This video contains everything you need to know if
you want to get into some of the world's top PhD programs!
I myself am a PhD candidate at MIT, but everything I'll tell you applies to all top schools,
such as Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, etc.
The application procedures at the best European universities are quite different,
but the tips that I will give you still mostly apply!
I recently made a video about "how to get into MIT for your undergraduate studies"
which was specific for international students
This video though is general because, at least in theory, for PhD admissions
it doesn't matter if you're from the US, or not
I'm going to explain in a moment why I said in theory
Before I dive into all the tips and tricks of how to get into these best PhD programs,
I want you to first ask yourself: does it actually make sense for you to do a PhD?
Doing a PhD may, or may not, be net beneficial for your career
So make sure to first do your research!
Also, think about whether or not it actually makes sense for you
to directly apply for a PhD out of your undergraduate studies
or if you should maybe wait for a year or two and get some work experience
Work experience
If you're not 100% sure that you want to do research, I definitely recommend the latter!
You can always come back at a later point and do a PhD
Feel free to ask me about this in the comment section down below,
so I can give you a more individualized response
Okay, so let's assume that you have decided to go ahead
and apply to either MIT or any other top school for your PhD
Contrary to undergraduate applications,
which are handled by the university's central admission departments,
PhD applications are handled directly by the department you apply to
For example, in my case, this was the MIT Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Usually, applications are due sometime in December,
and all programs start around September 1st
That's probably the key difference between US PhD programs, and European PhD programs
In Europe, you can often start anytime you want
You just have to convince a professor that they should hire you
For example, a good friend of mine, she reached out to a professor at ETH Zürich
He was very convinced with her and she started working and doing her PhD just 2 weeks later
In the US forget about this!
You have to apply almost 10 months in advance, before your PhD program starts
There are 3 major ways to get admitted to MIT PhD programs:
The 1st, and most difficult way is just submitting your application and hoping for the best
The 2nd, and slightly easier way of getting
admitted to MIT is already knowing some professor there
and then have them give your application a little "push" to get you admitted
That was a bit weird!
If you already studied somewhere in the US,
your professors that you're working with
are more likely to have good connections to MIT or some other top university
Therefore, in practice, living in the US might give you a "slight" advantage in your application
The 3rd, and also slightly easier way of getting admitted is already doing something at MIT
doing an internship there, or some kind of research project
and then you can use these connections that you made,
in order to convince some professors to get you admitted
Either way, whichever method you use,
you will still have to submit your application just like everyone else
I personally have experienced all 3 methods: each at a different university
I'm going to talk about them in more detail!
I got admitted to MIT through method #1
I just submitted my application
I didn't know anyone in the department that I applied to and
3 months later I got admitted!
Next up, when it comes to method #2
my advisor in Switzerland used to be a professor in Stanford prior to moving to EPFL
So he put me in touch with some of his colleagues there
and, obviously needless to say, he put in a good word for me which surely helped !
This obviously put me into a great position
I was even invited to give a talk at Stanford before submitting my application
Sadly, in the end, there was just no overlap with the research interest
between me and the different Stanford professors
so my application didn't work out
And lastly, when it comes to method #3
I've wrote my entire Master thesis at Harvard University
So, I could have just stayed there and continued as a PhD candidate
Based on my own observations, roughly half of my colleagues got admitted through method #1
That is, without knowing anyone at MIT
and the other half either had some connection to MIT, or have been at MIT before
Having said this, admission rates in method #1 are actually quite low
Methods #2 and #3 have higher admission rights, but getting there isn't so easy
More about this towards the end of this video
Let's dive right into what you can do to maximize your chances of getting admitted!
Professors have the last saying when it comes to PhD applications
They may get a little bit of help from some administrators, but in the end
all good candidates' applications will eventually make it to the desk of professor
who will make a final decision
Therefore, put yourself into their shoes:
What does a professor want from a PhD candidate?
