I would ask anyone reading this to first read DAGAP. I will only propose changes to parts of it if they are outdated. For some context, I have not (yet) been a part of the Admissions Committee at CMU, and these are my experiences from my firends' and my outcomes. While DAGAP provides appropriate weights to different parts of the application process, I will try to provide timelines and strategies I used wherever possible.
Note that admissions into top schools are generally quite stochastic, and I would recommend applying to multiple programs even if you are confident about your application.
When I applied to universities for Fall'25, most universities did not consider the GRE or had made it optional. This year (for Fall'26) even CMU's MSML program has made it optional. I personally did not send it to schools where it was optional.
In my opinion, if you still have to submit it somewhere, a score of 320 and above is adequate, a higher score is better, but is not a decisive factor as stated in DAGAP. The quant score should ideally be greater than or equal to 168. The verbal score can be compensated with an excellent TOEFL / IELTS score. FACTS: I had a GRE score of 323 (Q: 168, V: 155, A: 4.5), I did submit it to CMU's MSML program. I know a senior who had 321, and got admits from top schools like UMich and Georgia Tech. Thus my opinion.
For TOEFL, I just have a minor addition, some shools set up a sectional minimum score as well, and in extreme cases, would not look at applications with less than the sectional minimum. For example, Princeton requires a speaking score of at least 28, I have not seen many other schools who set up such stringent criteria.
Finally, you should plan to give both of these at least about a month before the deadlines, to have results in time.
I strongly agree with DAGAP, and will only add one additional statement as a strategy. I would advise anyone to put their primary focus on their academics, and raise their GPA from whatever it is. Investing time in academics is a low risk high reward strategy. Trying to compensate GPA with any other aspect is a high risk high reward strategy, it only works sometimes.
Again, I agree with DAGAP entirely; though due to that, I didn't pay a lot of attention to my SoP, and wrote it much later (only a few days before the deadline). I would advise anyone to start much earlier (about 2 weeks)! I am also sharing a few resources I used, [MIT CommLab][example]. I would also suggest too get it reviewed by as many people as possible, especially those who have been through the process (MS / PhD applications). You should write it once before any review / examples so you're not biased towards a style or flavour.
Finally, I shortlisted universities beased only on some rankings and prestige, thus I would also go through the entire faculty list of the department manually and mention professors I liked and would want to work with, in most cases there would be muiltiple natural alignments.
I strongly believe that after GPA, this is the field that is given the most importance, as this is entirely out of the applicant's control. I think DAGAP places most of its opinions correctly, I'm not sure about the negative points part, overly glorifying letters are definitely bad.
As a strategy, reach out to professors much earlier, about 7-8 weeks before the deadlines. Most professors would ask some summary / bullet points of their experience with you, otherwise as well, it would not hurt to send such a summary along with your updated CV and transcript. Also don't shy away from asking to highlight specific details, like TA-ship experience, etc.
This was probably not a major factor in decisions at the time of DAGAP I think (it is a subsection not a section). However, the landscape has definitely shifted over the years. Much more for AI related fields, but also for other subfields in CS, like networks or systems1Maybe not as much for theory. I think even then, the guidelines there are still correct.
I think some form of research experience is now an unwritten requirement for most top schools. Note that I am saying research experience and not publications (I strongly believe undergraduate research is really random, but that's another story). I think so because the applicant pool is so strong, and the seats so few, that the committee will always have enough applicants with research experience.
Before I get cancelled by the research community, you should not do research in order to get into a top school. What I mean is, if your primary goal with research is to get an admit, you're not doing it right. Your primary goal with research should be to do research. Research strategy is an article in itself, though I would suggest to start early, as early as possible.
The advice in DAGAP is again quite apt, as a side note, I have seen people applying usually with 2 years of experience. I would strongly advise anyone taking this path to get into some top company or work in a top research lab / startup. For India, Microsoft Research and Google DeepMind have their own (competitive) pre-doctoral programs [MSR] [GDM] GDM posts the opening when its open. Top IIT / IISc professors are also more than willing to host students for a year or so.