Instructions for prospective students
Thank you for your interest in working with me at the University of Alberta. I receive many requests from students looking for potential graduate programs. I put this web page together to help those students who are truly interested in studying in my lab. If you’re reading this, you’re already a step ahead of the game! If you want to ensure I read your email, put the words "Corpus Callosum" in the subject line.
There are a few ways to get into grad school. One way is to be an absolute rock-star (in which case you don't need to email me to get into our grad program). Another way is to find a few professors you'd really like to work with, and send them targeted messages. This web page is for people using the second strategy. I get hundreds of emails every year from students looking for admission into our program. Most of these are form letters that have no mention of me or my research. Please, if you contact me, take some time to read a few of my research papers, tell me what you think of them, what your questions are, and what you think we could work on together. I cannot reply to every grad school query I receive.
Again: If you use send me a generic email with no mention of how my research interests overlap with yours, I will likely not respond. I get many emails from prospective students, and I cannot respond to every one. To reduce the load, I respond only to obviously tailored emails.
In Canada, students typically do a Master’s degree before their PhD. A Master’s degree takes about 2 years, and a PhD takes 4-6 years.
Potential MSc Students
The CS department at U of A admits MSc students directly. You may contact me if you are interested in working with me, but ultimately the decision is up to the graduate admissions committee. Please include the phrase “Potential Master’s Student” in the subject of your email, along with the following information:
- How your research interests overlap with mine, and what you envision we could work on together. Again, I get many emails from students. I cannot respond to all emails, and so focus on responding to people who make an effort to tailor their email to our shared interests.
- Your previous education, including GPA.
- Your GRE scores. If taking the GRE is burdensome, as I know it can be in many parts of the world, please send me some information to help me understand both the caliber of your institution, and your standing in your graduating class.
- If English is not your first language, please provide me with English proficiency scores.
If you acquired some research experience during your undergraduate degree, that makes you a stronger candidate. Please let me know if you have any of the following:
- A publication in a respected conference in any sub-field of CS (publications in machine learning or natural language processing conferences are preferred, but any area shows research experience).
- A publication in an international journal.
- An undergraduate thesis or capstone project. (Please send me the title and description)
- A position in a research lab, for a summer or as part of a directed studies project. Please tell me what you worked on, the name of your advisor in that position, and if I may contact them.
Potential PhD Students
Unlike MSc students, PhD students are admitted directly by their advisor (so long as they meet the minimum requirements of the university). If you would like to do a PhD with me, please include the information from the above MSc list (but instead include the phrase “Potential PhD Candidate” in the subject of your email), as well as information about your MSc degree, thesis title and previous advisor. A successful PhD candidate will contribute new knowledge to computer science research. Thus, I am looking for evidence of success in research for those entering the PhD program. This would include one or more of the following:
- a publication in a well known machine learning/natural language processing conference. See the list here
- a publication in an international journal.
Please include information about your previous publications when emailing me.
In addition, please don’t send me zip/rar files, and I prefer pdfs to word documents.
Good luck in your search for a graduate school!
Alona Fyshe