my ph. d. application experience

Now that I’m finally done applying to Ph. D. programs, I thought I’d take a moment to write about the whole experience! I want to do so for two reasons: to reflect on the journey itself, and to serve as a resource for others also applying. As there are several resources providing advice about this process, I have not given too much express advice myself. When I do, I hope to emphasize particularly unique advice that I have. I’ve also tried to detail things I did that I think helped my application throughout.

I am happy to answer any questions from prospective applicants via email. If we are already acquainted, I am also happy to share certain application materials. In the below, I’ve made effort to mention very few schools by name. I am happy to discuss where I applied to, and specific details in making my decision, offline and off the record. I am also happy to recommend schools and faculty to apply to for computational social choice theory.

I will be attending MIT, where I will be advised by Bailey Flanigan.

General Information

I chose to apply to only computer science Ph. D. programs, intending to start immediately after my undergraduate studies. I did consider applying to operations research programs as well, but decided not to because I didn’t want to take the GRE. I focused my applications towards my research interests in computational social choice theory, the mathematical analysis of democratic processes, and more broadly algorithmic game theory. Because of the volatile nature of academic funding in the United States, I decided to apply to 19 programs, an abnormally high number. Of these, 17 were in the United States and two were in Canada. I was accepted to 8 schools.

Creating a List of Schools: June, 2025 — November, 2025

At the end of my third year, I started to make a rough list of faculty I’d be interested in working with, along with their respective institutions. I hoped to have an initial list of approximately 35 schools and narrow down to roughly 15 from there. To create the initial list, I drew on suggestions of several mentors in my field and authors of interesting papers I had seen at conferences. For each school, I had at least two, and ideally three, faculty I’d be interested in working with. Then, to narrow down, I grouped the schools into a rough order of preference by research fit and eliminated several.

This process took months and was iterative. I only settled on the final list in mid-November, when it was time to send information to my letter writers. By then, I had 15 schools that I would definitely apply to, and six more that I’d apply to if I had time. I was able to apply to all six schools I’d apply to if I had time, and I chose not to apply to two schools that I would “definitely apply to” because I unexpectedly heard that I should be expecting an offer from one of my top choices before their deadlines.

Putting Together Materials: August, 2025 — December, 2025

In the fall, I was also applying to a few graduate fellowships and an international master’s program. To comply with these earlier deadlines, I had a rough draft of a statement of purpose by August 15. I iterated on it until mid-November, at which point my materials had gone through roughly four or five cycles of revision, though the overall structure hadn’t changed. That said, by applying to the NSF GRFP in particular, I was comfortable writing both research-focused statements of purpose, and everything else-focused personal statements.

I only started modifying my fellowship statements for Ph. D. applications in November. In my fellowship applications, I heavily emphasized my research interests in computational social choice and mathematical democracy. But, in my Ph. D. applications, I did not want to be misconstrued as an applicant with very narrow interests. Therefore, I framed myself as a theory applicant who enjoyed being able to apply theoretical research to the real world, while simultaneously being able to ignore these applications and focus on building rich theory itself.

My statements of purpose had two parts, with several sections therein. The first part was common to all schools, and in it, I detailed my broad research interests, future goals, research experiences, and my reasons for applying. Then, for each school, I identified two to four faculty I’d be interested in working with and wrote about how my interests overlap with theirs. In this section, I’d discuss interesting research directions and cite several papers that I would enjoy extending the work of. Here, for schools that had one or more faculty interested in social choice or mathematical democracy, I emphasized that interest.

For schools who allowed two pages, roughly $\frac{4}{3}$ pages were generic, and the remaining $\frac{2}{3}$ were school-specfic. For schools who only allotted 1000 words, roughly 750 words were generic, and 250 were school-specific. Some schools also required a personal statement. I wrote these statements with the goal of showing admissions committees who I was outside of research. I discussed my teaching experience, outreach activities, academic service, additional background information, and my desire to always pay forward my mentors’ advice towards others.

December 1 and December 15 were the two major deadlines, but a few schools had deadlines in between or even into early January. A few days before each major deadline, I’d make sure I was happy with the generic part of my statement of purpose. Then, I’d start writing the school-specific sections as I applied. I found that it took me anywhere from one to four hours to submit each school’s application after I was happy with the generic statement.

While the deadlines were stressful, and I did get very little sleep in the days leading up to them, writing and revising the statements was genuinely fun. It was exciting to see what the next few years of my research could look like! I also enjoyed working at different places, including local coffee shops, breweries, and libraries. On December 14, into the early hours of December 15, working on applications gave me a great excuse to listen to the first six Mahler symphonies without any interruptions! I inadvertently fell asleep at the start of the seventh.

