as yours. They can provide good insights about the suitable universities.
• Go through the program descriptions and admission requirements for some universities that you like and fit your profile. You should go to the website of the department, where you’ll find the admission requirements along with the curriculum, faculty, financial aid, etc.
• Note: Take care of the eligibility conditions for the program. Some programs might have GPA cut-offs, some programs might not allow a second master’s degree etc.
• Shortlisting Universities:
•  Create an excel sheet to consolidate all information that you gathered.
• For example, in my excel sheet, I stored the university name, rankings, application deadlines, tuition fee, SOP guidelines (these can vary based upon university), GRE requirements, TOEFL requirements, application fee, location, scholarships, assistantships, professors of interest, other remarks.
•  For a bunch of 20–30 universities that you gathered from your research above, fill out all the details in your excel. Then based upon your preferences, cut down your list to the number of schools you want to apply to. For example, if you choose to apply to, say, 10 schools, then you could keep 2–3 ambitious, 5–6 moderate, and 2–3 safe universities.

4. Letters of Suggestion

1. For the most part, colleges require three letters of suggestion for MS applications, with no less than two letters coming from scholastic sources.
2. The majority of the colleges request that you give the email id of your recommenders, and they straightforwardly send an email to the recommender to transfer the LoR. Alongside the LoR, colleges could likewise request that the recommenders rate the understudies on certain abilities and characteristics.
3. I took two suggestions from my teachers at IIT Kharagpur and one proposal from my supervisor at D. E. Shaw India. One of the teachers was my B.Tech Proposition counselor and course teacher for three courses. The other teacher was my course teacher from the hypothesis and lab of a course (counting a course project).
4. Here are a few significant hints for letters of suggestion:
5. A conventional LoR is probably going to debilitate your application a ton. Consequently, you ought to demand LoRs from individuals who can vouch for your abilities and capacities and who have worked with you. You ought to explicitly request solid suggestions from teachers/supervisors and consider just those teachers who will serious areas of strength for compose.
6. Because of the way that colleges send the suggestion connect straightforwardly to the recommender, you ought to have an unmistakable talk with the recommender about the number of letters they that will fill, since it requires a respectable measure of investment for them to fill each structure. On the off chance that a recommender consents to fill, say, just 8 letters, however you need to apply to 10 colleges, then, at that point, you could need to find another recommender for the other 2 colleges.

5. Mission statement

The Mission statement is really significant in the application cycle. It has the most extreme ability to represent the deciding moment things for you. I saw that a great deal of understudies who had a preferred generally profile over mine got dismissed from different colleges that I got acknowledged to, and I accept that one of the principal explanations behind the equivalent might have been the absence of a solid SoP.

1. Your SoP, as the name recommends, ought to help clarify for the college why you need to join that program. It shouldn't simply be a clarification of what you did in the beyond couple of years, yet in addition about what you realized en route and what you hope to gain from the alumni program.
2. Ensure you adhere to the SoP rules given by the course that you are applying to. Some probably won't give any limitations, while some could have a 500-1000 words cutoff, and some could have a two page limit. Regardless of whether there are no limitations, attempt to guarantee that your SoP doesn't cross two pages.
3. Try not to list every one of the encounters from your undergrad and work in your SoP. You ought to just keep around 3-4 important encounters and guarantee that you can integrate them as a story and connection them to your future objectives to make an intelligent paper.
4. Modify your SoP! Try not to simply place in similar paper at all colleges. Tweak it in light of the college. Discuss what courses you are intrigued to take in the program, which teachers you need to work with, and if conceivable, likewise even discussion about a few exceptional variables that truly intrigued you to apply to the specific program.
5. Try not to go through a lot of SoPs from your companions and seniors prior to drafting your assertion. This will make a predisposition to you and you could lose creativity from your exposition. What you ought to do is: you can rapidly go through a couple of expositions to find out about how to compose the SoP, then draft your paper, and solely after that go through different SoPs. As worthwhile as it might sound to peruse a lot of papers prior to composing yours, don't do it. You can keep adequate chance to alter your underlying draft later.
6. For tips about SoP composing, I used to follow the channels of Parth Vijayvergiya, YMGrad and Sachin Pullil. There are various other youtube channels that you can find who might be offering pertinent guidance. I likewise found the online class by Sachin Pullil on '3 Mysteries to a Stellar Mission statement' exceptionally supportive. The online class is by all accounts ceased however he has saved a replay for the equivalent accessible for quite a while. Do look at it before it is eliminated.
7. Get your SoP checked on by a lot of individuals, particularly the people who have gone through the cycle. It will be difficult to get individuals to do that since a large portion of the alumni understudies are for the most part exceptionally occupied with their scholastics and work, yet you'll need to pursue them to survey your paper. You'll see the way your SoP blooms subsequent to rolling out every one of the improvements recommended by individuals.
8. Use Grammarly Premium to recognize linguistic and jargon issues in your SoP. Try not to make due with the free record, premium is vastly improved to have. On the off chance that you know a companion who is likewise applying, you can share the exceptional record costs.
9. Your SoP is the ideal and just spot where you can recount your story. Would you like to make sense of your low GPA or accumulations? Would you like to communicate why this course makes a difference to you? Would you like to educate the college regarding your aspirations? Tell anything you desire the alumni board of trustees to be aware prior to settling on a conclusion about your application.
10. At last, trust the cycle! Try not to simply go to a guide to finish your SoP. You know your story the best, so you are the best author.

