alive1208

That sounds logical Thanks for the response..

Hello everyone I was just looking for universities these days and just our of curiosity, I have a very general question. For applying to an engineering PhD program, Which one of these has a better chance of acceptance at universities like Stanford, MIT, Berkeley or caltech? : a) someone with department rank one in undergrad major (really high GPA) but no publications, and moderate recommendation letters. or b ) someone who is in top 10% of the class (not rank 1) but with 3 research publications in some top journals of the field, and great recommendation letters. You can assume that rest all factors are same for both.

Hello everyone, I am a final year undergrad student from India, and I am applying for PhD in Chemical Engineering, Fall 2016. I don't have much of an idea on various aspects of applying for a grad school. So I have some basic doubts. I have a good profile so far with nice research experience during my undergrad, accompanied with a few first-authored publications in good journals. The question before me right now is how do I decide where to apply. How do we decide which university do we fit in? So far, I have found 2-3 or at some universities even 1 research group working in the field, I am interested in. Should I contact the professor through email to get an idea if he/she is interested in having me as a grad student? Should I not apply to universities where I have only 1 research group is working in that particular field but the university is really nice, like stanford, UC Berkeley. I am confused on how do i proceed now. Also, What do people exactly mean by "fitting in a university program"? I would appreciate any suggestions or views to clarify these doubts. Please feel free to put forward your views on these questions. Thanks!

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. U of Wisconsin Madison and minnesota are my safe universities. I don't really want to go to the 'top' US universities like MIT, Caltech, WashU except Stanford and UC Berkeley ( only because these two have some really nice research group with which I would love to work and also, I love the California ) . But I would be happy with UT Austin, Michigan. only problem with UT Austin is texas. I kinda don't like texas much My recommendation would be 1 from my summer intern professor with whom I had 2 papers, and 1 from my university, the professor under whom I did all my other undergrad projects, and 1 would be from one of my course instructor from last semester courses. As far as dual degree goes, research here is frustrating for me and no one in my campus at IIT Kanpur works specifically in the fields I want to work. So I don't want to convert my program to dual degree. I think I am ready to apply this year itself, although I have my own doubts of selecting top 3 universities where I want to apply. Thanks a lot for the suggestions again.

My area of interest is in electrochemistry, fuel cells and batteries. I have all my papers in the same field too. Each paper had 4 Authors and both the journal papers are in Journal of Power Sources - Elsevier [first and secon author respectively]. conference papers are in Electrochemical society(ECS) [first author] and Hydrogen and Fuel Cell conference. All the papers were written at US university where I interned this summers. I am from IIT and I have really no idea regarding what is considered as a good enough grade. I am sorry if my post was not very clear.

Hello Guys, I am a final year undergraduate student of Chemical Engineering at IIT Kanpur (one of the top university in India). I am looking forward to apply for PhD program, after completion of my bachelors. My profile so far is Undergrad CGPA: 8.7/10 Research experience: 3 months Summer research internship at one of the top 50 universities Publications: 2 Journal papers (with 1 first author and 1 second author) - (both in journal of power sources, impact factor > 6) Conferences: 3 conference papers (ECS, hydrogen and fuel cell conference, 1 non-peer reviewed) GRE: Quants: 170 Verbal: 156 Writing: not received LORs: 2 good recommendations, 1 decent reco. I am planning to apply to these universities: Stanford, UC Berkeley, UT Austin, Georgia Tech, U of Michigan, Cornell, Yale university, WashU. What are my chances of getting into these universities considering my 'not-so-good' CGPA? Also, will not having a Masters degree affect my chances for getting admit for a PhD? Any suggestions or opinions are welcome.