Well, first of all they, wanted to show that you have some prior research experience
and secondly they want you to be interested in some research area
that is both interesting to them, and will allow them to file for applications for grant money
How to convince a professor that you're going to be a great researcher?
Well, there exists just one way. You have to have some past research experience!
Ideally having some publication!
It doesn't have to be a 1st author publication,
although that would be a major plus
If you can do research directly at your undergraduate institution,
Go for it as soon as possible!
Unfortunately though, many undergraduate institutions, including mine,
do not offer research opportunities for undergraduate students
Sadly though this will not get the excuse from getting a research experience!
I myself had to really fight for it!
I ended up doing climate science research in Denmark,
then Machine Learning research in San Diego in California
and after that I did research in Quantum Computing in Singapore
All of this was paid for the different scholarships,
that I also had to really fight for
Also, once you get such research opportunities make sure to do your absolute best!
I personally work between 60 and 80 hours per week during these research internships
because they knew that this was my only chance to really stand out
I ended up publishing 7 papers before my application deadline,
one of them as a 1st author
and two more publications before my PhD actually started
Although, don't panic!
Because most of my colleagues at MIT published only between
1 and 3 publications before they started
Also, as a side note, the people who end up doing research with
are ideal candidates to write your letters of recommendations
So even if you don't publish something together with them
they might still get you really, really far
Next up: how do you convince a professor that your research is both interesting,
and will get a lot of funding?
Well, when choosing your first research project, you should definitely look for something
that's both hot at the moment and currently gets a lot of funding already
Then, a few months before application are due
make sure to look at every single professor
in the department that you're applying to and ask yourself:
If you find one or more professors that check both of these boxes then
and only then, you should carefully go ahead
and draft a very good email that is specifically written for them
Also, as a little bonus tip,
you might consider reaching out to PhD candidates working with these professors
PhD candidates tend to receive far fewer emails than professors
and are therefore much more likely to actually respond to you
Here are a few examples of some emails that I received recently:
The email on the right was clearly sent to hundreds of people
He didn't say my name, he just said "your research", "your organization"
So it was clearly just copy-pasted to many, many people
The one on the left is great, though
It is clear that he did thorough research about me online
by the fact that he brings up some research that I worked on in the past
Next he expresses my current topic of research
and he must have noticed that I stopped publishing papers on Hyperdimensional Computing
and started working on neural networks for quantum computers
Great catch! Next he lists research experience
that could come in really handy when working with me
and lastly he mentions that he's a fan of my YouTube channel,
a personal project of mine that I'm passionate about so:
Great catch!
He must spend at least 1 hour writing,
this so I know exactly that he didn't just go around and spam every single person
Such an email has the highest likelihood of success
Usually, when you get a reply, professors will either tell you that they're interested
but will only really consider you once they actually get admitted
or that they currently do not have any funding to support new PhD students in that area
either way, don't get discouraged, because this is really useful information
that you can use in the next step: writing your statement of purpose!
There are many great videos talking about everything in detail
so I'm just going to focus on everything high-level here
So you should pick a few professors that you would like to work with
Make sure that all of them satisfied with both requirements that I told you about before
If you email them before, you can take this information to your advantage
For example, if they told you that they like your background,
there's a good chance that when you apply, they would actually hire you
And on the other hand, if the said they currently don't hire PhD student
either in general or maybe just for your specific area
Then there's just no point in even mentioning them in your statement of purpose
Next up: make sure to clearly write about your research interests in your statement of purpose
Make sure to do some research and write about specific fields
that are currently researched by the professors you want to work with
I'm not saying you have to make up and lie exactly what you want to work on
But, for example, if you're interested in gravity
and there's a professor who researches quantum gravity, which is kind kind of a subfield of this,
why not also express interest about that specific subfield
If you write, for example, that you want to explore differential geometry
but there is not a single professor in the whole department working on this
you will most likely not get admitted. Even if you're super smart!
