I'm planning to apply for the Spring 2027 admission to the MS program at KAIST Graduate School of AI, and I'd like to get some advice on how I can improve my profile and increase my chances of admission.

Here are what I consider the potential disadvantages and advantages of my profile:

Potential disadvantages

• I graduated from an unknown university, which is not considered a top university in my country.
• I don't have any formal research experience. From what I've seen, many applicants have research experience working with professors or researchers, while I've never conducted research under a professor or published a paper.

Potential advantages

• I have 1 year of experience as an AI/ML Engineer at a startup, and my work is related to my intended research interests.
• I'm currently trying to conduct some independent research and write technical reports about Reinforcement Learning, which is the research area I'm interested in.
• I previously participated in a Kaggle data science competition with around 5,000 participants and finished around 300th. I'm not sure how much this would help in an academic application.
• I was considered one of the top students at my university and graduated with a 3.7/4.0 GPA.
• I have an IELTS score of 7.5 (the stated minimum is 6.5), so I assume this is a positive point as well.

Given my background, what would you recommend I focus on improving before applying? I'm wondering whether I should prioritize building more research experience, trying to publish a paper, doing more RL projects/research, or something else.

I'm also a little confused about the professor contact/approval process. It seems that applicants may need to contact professors before applying and potentially get their approval first. I'm not very confident about approaching professors given my lack of formal research experience.

For people who have applied to or are currently studying at KAIST GSAI, how important is contacting professors before applying, and what would you recommend someone with my background do to improve their chances?

I'd really appreciate any honest feedback or advice.

Hello, I'm planning to apply for Masters degree at KAIST, however I find that most of the lab requires research experience such as international journal publication or academic achievement in bachelors.

I've got 1-year professional experience in the same field with my major but lack of research experience, my bachelor's GPA is 3.7 / 4.0

I've haven't tried contacting the professors because from other's post mostly they won't respond to master's applicant email

any feedback would be very helpful, thanks a lot!

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to apply for a Master's degree in Germany, but tuition fees and living costs are my biggest concerns financially.

Right now, I’m considering a few possible strategies:

1. Applying for financial aid or scholarships offered by German universities or the government
2. Funding myself for the first 1–2 semesters, trying to get excellent grades, and then applying for scholarships afterward

I’m wondering if these plans are realistic or achievable for international students. Has anyone here gone through a similar situation?

I’d really appreciate any advice, experiences, or scholarship recommendations. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to apply for a Master's degree in Germany, but tuition fees and living costs are my biggest concerns financially.

Right now, I’m considering a few possible strategies:

1. Applying for financial aid or scholarships offered by German universities or the government
2. Funding myself for the first 1–2 semesters, trying to get excellent grades, and then applying for scholarships afterward

I’m wondering if these plans are realistic or achievable for international students. Has anyone here gone through a similar situation?

I’d really appreciate any advice, experiences, or scholarship recommendations. Thanks!