I’ll also note that in other fields, it seems like it is essential to contact faculty to express interest in applying and discuss research fit before submitting the application itself. In computer science, I’ve noticed that the opposite is largely true, with many faculty expressly asking students not to contact them in advance. In my case, I did not reach out to any faculty before I applied, and I waited for them to contact me first instead.

Asking for Letters: November, 2025 — December, 2025

I had the luxury of knowing that my letter writers expected me to ask them to write for my Ph. D. applications. Moreover, they had all wrote letters for me recently for various fellowships and REUs. Therefore, I did not ask formally until mid-November. For schools that allowed me to, I requested four letters: three from faculty who I’d worked closely with in a research capacity, and one from a professor that I had developed a strong rapport with in coursework over the last three years. Some schools limited me to three letters, in which case I only sent requests for the research-focused letters.

To be fully honest, asking for letters was what helped me finalize the schools I’d be applying to. If I didn’t give myself a mid-November deadline to ask, I likely would have made modifications to my final list into December. I’m glad I didn’t.

Due to my procrastination habit, by the time I asked for letters, I had not yet started tailoring my fellowship statements of purpose to my Ph. D. applications. I was not able to provide a statement draft to my letter writers until after Thanksgiving break. While I do not recommend this at all, I will emphasize that it is important to choose letter writers who know you well enough that this is not too much of an issue.

For organization, I shared a spreadsheet with all my letter writers including the schools I applied to, the application deadline, and a checkbox for them to indicate that a letter had been submitted. I also provided my letter writers with a rough ranking of the schools I was applying to. I had additional columns in the spreadsheet to indicate whether I had received an interview, and if I ultimately was admitted. I made it a point to keep my spreadsheet updated as the cycle progressed.

Hearing Back: January, 2026 — February, 2026

I had 9 interviews, the first of which occured on December 23. Most of my interviews, though, were in January, and were with faculty I had mentioned in my statement of purpose. In one case, I had an interview with a professor I had not at all mentioned. I believe that my decision to mention more than one faculty in my statement of purpose contibuted to me getting more interviews than I would have otherwise.

Interviews were a great way for me to make fine-grained preferences over the schools I had applied to, and largely, they were just a fun way to talk to faculty about my research interests. For almost every school, I did not prepare beyond skimming the professor’s website. One professor asked me to choose a paper of theirs and be prepared to discuss it, and I was preparing to get quizzed on the technical details, but we only briefly mentioned the paper in the call and discussed how it related to our research. Most interviews were scheduled for 30 minutes, though a significant number went overtime.

Every professor I met during the interview process understood the truly stressful nature of the admissions process and made every effort to diminish that. Several encouraged me to reach back out if I needed help deciding between offers, and I eagerly took them up.

My first informal acceptance was via email on December 29, but I started hearing back from universities officially on January 22. Acceptances slowly trickled in after that. For most of my offers, the faculty member that was my point of contact would reach out a few days before, giving me the good news; but, for some universities, the official offer letter was a complete surprise. Additionally, looking back at the universities I applied to and which offers I ended up receiving, the biggest predictor of the outcome was my research alignment with the faculty I mentioned, and notably not perceived prestige.

Making a Decision: January, 2026 — April, 2026

Making a decision was, by far, the hardest part of the whole process, no doubt. I was lucky to receive 8 offers. I visited 5 schools, and my decision ultimately came down to three programs. I chose not to visit one school because it meant I’d be at the airport three times in one week. I also had to choose between visiting one of two schools that scheduled their visits for the same weekend.

The visits helped me finalize my preferences, but no visit immediately made my decision for me. I noticed that universities essentially had two “types” of visits that they put on. At some universities, my schedule was jam-packed with several back-to-back meetings and other events. At other universities, the visit was much more laid back, and I’d only have a few meetings. I really enjoyed the hectic visits, as they allowed me to meet many more people. During the visits, I asked many of the standard questions to as many students, faculty, and my prospective advisor as I could.

I viewed the final three universities to be quite similar, and I knew I’d be happy to attend either. I cannot exactly pinpoint what caused me to make my decision, but the meetings I had at the visits definitely helped. I also had several one-on-one calls before and after visits with my mentors, prospective advisors, and other faculty to gather their input. Everyone understood the gravity of the decision and kindly made themselves available to discuss.

Advice

As I mentioned, there are several resources, including blog posts, providing good advice about applying to Ph. D. programs. In light of that, I’ve tried to keep my brief advice to things I haven’t seen discussed as much as they should be.

1. Make connections with faculty, early and often.
2. Apply for fellowships.
3. Aim high.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank everyone in my life that made the arduous process of applying to Ph. D. programs easier in any way, shape, or form. Truly, it takes a village to create a successful applicant. Any list is far from exhaustive, but in particular, I’d like to thank my letter writers, research collaborators, mentors, those who provided feedback on my application materials, and my friends for their unending encouragement and support.