chemeng24

What I want to know is how you convinced NSF to fund your masters?

When you are considering a PhD it is almost always more important to choose an advisor rather than school name. If you stay within the top 10 or so then people in your field will be aware of that, regardless of whether you choose MIT or UT. It is extremely important, in my opinion, to look at the specific research you are interested in, and where are the advisors that are at the forefront of that field. It may or may not be MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley, but it will be their name that matters most. Undergraduates are still programed to think in terms of the school name because thats what we were taught in high school. It is a different story when you are applying to grad school. I found that the top 5 schools all have excellent faculty with research that is sort of mutually exclusive. For example, you may find that Prof. X is at the forefront of field A and he is located at Georgia Tech. If you really want to study field A, why would you go to MIT if they do not have somebody successful working in that field? In my field (chemical engineering) I found that the story goes like this. If you want to study A then you go to MIT, if you want to study B then you go to UT, if you want to study C then you go to Stanford, if you want to study D you go to Minnesota, and so on. Choosing an advisor is the right way to go about choosing a graduate school (PhD).

With schools that are in the top 10 or so, it doesn't matter which one is "considered better". All that matters is which PI you work for and where your interests lie. You will find that graduate school is very different than undergraduate with respect to that. Ask yourself what type of research you are interested in and look at some of the faculty at both schools to see who matches your interests best. Then I would suggest you contact those faculty and ask your questions. They will most likely respond since you are already admitted. Then you could look at how the two places are in terms of lifestyle and make your choice.

I just spoke with somebody and they corrected me, the average GPA of the admits was 3.95. It is NOT a requirement that you have to have this GPA to get into UT, but thats just how the statistics were this year. Obviously there would be some with a higher GPA and some with lower. I agree with Ursanthrope that GPA is only a small portion of the pie. But, some schools use GPA and GRE to sort of screen out applicants, which I don't agree with. Anyway, I wouldn't give up hope until all of the decisions for each school are made!

You never know what could happen so you should always apply to some schools that are not as competitive as the top 10. Even if you have perfect stats, you can't assume that will get you in some of the more competitive schools. There is a lot more that goes on in the process that one might think. I was also over confident when I was applying but I still took the time to apply to schools such as Michigan, good but not in the top ten. It's easy to underestimate the competition when you are one of the top in your school. You have to realize that there are hundreds of ChemE programs in the nation, and all of them have students with stellar stats applying to graduate schools. I was told that the average GPA for the UT admits this year was 3.98. That gives you an idea of how competitive it is. Best of luck to you guys.

@Gus_Fring Why did you not apply to some lesser competitive schools but still in the top 20?

I may be wrong and circumstances may change, but that is what I know from a source that is affiliated with recruiting. Good luck to all.

Just letting you guys know that UT Austin has given out all of their acceptances. Though some of you might find this information useful.

You probably will not know anytime soon. They have to wait and see how many people accept and if they need more. That will take at least one more month...

I'm pretty sure all UT acceptances went out already.

That's unfortunate. I hope you were one of the luckier ones to pass and move on. That is really a bad look for the department. You didn't get a bad feeling during the visiting weekend? I know a few people who did and decided not to attend.

Good Luck! Your stats look good so keep us updated. -UT grad student