To :
--

Professor


Dear Professor,

I am a final (fourth) year Bachelor of Technology student of Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (I. I. T.), Bombay. I am keen on joining the Graduate program (MS / PhD, preferably PhD) at your University, and have received the application materials. I have made a keen perusal of the technical brochure provided along with the application form, and have noted that your research interests concur with my areas of interest, which are :

(1) Artificial Intelligence, specifically Learning and
Natural Language Processing.
(2) Neural networks and neural modeling.

I am writing to you because I wish to have some more specific information regarding the research activities in these fields at your University, and my chances of admission to the Graduate program at your University. I would be grateful if you could spare some time in evaluating my credentials, which I have summarized below (I have also enclosed a copy of the bio-data form which I had earlier sent to your University) :

I am doing my undergraduate study at I. I. T. Bombay, one of the premier institutes of advanced technical education in India. I have maintained a consistent Grade Point Average, my Cumulative Performance Index being 8.43 (on a scale of 10).

My credit seminar (junior thesis) was on "Human and Artificial Intelligence". I concentrated on some aspects of intelligence, especially Knowledge Representation, Memory, and
Learning, both from the human and the computer perspective. It involved an extensive literature survey and a presentation at the end.

My final-year project (senior thesis) is on "Word Recognition and Spell Checking using ART-based Neural Networks". Working under the Adaptive Resonance Theory paradigm (developed by Stephen Grossberg and Gail Carpenter), a neural network is to be trained to recognize English words and make intelligent suggestions in case of spelling or grammatical mistakes. We are also studying other models of learning for this purpose. My guide is Professor Pushpak Bhattacharya.

As my financial resources are limited, I would be requesting financial aid from your Department or University, in the form of TA / RA / Fellowship. I have some teaching experience, as I am a course assistant for a Fresher course, "Computer Programming and Utilization". This involves engaging weekly tutorial classes, evaluating term papers, programming assignments, etc.

I would be extremely grateful if you would devote some of your valuable time in making a frank appraisal of my chances of gaining admission to your University with full financial aid. I would really like to work under your guidance for my post-graduate studies. I shall be eagerly awaiting your reply.

Thanking you,
Yours Sincerely,
Vinay Gupta