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That sucks hardcore man. I don't have any horror stories that come anywhere near that, but I just wanted to voice my agreement that yes, ETS is a bunch of incompetent money-grubbing whores. I don't mind having to pay for the test, but $15 to every damn school? An additional $15 to hear your scores and percentiles over a completely automated phone system? No online score access or ONLINE SCORE REPORT REQUESTS. God damn how fucking long did I spend punching phone buttons on their stupid system. I must have spent 3-4 minutes per school with all of their "press 1 again if you REALLY meant that" bullshit, and even then they won't confirm the name of the school you sent it to, just the number. Their phone system also won't provide subscore percentiles for subject tests, which were required for a lot of apps. They take SIX WEEKS to grade the damn thing and you end up having to call and pay for the score by phone in order to make the application deadline and whoops: they don't even give you the information you need. You would THINK that universities/graduate schools could come together and demand that ETS get their goddamn act together and/or not try to fuck students over at every turn. ETS is in a unique position where yes, they have a monopoly, but at the same time a very limited market. If a couple of big schools got together and gave them a hard time, we wouldn't have to deal with this shit. Sorry, I don't want to take away from your pain. You should plead your case to institution X. I have to think they have enough experience with this company to realize what monumental dunces they are.

That's the opposite of what I was told. Here's part of the follow-up email I got after the phone call: "We will be holding two weekends, 28-30 March (focusing on instrumentation and imaging) and 4-6 April (focusing on biomaterials, biomechanics, and cell and tissue engineering)." I'm more on the instrumentation side, so that's the one I'm planning on attending. Worth checking into.

I actually didn't get an MS. I got an MEng which is 1 year and not a first step toward a Ph.D. It was just a way to get my feet wet, take a bunch of classes, and see if BME was really what I wanted (my undergrad was something different). Obviously since I am at this point, I found it was exactly what I had hoped. I don't know the ins and outs of graduate programs at all so I think other people are more qualified to answer your question about MS vs PhD. I imagine your approach is a common one. I just realized something though about Pitt. When I contacted them a couple of weeks ago about whether they had a visiting weekend (regardless of whether I would be attending), they said: "We are planning a recruitment weekend for March 6-8, however, because of the very competitive nature of our program, it is by invitation only. If you are accepted into the program, and invited to the weekend, you will hear from me by email and regular mail." Now I've received their acceptance. But it was dated Feb 5. If nobody has contacted us about any visit by now, does that mean we aren't invited?

I just got the letter from Pitt as well (was off on a visiting weekend). Very uninformative indeed. My envelope also contained two identical copies of the letter. Weird. Let us know if you find out any more specifics, and I will do the same.

Congrats! Feels good doesn't it? Most of my (realistic) options involve a fair amount of snow and cold, though I hear Minnesota is in a class of its own in that regard. Interestingly, my girlfriend is applying to their plant biology dept and they had their visiting weekend in the middle of January. The temperature apparently didn't get above 10F. On a completely unrelated note, I just learned that my first acceptance offer was from a department that mistook my Masters GPA (excellent) for my undergrad GPA (less than stellar). It doesn't sound like they are going to rescind the offer, but I'm a little uneasy about potentially not being the superstar they thought they were getting.

The Minnesota post was mine. I wouldn't give up just yet. a) The guy said the committee unanimously agreed on my app. I say this not to brag, but because maybe there is a fast track for that case, whereas normally there is more of a debate/process to it. The visiting weekends aren't until March 28-30 and April 4-6. With weekends that far out, it's fair to say they are probably not done admitting people. keep hope alive.

I was in transit all day today heading out to an interview weekend, and I got a call right about the time my girlfriend was going to check in. I flipped open the phone without thinking and gave a quick "sup sexy", and didn't think twice until i heard a long "ummmmm". Turns out it was the Minnesota BME department. Fortunately the guy didn't make too much of it, and decided to inform me of my acceptance just the same. Moral of the story: I am going to look before i say something stupid from now on. I'm feeling kind of stupid about my whole applying to a million schools thing now. I really thought I might not get in anywhere, and now I have 3 yes's and an interview!

Since most schools grade on a curve, prestige does play some role since it indicates what kind of students you were up against. But a 3.76 from anywhere is great and I'm sure that isn't going to count against you. One thing I seem to be hearing from schools is that it has far less to do with numbers (except maybe as a filtering method) and more to do with how your interests and abilities fit into their department, or a specific professor. So it's really a crap shoot.

