Apply for PhD

📢 Additional resources for Fall 2023 applicants


Within the Center for Language and Speech Processing, we believe that our research mission depends on a diverse and inclusive community. To support this, the CLSP is running an Applicant Support Program that aims to assist underrepresented students as they apply to our PhD program.

Applicants will receive a one-time review of their application materials (statements and CV) from a student volunteer. Participation in this program is separate from admissions and will not affect admissions.

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until full. Please sign up here by November 19, 2023 to participate in this program. Participants will receive written feedback on their materials within a week.

PhD Admissions: FAQ

This guide is written for applicants interested in the PhD program in Computer Science or Electrical and Computer Engineering at Johns Hopkins with an interest in the Center for Language and Speech Processing (CLSP).

CLSP accepts a number of new Ph.D. students each year and offers them full funding. Previous academic or industry experience in speech or language processing is a plus. However, we welcome all talented applicants, including those with skills in related areas such as machine learning, linguistics, mathematics, cognitive science, physics, or neuroscience. We also accept master’s students who are interested in the field.

Watch Prof Mark Dredze’s PhD Admissions AMA with an explanation of our admissions process and answers to common questions.

Make sure to check out our FAQ for Ph.D. admissions. It contains great general advice for applying to JHU and elsewhere.

 

How to Apply

CLSP is a multi-disciplinary interest group of faculty and students who work together across department lines. Students ordinarily join by applying to one of the following departments:

The departments of Cognitive Science and Psychological and Brain Sciences are also an important part of the language research community here, and you may consider applying there as well if you are primarily interested in linguistics or human language processing. If you are interested in machine learning, see this page for additional options.

Johns Hopkins has an interdisciplinary culture where it is common to have coursework and advisors in multiple departments. Students must, however, must meet the requirements for admission and degree completion in their home department.

You may contact the center or individual faculty with questions. We will also talk to you at length if we are considering admitting you — either bringing you to campus for a 2-day visit or interviewing you by Skype if you are not in the U.S.

 

Why Apply

CLSP is a nexus for research in the field, and offers an unusual array of opportunities to graduate students:

  • Weekly visits from leaders across the field of speech and language
  • A 2-week summer school
  • Annual 6-week summer workshops, many of which have produced field-changing research
  • The Center of Excellence in Human Language Technology, a federally funded center for research in speech and language processing
  • A full curriculum of coursework in the language and speech areas
  • Weekly reading groups in natural language processing, machine learning, computational approaches to meaning and translation, and speech processing and recognition

CLSP has one of the world’s largest collections of speech and language faculty while enjoying a close-knit collaborative environment with a low student-to-faculty ratio. CLSP research areas include:

  • Speech processing: recognition, language modeling, biologically inspired speech perception, robust recognition
  • Natural language processing: parsing, semantics, information extraction, morphology, phonology, sentiment
  • Machine translation: syntax-based and phrase-based translation, lexicon induction
  • Machine learning: semi-supervised learning, graphical models, Bayesian methods, large-scale learning, transfer learning
  • Information retrieval: large-scale retrieval, cross-language retrieval
  • Statistics: computational statistics, statistical pattern recognition, statistical inference for high-dimensional and graph data, information theory

 

Statement on Diversity

We are committed to a diverse community within the center, as diversity is a key element of the educational experience of our students. Diversity presents itself in many different forms such as socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or place of origin, disability, unique work or life experience, etc.  Our goal through the admissions process is to cultivate an environment that values diverse backgrounds, approaches, and perspectives.

Johns Hopkins University does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status or other legally protected characteristic in any student program, activity administered by the university, admission, or employment.

CLSP also includes students from PhD programs in Cognitive Science, Applied Math and Statistics, and others. Some of this guide may apply to other PhD programs, and non-CLSP students. You can view statistics about the students in each department’s program here: https://oir.jhu.edu/phd-statistics/



What goes into my application material?

The 4 major components of an application are essay, letters, grades and test scores.

The most important question we seek to answer when reviewing applications: will this individual excel at research. Every part of your application is helpful only insofar as it answers that question.

