ArizonaState21

ASU! I'm just finishing up my undergraduate work here and have never found ASU to be limiting. There are so many opportunities that if you are self-motivated and seek them out you'll make it an incredible time here. Cost of living is much cheaper in AZ and the area is really really starting to pick-up again for jobs.

I'll be doing the SDC program as well. Feel free to contact me to discuss more, or look into housing. I'm interested in the 4-person apartments at Rains.

As you stated, your main challenge is not being an native english speaker. Since the GRE changed in the summer of 2012, the vocab is much more contextually focused. This means that memorizing words has less of an importance and understanding the nuances of the english language is worth more. So- In my opinion, reading a ton of higher-level books/magazines is the best way to spend your time. Also, speaking as much english as possible would help. Between now and the fall, you'd have 4 or 5 months and I think with a concentrated effort you could definitely increase your verbal score. I never found the vocab words to be very beneficial, but that's just my opinion. Best of luck!

If you have time, look into the options at your school in the fall. At Arizona State, Kaplan's, Barron, and Princeton Review each came in during the fall and did Saturday full-length practice tests. They'd give you the scores and try and sell you the class, but it was easy practice tests in a real environment. Maybe I was lucky because ASU is so big, but look around for similar options.

If you have a year and a half, just try and read a lot. If the Economist interests you, it's a high-level vocab magazine. Also, for the writing, just pay very very close attention to what the grading rubric asks for. A study book can provide advice on how to go about the essay, you just need to hit the points that the GRE wants. I don't think you'll have any problem, but I'd advise you to study up for maybe a month (try a few full-length Saturday morning practice tests) and finish the GRE this summer. Then you won't have to worry about it senior year. I wished I would have done my earlier, I scored V168 and W6.0. O, and in my opinion, screw studying vocab words. Ha.

For those attending Stanford and looking to find the cheapest housing, I know options are available on campus for roughly $600/month or $800/month (Assuming single graduate student, although couple and family housing is available). Not elegant by any means and I'll admit it wouldn't be ideal if you don't love the campus atmosphere, but if the cheapest available in PA is $900/month, then you'd be saving over 3.5k each year.

Thanks so much Juilletmercredi. That was some great advice. Thanks for taking the time to write it. Yaaaaa- I'm not convinced I want a faculty position at all. I actually think I'd like to go into the construction profession afterwards, but would need to make sure my MS and PhD research helped my career, or I'd start in the same position I could have after undergrad. So- I'll need to develop a niche but valuable set of skills. Any thoughts there?

So- I'm debating doing a PhD in civil/construction engineering at a top 5 engineering school, but I'm unsure if it is worth the time and/or money versus a MS only. This is what the Economist has to say about it: http://www.economist.com/node/17723223 Please help! I actually haven't started graduate school yet, but I can't decide whether or not to ultimately aim for a PhD or only a MS. If I'm going to complete the PhD I'd like to get started on research and publishing as soon as I begin the MS. Thanks.

My thoughts regarding Columbia's CEM program in comparison to Stanford/Berkeley: I think it's generally not as highly regarded as Stanford or Berkeley. 1. Area: Learning construction methods, labor laws, companies, and culture of a geographic area is important. So- Where do you see yourself working, East Coast or West Coast? Also, the construction industry in CA is a much faster adopter of new trends and technologies. That ties in with the 3rd point. 2. Size of Civil Program: All construction programs are housed within CE schools. Columbia isn't known for CE to the extent that Stanford or Berkeley is, so the program's size and stature aren't the same. 3. "Intent of Program:" This one is a little harder to explain my viewpoint on, but I'll give it a try. I studied construction management in undergrad, so take that into account. When I began looking at graduate programs many of them seemed to be a one or two year-long attempt by engineers to get into construction. So- the graduate classes were sort of intro to construction. In fact, it seems that 30-40% of ASU's graduate CM classes were with the undergrads. Personally I don't think I would have gained much from such a graduate program and this is where Stanford and Berkeley stood out. Stanford is renowned for CIFE, which is the research group that over the past 20 years pretty much created Building Information Modeling as the market has adopted it today. Stanford is really growing with the Sustainable Design and Construction program as well. Berkeley on the other hand is a powerhouse for Lean Construction, which is a big development in today's construction market. What I'm trying to say is that many universities can get you into construction with a CM degree, but the very top tier ones will help you develop a specialized skill-set with knowledge that will help you succeed quicker in the industry/have more options for jobs. Construction is an extremely experiential field, so I've heard from many recruiters that working for a year will teach you far more than could be found in a graduate program unless a specialization is acquired. ANYWAYS, Sorry for the long-winded and biased thoughts. I know my opinion is skewed because of my experience/undergrad so feel free to explain your thoughts. Please keep me updated on everyone's admissions and reach out to me at sbhollow@asu.edu with any questions.

All- I don't really know how either school does "sets of admits," but I have felt they keep an unofficial waiting list, meaning they don't send all the rejections and wait until around the April 15th deadline to see if students elect to attend elsewhere. Then they would send late letters of acceptance to fill out their class. But, both visit days happened in mid-march so I imagine most have been admitted (Sorry to be the bearer of bad news). Also, Stanford's construction programs said they have a 90% matriculation rate of admitted students, so I don't think they'd keep a big waiting list. But, don't give up yet! Ha. Also though, both schools aren't very good at getting back to students. : / Hope this helps a bit.

Juliett- Thanks for the advice. Very helpful. Any thoughts on how valuable the 5 year at Berkeley would be if Stanford isn't interested in anything more than 3? Like deal-breaker, or still take the Stanford fellowship but concentrate on finding more funding? Also, how to go about negotiating/broaching the topic. SRE - Check your inbox. I'm heading to both schools in the next week, so I'll see if I can come up with some answers.

Thanks for the answer. That's sort of what I was figuring. Any advice on what other awards I should look into and apply for? I see the NDSEG above, what are some others? Pardon my ignorance.

Stanford Graduate Fellowship is full tuition + 36k for 3 years and Berkeley's Fellowship is full tuition + 28k for 5 years. I'd prefer Stanford, but how hard will it be to secure funding for the final 2 years? What are my chances? For example, if I only would have a 30-40% chance of funding the last two years at Stanford, Berkely would be an obvious choice because that would be very expensive final two years. I'm trying to sort through which is a better option. Please advise.

I'll be visiting Stanford and UCB in March, but I will no longer be monitoring my GradCafe account. Future applicants to any of these programs with questions can reach me at sbhollow@asu.edu.

Great. I had heard 2 times the amount, so thanks for the confirmation. That makes being recommended for the more competitive countries a pretty big deal. IE, South Africa's 10% acceptance rate means that only 20% remain from the original. So, 80% of the original applicants are no longer in competition. Good luck to all!

See here:

Recommended, full grant to South Africa. Does anyone know what percent of recommended applicants become winners? 50%? 75%? Worse?

Additional search tags: CEE, PhD, Center for Integrated Facility Engineering (CIFE), Global Projects Center (GPC), Berkeley, (EPM), UT-Austin, (CEPM) University of Illinois, MIT, Purdue, Hopefully this will help a few more applicants find the thread over the coming months.

I applied for a research Fulbright Grant to South Africa in October. Any other SA applicants interested in discussing/exchanging info? Please message me.

I recently applied to Stanford's Sustainable Design and Construction (SDC) MS/Engineer degree. Any other applicants to SDC, CDI, or CEM?

I would agree that rankings are important for universities to gauge applicants against their peers, but I've also had recommenders question it. I've found that oftentimes anecdotes that describe the student's abilities are much more beneficial than the simple numbers. Or use the anecdote to support the class ranking.