Thanks for the responses. My post was confusing. I am hoping to live as close to Evanston as possible, and just said Chicago since it was "Chicago area". Sounds like that is feasible, so that's good news.

My understanding: In-state students always get lower tuition, which means they don't have to pay as much for you, so I'm sure that plays into their admissions calculation, and could certainly result in a stipend bump as well (kick in an extra $2000 and they're still saving 5x that much).

Hm.... my cell phone shares an area code with a certain prestigious engineering school. I think I know how I'm going to pass the nerve-wracking hours now.

You can definitely contact them and ask what the status is, or when they expect to notify you. When I asked I said it was because I was starting to hear back from other places and needed to know about potential interview/visit weekend conflicts. Just make sure not to bother them again for a couple of weeks.

Ah yeah I got that a few times too. Very annoying. I guess at this point you've already applied and you've made your interest known, so you might as well just wait it out? Hopefully it won't be long, though I'm starting to think Brown is a bunch of disorganized hippies that just sit around and get high while emails and phone calls pile up.

I don't know anything about this area, but is it possible to get by on a $2000/mo stipend without a 1hr commute?

Are these places going to have interview/visit weekends in April or something? How can we possibly decide in time for April 15?

If there is anyone from other departments that do work you are interested in, you could try contacting them as well. I'm not sure if that applies to your area of interest, but I've found that a lot of neural engineering work is done by people in physiology or neuroscience departments, and at a lot of schools they can still support people in BME. That said, I am starting to get annoyed by profs not replying to emails. If they can't be bothered to send off a couple sentences to somebody who's paying $50 to apply, are they going to be absentee/jackass mentors as well?

The only faculty I heard back from was Donoghue. I think he's officially in neuroscience. The BME people in general there haven't been very helpful. Good sign.

BME, naturally. I heard it doesn't make much difference what department you're in, as far as who you can work with.

Can you let us know when you get the official invite, so we all know it's time to panic?

Anybody else get an email about Duke's Master of Engineering Management program last week? I suspect I'm just on their mailing list now, but some small part of me wonders if it was some kind of lame consolation prize for those thrown in the Ph.D. reject bin. No disrespect to anyone interested in the program, of course. Just not my thing.

Oh I don't doubt it. I've heard about all the stupid hoops international students have to jump through. Not just admissions preferences either... Visa issues, bank statements... The only thing I would say, is that the research in any of our universities is largely supported by taxpayer money, and the taxpayers tend to demand that their kids have an edge. Of course, without foreign talent, American research would grind to a halt, but shhhhh. When I was applying to California public schools for undergrad from out of state, I had the same problem. For undergrad most states even have laws limiting the % that can be accepted from out of state. I doubt the same is true for grad programs, but I'm sure it is still tough. Anyway, best of luck!

here here. i'll drink to that.

yup. why?

No word yet.

I suppose it's a little late for this now, but on the issue of emailing profs, I did so ad nauseum and think it worked out well. The main reason I did so was because I am specifically interested in a particular area of BME, and wanted to make sure there would be positions available at the schools I applied to. The way I put the question was more along the lines of "I have been reading about your work and was wondering if there would be any opportunities to take part in that research". That way it's not a blatant, annoying advertisement (well, at least I hope not), you get to massage their egos a bit, and find out whether or not they're interested. I ended up emailing somewhere around 60 professors (applied to 13 programs), and heard back from maybe half. Some positive, others saying they didn't have RA positions available this year (stupid Stanford... wasted $105+GRE/transcript mailing fees). I sent some of these emails a week before I submitted the app, some a little bit after. A fair number of the professors seemed to like the idea of someone showing a particular interest in their work, told me about some specific projects they are working on, and asked me to tell them more about my interests, or send a resume (before they had received the app). One professor in particular emailed me to tell me he would be pushing for the committee to accept me, which they finally did (w00t Northwestern!). So yeah, especially if you have some particular focus in mind, it is worth it to see whether it's available AND to flatter the profs a little and put your name in their head. Goddamn this process is going to kill me, though, I swear. I still have one more app to complete, too. Ugh. Good luck everyone. P.S., I'm definitely a little bit relieved to hear that the Hopkins interview invite was informal. I'm not really expecting to get in there, but I guess it's not ruled out just yet.