6. CV

You ought to make a CV of most extreme 2 pages. It ought to feature the accompanying focuses:

• Scholarly foundation
• Distributions
• Research/Work Insight
• Projects
• Significant Coursework
• Grants and Accomplishments
• Specialized Abilities
• Places of Liability
• Extra-scholarly exercises
• For making a CV, you can utilize Plastic. There are a lot of CV formats accessible on Overleaf, which is a Plastic manager. You can pick a format, redo it as indicated by your utilization case and add your subtleties. You can likewise utilize word layouts on the off chance that you can't utilize Plastic. Get your CV investigated by a lot of seniors and batchmates.

Some valuable CV composing tips:

1. Deal with spaces. Try not to let your CV look chaotic and jumbled because of unfortunate spaces of text.
2. Attempt to add connects to your tasks and distributions. These can be the distribution connect, arxiv interface, github connection to project code, and so on. These increment the validity of your profile.
3. Attempt to keep each place of your CV in one line and guarantee that it covers however much space of the line as could reasonably be expected. Too lengthy focuses covering at least two lines can be exhausting and difficult to comprehend. Too short focuses not covering the whole line can make your CV look somewhat unfilled at a more elevated level.
4. Begin your CV focuses with compelling action words. For instance: Created/Planned/Executed/Thought about/Used/Demonstrated/Built and so on.
5. Add your email id, LinkedIn profile and your site connect (assuming that you have one) at the highest point of the CV.

7. GRE

GRE is one more piece of the applications. Nonetheless, since few years, numerous colleges have begun postponing off GRE from the application interaction. You can track down the accompanying sort of terms for the GRE necessity for different projects:

• Required: When GRE is required, you clearly need to present your scores to apply for the program.
• Suggested: When GRE is suggested, it is smarter to present your scores as not doing that can prompt a potential dismissal except if your profile is outstanding.
• Discretionary: For this situation, you can decide to not present your scores. On the off chance that, in any case, your GPA is low or on the other hand on the off chance that you have proactively taken the GRE, it is smarter to present the score as it will work on your profile.
• Not acknowledged: For this situation, the college won't give any field in that frame of mind to fill in your GRE scores, and in any event, sending the score to the college will be of no utilization as they will not think about it.
• Assuming that any of the college that you waitlist has a required or suggested GRE, you ought to take the GRE and present your scores. If, be that as it may, each of your shortlisted colleges fall in the GRE-discretionary class, you can decide to take or not step through the exam in view of your inclination.
• 
  
• For the most part, colleges don't keep shorts in the event of GRE scores. They may, in any case, distribute the typical GRE scores of their conceded understudies. Neither does a better than expected score ensure confirmation, nor does a sub optimal score ensure dismissal (except if the score is incredibly below the norm). So on the off chance that your score is even somewhat beneath the normal, it is fine.

8. TOEFL

(This part expects that you have compulsory TOEFL necessity. For the most part, TOEFL is deferred for understudies who have concentrated on in a college with English as mechanism of guidance and in a country with English as principal language.)

1. TOEFL scores exhibit your English capability and are by and large a prerequisite for the colleges in the US.
2. You ought to store the TOEFL shorts for each program that you apply to in the succeed sheet that you use to waitlist colleges. Your TOEFL score ought to be more noteworthy than the program cut-off.
3. Hardly any colleges might have segment wise shorts too. You ought to consider them as hard shorts and guarantee that your segment wise scores are higher than the referenced necessities.
4. On the off chance that a program doesn't make reference to the TOEFL cut-off on the confirmations site, you can check the TOEFL scores of the understudies owned up to that program and get a thought.
5. For the most part, 100+ can be viewed as a protected score on the off chance that there is no cut-off referenced.

9. Other Essays

Along with the Statement of Purpose, few universities may ask for one or more additional essays/submissions as a part of the program application.

Personal Statement:

•  Your personal statement is very different from your Statement of Purpose.
•  Make sure that you just don’t consider them similar and add redundant information from your SoP in your Personal Statement. That will most likely get you rejected.
•  Make sure that you look into the instructions/essay prompt given by the university.
•  SoP is mostly based upon your previous work, future goals, motivation and aspirations from the program.
•  On the other hand, the Personal Statement is more about your past journey, or what led you to apply to the program, or why the field that you are applying to is important to you. You can talk about how you can add to the diversity of your cohort if you get admitted, or what kind of hardships you faced to reach to your current level.
• Go through various Youtube videos for the difference between an SoP and a Personal Statement for better clarity. For example: videos by YMGrad and Sachin Pullil.
•  You can also find some online articles articulating the difference between the two. For example: The robotics department of the University of Michigan mentions the difference here.
• Other essays:
•  Diversity essay
•  Essay related to your teaching experience
•  Some questions like: Tell us an incident when you had to teach a complex concept to someone and how you tackled it.

10. Timeline

This section targets the timeline primarily for Fall applications.

Fall applications start around September. The deadlines to apply for the universities are generally between December and February.

Before applying, you should check the application review pro cess for each university that you are applying to. Generally, there are three kind of processes