Applying to the Cohere Labs Research Scholars Program

Every year I on twitter I endorse the Cohere Labs Scholars Program when applications open up and every year I get about 30 DMs asking for advice on applying. Ninety percent of the advice is the same, so I’ve written that up here. I was part of the first cohort, and things are almost certainly different these days, but I’m sure most of the advice still applies. The paper I wrote at Cohere can be found here. You can read some reflections I wrote about the program here.

FAQ

What is the Scholar’s Program?

It’s an introduction to research, much like a PhD, but only one year and you have your research direction set for you. I was offered a research project (which I accepted immediately because it really didn’t matter much to me what I would do research on) and pursued that idea for the full 8 months. The fact that you need to publish within the 8 month fellowship means it can be harder than the first year of a PhD.

What is the program like?

I was paired with a mentor (the illustrious Marzieh Fadaee) who helped me throughout my eight months with Cohere. She helped me prioritize experiments, understand the process of researching a hypothesis, pursue new ideas, NOT pursue new ideas because I needed to finish up with the old ideas, and actually write the results into a paper that could be published.

Is it full time?

Yes. You will not be able to succeed on the program if you’re also doing another job / in school / whatever other thing would not let you work full time at the program. You can be in school while you apply, but you would need to be able to take time off in order to complete the program.

Do I need to be a US or Canadian citizen?

No! It is a global program.

What is the acceptance rate?

Quite low. There are only spots for like six to eight scholars and thousands of applicants. Tough news but this will always be the case for anything you’ll ever apply to. And it shouldn’t ever stop you. You got this, champ.

Was it hard?

Extremely. Turns out science is really hard. I was a Machine Learning Engineer before the scholar’s program and as I learned in an only occasionally painful way, engineering is actually extremely different than doing research. Like I said, being force to publish within 8 months of the start of the program is no small feat. Fortunately, there are some incredibly smart, competent, and kind people there to help you on your journey.

I’m non technical, can I still apply?

Yes! The point of the program is for people who have non-traditional backgrounds to enter into research. That being said, if you have no coding experience, you will not succeed. There is (or at least there was for me) a coding take-home exam. The idea was that if you struggled significantly on the take home exam, you would not be a good fit for the program. It’s a bottleneck for your and cohere’s sake.

Tips for the application process and personal essays:

To start off with, here is the essay that I wrote, or at least a pretty late stage of it.

Much of the advice below is applicable to any application you write (like to a PhD program), but some of it is definitely Scholar’s Program specific.

Be excited about research.

Usually when you apply places, saying anything around “you guys RULE! and I REALLY want this job!!” doesn’t help you much, but that’s what makes the scholar’s program so cool! It will help! The scholar’s program is made to help people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to enter into research do just that. Exuberance for the concept of research, the idea of being a scientists, and the real desire to pursue knowledge is all super helpful. Less “I want to work in tech bcus AI is cool” and more “I want to be a scientist in AI because I want to understand what intelligence is and contribute to the body of knowledge that is the whole field.” Bonus points for being excited about the research that Cohere Labs or one of the research mentors has done (it’ll never hurt if you say “I really love paper X by person Y bcus of Z” if person Y is the one who’s reading your essay).

Don’t tell them it’s a really good program. Tell them why you’d be a good fit for it.

While enthusiasm for research is good and necessary for a good application, it’s not the only thing. You need to be a strong candidate. You need your essay to show Cohere why you’d succeed as a scholar. If you want to work with world class scientists, tell them why you should be the person they take under their wing. They know they’re a strong lab - that’s why they get so many applicants. You don’t need to spend any words telling them that. You need to spend words telling them you’re gonna be a really good scholar so that they let you be a really good scholar.

Please for the love of God do not add qualifiers to your application

I’ve read a bunch of essays that say something along the lines of “oh-ho-ho you maybe see that I am just a software developer and not a researcher! Do not worry, I’ll still do a good job!” or “You may have noticed that I haven’t done any research! Despite that, I’ll still try my hardest and really want to be a researcher!” Please do not do this lol. There should be exactly zero words in your application that make you seem like a worse candidate. There should be exactly zero words in your application that are not actively painting a picture of you as a strong candidate and a strong potential researcher. Talk about how your software dev experience means you have strong engineering skills instead. Talk about how you’ve made efforts towards becoming a researcher that show your commitment to research instead. Talk about your love for ML is on a fundamental level and not because it’s the hot current thing. Do not talk about anything that would make them second guess that you’d succeed once the program had started.

Focus on why you’d be a good researcher.

Citing explicit actions here is best. What are some situations you’ve been in that required experimentation? What did you learn about the process? What worked well and what’s something you wouldn’t do again? Talk about the actions you yourself took. Talk about how you went out of your way to stay up to date with the current research while you weren’t in it yet. This is the STAR interviewing method. It works here just as well.

Max out points in the coding take home.

It’s free real estate (i.e. if you want to make your application as strong as possible, then getting the maximum points here is essential). I think I spent like 60 hours on the take home coding exam and reimplemented SVD from scratch in numpy. As I learned in a later interview in the application process they absolutely did not intend for you to do that. They just wanted you to use np.svd . Regardless it really impressed them and helped me get through that portion. As I recall, the coding challenge was a major filter for applicants, and our goal here is for you not to get filtered out.

Show up as often as possible to Cohere Labs events that are related to the scholars program.

Ask questions, be present, be yourself (an important part - having some personality is good), and be a part of the community. Be someone in the discord. It’s an easy way to boost your chances and has merit completely separately from the application process. Cohere Labs is a really strong, active, and cool community. Being a part of it is worth your while even if you’re not selected as a scholar and has it’s own opportunities. If you were applying to a PhD, you’d want to have reached out to the professor you’d work under before your application crosses their desk. All that being said, it’s useful for getting into the program. You want them to recognize your name when they read your application for the first time.