Also, don't forget that you're applying for a research position
So telling about your big plans of starting a billion dollar company
will probably not really help you
I applied to Caltech for research in quantum algorithms
I even personally met the professors who makes the final decision
about which candidates get hired in this specific area
He was super excited about working with me but, unfortunately,
Caltech only takes between 0 and several candidates each year in a specific field
and, unfortunately, the year applied it just so happened to be 0 candidates
So I didn't get admitted.
But, the good thing is at least know that I did absolutely everything I could possibly do
in order to maximize my chances of getting admitted
Even if it didn't work out
So far, we talked about how important research is for your application
as well as finding professors who have enough funding to support you
Next: let us talk about some other factors that really matter for a PhD application
For undergraduate applications in the US,
it is very important that you show that you're a very diversely talented person
For example: volunteering, sports competitions, science and math competitions,
or just anything else really matters for these applications
For PhD applications, unfortunately this isn't so important
Because it's all about specializing. Specializing into doing research
Next up: let us talk about grades. Grades are important for grad school,
because especially if you're applying out of your undergraduate studies
it kind of shows that you're very dedicated to the field of research that you want to do
The only way to get into MIT or another top school without good rates,
is if you have some great research to compensate for it
Good results in your GRE
I think standardized tests overall aren't that important
and if you have good scores they aren't going to get you admitted
Having said that, if you have bad scores, it might be a big red flag on your application
and might actually get you rejected
MIT didn't require me to take the GRE, so I didn't do it
But I think it also wouldn't have made sense for me in general
because preparing for it would have just taken so much time
I think the only way that it really makes sense for you to take a GRE is
if you are from some kind of school system that is very far away from the US
So maybe a developing country, or a lesser known university, or something like that
In that case, it might just make sense to have something standardized
to show that you're really good
Lastly, let me talk about something that you've
probably been waiting for throughout the whole video
That is: how to get admitted through methods #2 and #3
That is, how to get admitted through some connection at MIT
or through having stayed there in some way
Obviously, this is the very best way of applying
because it's significantly boosts your chances of getting admitted
Unfortunately though, professors at top-tier universities
tend to work with other professors at top tier universities
If you're not at the top-tier university already, this might be a bit tricky
For example: me being at MIT,
I mostly interact with professors and students from Harvard, Caltech, Berkeley, ETH Zürich
and other very known schools
But before I came to MIT, while I studied in a lesser-known university,
I only knew one professor who actually had a connection to MIT
and he was working in a field that just wasn't really interesting to me
At the same time, some of my friends, who studied at for example ETH Zürich
had a much easier time of getting admitted
because they worked with professors who were best buddies with MIT professors
But don't worry about this. If you do not have the connections or know someone
just make sure to put a lot of extra effort into networking
And sooner or later you're going to find someone to help you
Remember, 50% of my colleagues at MIT got admitted without knowing anyone there
So, don't worry too much about it
Having said all of this, I've also never met anyone at MIT who wasn't truly exceptional
So even if you have the best connections to MIT, unless you truly exceptional
and have someone who is going to personally vouch for you to be great
You're not going to get admitted
Just to give you an example of this:
my group works very closely together with Google Research
Everyone there respects and knows my advisor,
and they are one of the best groups in the world for Quantum Computing
So, if someone in my group wants to work and do an internship with Google research
All that has to happen is my advisor needs to give them a call
and has to personally vouch for that person to be great
The problem though is, if I do not do a good job at my advisor
and he's unhappy with me, he's surely not going to personally watch for me to be good
Because that would put his reputation at stake!
Therefore, I still have to do an exceptional job in order to get into Google Research
If you're curious about how a typical day in my life as an MIT PhD student looks like
You can click over here!
And if you would like to know more about what I actually do for my PhD
You can click over here!
If you found this video useful, please give it a thumbs up
and you can subscribe to my channel
well I guess somewhere down here
I wish you best of luck with your PhD applications!
I know this is a super stressful time I also personally didn't enjoy it
But it's going to work out somehow for you!
Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Goodbye!