Essay

  • This is one of the most important parts of your application.
  • It lets us get to know you, and allows to create a narrative of your academic career and future plans.
  • Before you write the essay, start by thinking about you want us to learn about you.
  • Make a list of important achievements, perspectives and goals. Build the essay around this list. We are looking for students who have made the most of the opportunities they have had, and who are smart, creative and motivated.
  • Keep in mind that we’ll also have your CV and letters, so we don’t necessarily need a list of accomplishments. However, the essay can fill in the narrative around what you did, specifically, why you did it. What motivates you? What are your research interests and why? These details aren’t found elsewhere in your application, so focus on them in the essay.
  • There are a few things we suggest not including in the essay. It’s tempting to give a rationale for why you are applying to our program. But if it’s uninformed, don’t bother. Consider: “I want to apply to CLSP because it’s one of the premier academic groups in NLP.” We know that already
  • If you do have specific reasons to be interested in our program (e.g. location, specific project, faculty, etc.) be sure to mention them.
  • In terms of motivation, be specific! Don’t write: “I’ve wanted to do a PhD in CS since I was 6 years old.” We don’t trust that 6 year olds make good decisions. If you write “I have always found language fascinating”, why?
  • In terms of mentioning faculty to work with: it’s a good idea if you know, but skip it if you don’t. If you explain your research interests in detail, we’ll be able to do a better job matching you with an adviser.
  • We suggest this post from our colleague Nathan Schneider on what readers look for in a statement of purpose

Letters

How many letters of recommendation should I get?

PhD applicants need three letters. We require that your recommenders submit their recommendations online.

The two most important aspects of a letter.

  1. Select someone who knows you well, and
  2. Select someone who knows how to write a letter.
  • First, it’s tempting to ask Prof X. to write a letter for you because she is a well known person in the field. It’s true that we trust letters more from people we know, but it’s only helpful if the letter contains meaningful information. If Prof X writes, “I’ve met the applicant a few times and they seem sharp” that’s not useful information. It’s more important to select someone who knows you well, and can discuss your achievements in detail.
  • Second, it’s important that the letter writer knows how to write a letter. Academic research programs look for different things than a company. We often read letters from work supervisors that say nice things, but don’t speak to the qualities we find most important in a letter. Of course, it’s a balance. You want someone who knows you well, but they still need to know how to write letters.
  • We understand that three letters are a lot, especially for an undergrad applying directly to a PhD program. We don’t expect each candidate to have three amazing letters. Your choice is about balance. You want people who know you well, can write good academic letters, and know our field. Use the choice of three people to create this balance.

Grades

There isn’t much you can do about this; you have the grades you have. It’s important to understand, we don’t use any grade cutoffs or thresholds in admissions. We want to see that you did well, and excelled in whatever program you were in. We look at the classes you took. Did you push yourself to take upper level classes? Did you do well in classes most directly related to our research area? If you have special circumstances that explain some of your grades, be sure to include a description in the letter.

Test Scores

1. GRE

The Whiting School of Engineering does NOT require GRE General Test scores for applications to our PhD programs.

2. TOEFL or IELTS

Non-native English speakers must take the TOEFL exam or IELTS. Details on accepted exams, scores, and exceptions to this requirement can be found here.

When are applicants waived from having to submit a TOEFL/IELTS score?

When an applicant’s native language is English or an applicant meets the University’s TOEFL/IELTS requirement waiver policy.

If I am eligible for a TOEFL/IELTS score waiver, how will the waiver be noted on my application?

The Office of Graduate Admissions will note the waiver. If you do not see the waiver within 14 days of submitting your application:

Contact the graduate admissions office directly. Do not contact the department, as they can only refer you to graduate admissions.

[Source: ECE Graduate Admissions page]

Application Links

You’ve decided to apply! Fantastic. You’ll find the application here: Graduate Admissions , How to apply and general graduate requirements

General CS information can be found here: CS Graduate Studies

General ECE Information can be found here: ECE Doctoral Studies

What is the application fee? Is there fee waiver?

Application Tips

There are many helpful guides for PhD applications. A few we recommend:

Application Deadlines

We accept applications beginning in August for Fall. No recruiting for Spring admissions

Computer Science (CS):

The deadline for Fall is December 15

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE):

The application submission deadline is December 22 at 11:59 p.m. EDT (UTC-5).

More FAQs

Which department to apply – CS or ECE?

CLSP is an interdisciplinary center that includes students and faculty from the computer science (CS), electrical and computer engineering (ECE), cognitive science and other departments. CLSP is an organizing group around research, but your PhD program is run by a department.

If you are interested in working with faculty in CLSP, you first need to decide what department best fits your interests. Once enrolled in that department as a PhD student, you’ll have the option of working with all faculty in that department, including those who also affiliate with CLSP.

