02 May 2021

Penn State (PSU) University Park

Computer Science, Masters (F21)

Accepted via E-mail on 29 Apr 2021

Note

As a parent of a boy who has got admission into PennState, who wont be taking it since he has got Purdue and Wisc Mad PMP and will be most likely taking the former and will be considering OSU (another seat) along with PennState as trophies, I thought it right to comment about the situation this year as I have been following this site steadily for the past few months. My son has high end CGPA+rank from a top State college in India (forget this stupid Tier 1 etc that many Indian students rant about...I personally am an IIT B.Tech, IISc M.E. of yesteryears (1980s) and wont rant about it unnecessarily!) has 6 publications as on date (journal + conference...decent International ones...not the top most ones!) and I must say without doubt has been lucky to get what he got. I am aware of others with almost similar CGPA not getting any top 20 college, even some who are again seniors and rankers of my son from his college. I am also aware of some with lower CGPA and zero experience who have got top 20 from his college. While I admit, that I am illiterate in talking about SOP etc (as I never tried to go for higher studies in US in my times!), I can say that the idea that SOP defines the possibility sounds ridiculous. In fact one stupid comment I get from my son's contacts and even on net is that "dont mention financial help in SOP". To be precise my son mentioned it in almost all cases. There are comments about "dont underline or use bold" and I as the person who was helping review my son's SOP and even the LORs (which of course were accepted by his recommenders!) had BOLD, UNDERLINE and ITALICS. What I want to tell as a senior person about this GRAD program looking students are the following. 1. Getting a Univ in US (did not try other places) based on my son's and the others that I could track shows that IT IS JUST A LOTTERY. So many who are frustrated that what you perceive as you being better and not getting a college while somebody bad got it, just shows that you did not win the lottery. 2. While I said 1 above, certainly a CGPA of 9+ helps though I think 9.5+ seems to have a bit of negative effect especially in the top 30 colleges sometimes. They probably rejected you because they thought you were not going to join or you were not the right fit. 3. Coming to the above point, RIGHT FIT is what the Prof who took your Application thought about it. So if the right Prof got your appln. and he wanted you, may be you got it. In simple there is a high level of randomness and so dont curse yourself for failure. Bad luck. 4. Finally this year is THE REAL BAD YEAR. Penn State that my son got and will not be taking seems to have hardly taken more than few Indians. Strange but true. Many with decent profile didn't get it. I am not even talking of WiscMad rejecting hordes for the MS Traditional program. Overall, it looks like that Covid year is a big game where the Colleges were trying to find the right match and they had invariably hangover of previous year students who had deferred it. 5. The scene might only improve marginally next year as per my guess. Since the carry flow of the deferrals and the space lost last year (by folks not joining) will get into the next academic year, I dont think situation will be same even in 2021-2022 as it was in 2019-2020 and before. So the trouble you saw this academic year might actually continue for one more year if flow control exists. Anyway colleges have their ways of dealing with it. 6. Finally, I find there are 2 types of US colleges. Ones that you pay and get a seat easily potentially with say 9+ and nothing more (Columbia, UPenn, USC and even quite a few branches of CMU and well WiscMad PMP!) and others where you need to slug it out. If my career in the SWindustry of the past means anything, nobody in US in a job really cares so much about college etc (the Tier based approach so sadly seen in Indian colleges!) once they are placed in a job. So if you joined NCSU and I joined Cornell, it is not really that in the end you are low class and I am high class. Please try to understand that. Something I tend to educate my son as well. The truth is you are worth what you are and the colleges took you for what they felt you were. Good luck.

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