Admission to the Department

On this page, you will find information about the admission process to the Intelligent Systems Department at MIPT, including details for individual course attendees, the interview procedure for undergraduates, the master’s program admission process, and research work at the department.

For Individual Course Attendees

1. Come, listen, and participate.
2. All information about current courses is available in the Telegram channel.
3. Grade sheets for the department are processed through the dean’s office—submit them there.
4. Courses require preparation, therefore:
   • confirm with instructors that you can join the course,
   • during the first few weeks, determine whether you will be able to pass the course.
5. Find out what is required to pass the course.

Admission Process for 2nd-3rd Year Undergraduates

1. The student fills out the application form,
2. Solves one of the trial tasks listed below (fourth-year students present their thesis work),
3. Forms an opinion about the research conducted by department students (Theses, Research Reports),
4. On the scheduled date, gives a three-minute presentation about the task and about a topic or project that interested them,
5. Receives the department’s decision that same evening,
6. Awaits the dean’s office directive on department assignment.

Trial Tasks Fall 2025 and Earlier

Fall 2025

Tasks from Previous Years

Tasks from previous years can also be used for the presentation.

Tips for Solving Tasks (these are suggestions, not requirements)

• Theoretical solutions are more important than practical ones.
• Write the theory yourself (do not copy lecture materials).
• Visualize your solutions (a hand-drawn diagram is preferable to no diagram at all).
• Present experimental results on slides (do not show Jupyter notebooks).
• When discussing neural networks, keep in mind that for us they are not black boxes but transparent systems.
• Choose these tasks, past tasks, or your own—whatever interests you most.

List of Topics for Discussion

Compiled in the Topics List section on this page

Selection Results

• Published the day after selection in the department’s Telegram channel.

Master’s Program Admission Procedure

1. The student fills out the application form,
2. We gather candidates wishing to join the department upon their request,
3. We review the application, thesis work, ask about their opinion on topics and student research at the department, and ask questions from the mathematical section of the bachelor’s program (Sections 1, 2, 3 from “Pen and Paper Exercises in Machine Learning” by Michael U. Gutmann)

The purpose of the interview is to understand:

1. What contribution the student will make to the department’s research,
2. Whether the student’s qualifications match the level of planned master’s dissertations.

Research Work at the Department

Your research qualifications are your primary goal at the department. The department focuses on the mathematical foundations of machine learning. This means that your work focuses on developing theoretical methods. You obtain theoretical results. Practical applications to illustrate your results in computational experiments may be arbitrary.

Scientific collaboration and exchange of ideas are the foundation of research work. Do not hesitate to write to researchers and tell them about yourself, your results, and your plans. The purpose of your research advisor is to show you the right direction for research, provide a topic, and formulate a problem in general terms. Keep in mind that the advisor works in their own field. How can you learn about their field? Go to scholar.google.com, enter the advisor’s name, and review their work from recent years. Ask your advisor for a research task.

Requirements for a research advisor:

1. Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) or Candidate of Science (Ph.D.),
2. Works in the department’s field and maintains contact with the department.

The department cannot assign you a research advisor. You must find one through communication and agreement on joint work. When searching for research advisors, tell them about yourself: your qualifications, achievements, research papers, and plans.

Tip: Look for research advisors in research groups. If you are interested in:

• Topic modeling, information retrieval, news analysis—this is the group of Prof. Konstantin Vyacheslavovich Vorontsov,
• Mathematics, optimization, control, mathematical modeling—this is the group of Prof. Alexander Vladimirovich Gasnikov,
• Technologies for creating artificial intelligence systems, image and video analysis—this is the group of Prof. Ivan Alekseevich Matveev,
• Generative models, geometric deep learning, model selection, signal analysis—this is the group of Prof. Vadim Viktorovich Strijov,
• Pure and discrete mathematics, advanced combinatorics—this is the group of Prof. Andrey Mikhailovich Raigorodsky.

Find members of these research groups. Look at the topics of their recent research papers. Compile a list of co-authors. Review the attached PDF. Write to potential advisors. Important tip: Connect with students and graduate students in your field. Ask them how they organize their work with research advisors.

For quick presentation of initial results, try to participate in student conferences (example).

What You Need to Do

1. Look at who has been a successful research advisor:
   • Thesis works,
   • Research reports and format,
   • Department faculty,
   • Bachelor’s thesis defenses,
   • Master’s thesis defenses,
   • Ph.D. dissertation defenses.
2. Consult with students and graduate students. Read the guidelines.
3. Find a research advisor (matching your thinking style and interests).
4. Ask them to contact the department and approve your research topic.
5. Begin working with them and present the results during exam week at the beginning of the session.
6. Reporting format: paper, presentation, code.

Timeline

1. Third-year students search for research advisors during the spring semester and report this at the research credit.
2. Fifth-year students have a research advisor at the beginning of the fall semester (we ask about plans).
3. Graduate students have publications with their research advisor.

Tip: Changing your research advisor and topic at any time is normal—you are developing and priorities change. It is advisable to complete projects so you have something to show. Working with multiple research advisors on different topics is wonderful (if you can manage it). Working in teams is excellent—your personal contribution is what matters.