If you are unsure which department best fits you, consider both the faculty and the graduate program. In terms of faculty, which professors best fit your interests? We have many students interested in faculty broadly in CS, including NLP, Machine learning, and medicine (for example). Second, look at the graduate programs. You’ll be taking classes in your first two years. Which department’s classes are the best fit for you?

💡 You apply directly to the departments, not to CLSP. You can indicate your area of interest on your application as related to natural language processing, so it will come to the attention of the CLSP faculty.

Should I email professors before I apply?

CLSP accepts students every year in every area of speech and NLP. If your question is “will you have slots,” there is no need to ask. Apply!

If you have specific questions about a faculty member’s research, you are welcome to contact them ahead of time. However, keep in mind that faculty members receive dozens of emails from applicants and often don’t have time to response. This is especially true of long emails that focus on the applicant without specific questions for faculty. If you email faculty, we recommend you keep it short, to the point, and specific to that faculty member’s interests. Don’t be offended if they don’t reply.

Does CLSP value a diverse community?

We are committed to a diverse community within the center, as diversity is a key element of the educational experience of our students. Diversity presents itself in many different forms such as socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or place of origin, disability, unique work or life experience, etc.  Our goal through the admissions process is to cultivate an environment that values diverse backgrounds, approaches, and perspectives.

Johns Hopkins University does not discriminate on the basis of gender, marital status, pregnancy, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, veteran status or other legally protected characteristic in any student program, activity administered by the university, admission, or employment.

Do I need to have a CS degree?

No! We are an interdisciplinary center. Applicants have degrees in CS, ECE, linguistics, cognitive science, math, and many other areas. While we want to see some experience with CS, we take students from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Do I need to have published papers?

Certainly not. While many of our applicants have publications demonstrating their research experience, we care more about what you did with the opportunities you were given. Some students come from major US universities with active research programs, in which case students have the opportunity to publish. Other students come from smaller schools without these opportunities. Each year we accept many students without publications, and reject students with multiple publications.

How will my advisor be assigned?

You will be assigned an initial academic advisor, who may or may not become your eventual thesis advisor. All students are admitted with at least two potential advisors. Additionally, students are required to complete research qualifying projects early in their studies with two different faculty. If you review publications coming from the center, you’ll observe that many have more than one faculty member, and individual students will publish with different faculty. Many of our students are co-advised, and changing advisors or adding a second advisor is relatively easy. If you are a PhD student in Computer Science, you will be able to work with any CS faculty member, subject to mutual agreement.

How will I receive funding?

WSE PhD students are fully funded (tuition, health insurance and stipend) for the duration of their PhD program while they are in a full-time, resident status. The stipend minimum is equivalent to 12 months at $35,600. Admission offer letters cite specifics for each student and program.

Costs and Funding | Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs

In particular, CLSP PhD students are also all fully funded. Funding includes a yearly stipend, tuition grant and health insurance and typically increases each year. Our current CS stipend is $43,000.

Our students are primarily funded on research assistantships, with some amount of time on teaching assistantships (teaching is a requirement of the CS PhD program.)

Additionally, we have many students with external fellowships. To the best of our knowledge, no CLSP student has ever left the program due to a lack of funding. Additionally, Baltimore offers a lower cost of living than many other major US cities.

Many CLSP students participate in summer internship programs within industry, which pay considerably higher salaries.

What is included in the student healthcare policy?

The student healthcare package contains medical care via Cigna, vision care via EyeMed, and dental via Delta Dental. The full policy details are available here:

Student Health Benefits – JHU Human Resources

How many applicants do you plan to admit?

There is no predetermined number, as it will vary from year-to-year depending on positions available under faculties. Please indicate the faculty you would like to work with in your application.

What is JHU’s policy on parental leave?

PhD students at Johns Hopkins are fully covered for medical (Cigna), dental (Delta Dental), and vision (EyeMed). Plans are available for masters students as well.

“All eligible full-time graduate students and postdoctoral trainees shall receive no less than 8 weeks of fully-paid new child accommodations”. For more information, see:

Family Resources for Students and Postdoctoral Fellows | Graduate & Postdoctoral Affairs

Additionally, JHU offers parents of young children childcare vouchers.

Lingering Questions

Feel free to contact us with additional questions not answered here.

You can reach out to a number of current graduate students who will be able and willing to answer your questions or by sending an email to [email protected] or [email protected]

Center for Language and Speech Processing