This perspective is for an international student applying to universities in Canada. You’ll usually get into a university that’s a couple notches lower than a local student with the same resume, also a couple of notches lower than what you’d get in the USA. I had a below average resume while applying but still got into a decent university because of circumstances. This was my profile back then:

  • 8 IELTS
  • 8 CGPA
  • 7 small projects in Machine Learning - Applied AI course helped me do them
  • YouTube channel for Machine Learning tutorials - I only had 4 videos but one of them had 25k+ views

I applied to these places:

  • Carleton CS - Reject
  • Concordia CS - Reject
  • Trent Big Data - Reject
  • Memorial CE - Reject
  • Lakehead CS - Accepted
  • Carleton IT - Accepted

I’m perfectly happy with where I am right now but here are some mistakes I think I made:

  • Not applying to 15 places - Admissions are so unpredictable that it makes sense to cast a wide net.
  • Bad resume - I had a fancy designer resume which doesn’t work well with parsing algorithms. I think a plain resume like I have on this blog would have been better. Also, since people are short on time, it’s better to present it in known and accepted format.
  • Bad SOP - In retrospect, I think the SOP could have been a lot more than just an expanded version of the resume. It’s a place to describe my thoughts and ideas, but didn’t realize it earlier. Instead of describing my limited accomplishments, I could have focussed on my motives and mindset.
  • Not applying earlier - I started applying too late and missed a ton of application deadlines which is part of the reason I couldn’t apply to 15 places

The IT department at Carleton requires the student to have a supervisor before admission. I sent some emails to professors in the Carleton IT department, having minimal hope of getting any reply. Thankfully, my current supervisor replied back with an invitation to interview. We had a conversation discussing my projects and about our research interests.

Later on I joined the research program under the supervision of Dr. David Thue. The admission process was pretty different than what it normally is in other universities/departments. Universities tend to focus on grades too much, but I had a personal interview which changed things in my favour.

Feb 18 - Applied to Carleton IT

April 7 - Professor replied

April 24 - Interview

April 30 - Personal confirmation from professor

May 8 - Official offer letter from Carleton

The name of the university doesn’t matter as much as having a coop does, I’ll explain that in another post. It’s a long explanation.