Lambda the Ultimate

I'm not sure if you should be looking at specific programs as you should be looking at specific people. What professor do you want to work with? Then try to figure out if you could actually work with that professor. A direct email might help, but you really have to sell yourself strongly and quickly otherwise your mail will just be seen as SPAM.

Otherwise, look for a grad school with lots of strong PL people. Europe is the place for theory/FP, while America does better at pragmatics (lots of exceptions of course). Figure out what you'd like to do and see what the academic market is like. There is a huge market for those who are interested in and willing to work on static verification or heuristic bug detection, while a only a very small market exists for those who want to design their own languages. After you figure out what direction you wan tot go in, I think the schools that you need to look at will be obvious.

Also, this might effect you: Google has snapped up many of the really great PL people over the last few years. There are still many left in academia, but if you want to be exposed to great PL people your best bet is to probably land a job at Google.

...then you should talk to the people there. They've got a pretty good group of PL researchers -- off the top of my head, Jan Vitek, Suresh Jaganathan, and Tony Hosking come to mind -- and could probably give you good advice, especially if you can talk to them in person.

Thanks so much neelk! I'm so glad I find myself in the midst of such helpful kind people.
Thanx again!

Do not sent a long note of the form "here are 20 things I have done where I am the best in some group that you know nothing about, I have a lot of web programming experience, my resume is attached, can I work with you?" By the beginning of my second year, the authors of those letters immediately went into my reject pile, and I did not look at their applicant file.

Why?

• If I don't know the quality of the comparison group, the 20 wonderful things that you have done do not tell me anything at all. In China, everyone has received ten different prizes. Most of them seem to be awarded for breathing. A few are valid, but as an American reader I could not tell which ones were which, and I did not have time to inquire for each of the hundred emails I would receive. The result is that these lists have no value. They waste your time and mine.

• The information that is requested in the admission process is needed to evaluate the candidate. We review hundreds of files, so believe me, if it wasn't needed we would not ask. If the file is not complete, the professor cannot evaluate the candidate and no response is possible. If you cannot take the time to follow the application rules, why should I take the time to respond to your email?

  Exception: No CS professor cares about GRE scores unless they are bad. You can start a conversation without those.

• If you write something like "I am interested in your areas A and B, and your work on X, Y, Z", take the time to make sure that these are actually what the faculty member does. If you have read and considered the papers, and can comment knowledgeably on something that the paper says, do so. It is also okay to say something like "I've been working on reading X, but I'm struggling with <question>". If you can't say something specific that makes your statement believable, don't bother.

I did not begin with this grumpy view. It took many many letters for me to learn that most letters should be ignored or subtracted from the application.

So what should you send? Perhaps something like:

Dear Professor X,

I have applied to the program in <subject> at <place>. I have confirmed that my application file is now complete. I am very interested in working with you because of your work on <something specific>. I would appreciate a chance to talk with you about what you are working on now (remember: the most recent paper reflects work from three years ago).

I would appreciate if you might take a moment to review my application. If you feel that it is appropriate based on the application, perhaps we can arrange time for a phone conversation to determine whether I might be a good student for you or for someone in a related area in your department.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Others will have strong opinions of their own, and each faculty member is different. This is just one reaction, but most faculty members do not like having their time wasted.

I'm a grad student studying functional programming languages (and related topics) at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. My group, HASP (including many of the people formerly associated with the Programatica group at OGI and PSU) is led by faculty members Jim Hook, Mark Jones, and Andrew Tolmach, and is focused on developing a new systems programming languages that uses lessons learned from functional programming language design. Tim Sheard, Andrew Black, and Sergio Antoy are other faculty members at PSU researching PL-related topics.

My group is actively looking for more grad students. See our web page:
http://hasp.cs.pdx.edu/
for more info.

Any prospective students shouldn't hesitate to contact the faculty members listed on that page; they don't bite.