yoconman

Any word on funding?

I thought that the acceptance would put my mind at ease, but I now realize that will never be the case. Right now is funding, next it's advisor, then it's quals . . . the worrying will never end.

Nope, probably won't come until March or late February.

Austin is a great college town. As a UT student, you will have free access to the city buses which are a great way to get around. You probably won't need a car, unless you have to work at the UT Pickle campus, which is a real pain to get to by city bus from the main UT campus. For living near the main campus, most students either live in West Campus or North Campus. West Campus is far more active than North Campus, but much louder. Most of the Greek system have their hoses in West Campus and it's typically more of an undergraduate area. North Campus is much quieter and cheaper, probably more what you want as a grad student.

Sorry, confusing wording. By "initial email" I mean I got the acceptance email. I just haven't gotten anything else about visiting day. Since I imagine that each area has their own schedule and plans for visiting day, EE may not have sent theirs out yet while CS already has.

Hmmm . . . maybe EE is just slow or something. I haven't received anything besides the initial email. Probably call them tomorrow.

I'm a B.S. EE and got in last week also. I didn't have any interview beforehand and think that was mainly a CS thing. Has anyone received any more information besides that given in the acceptance email?

Mine just gave an average amount and didn't specify fellowship or RA.

Anybody who's in hear about funding info yet?

Applied Physics and Devices. Did anyone have interviews beforehand?

To people accepted, did anyone have interviews? I had Stanford and UCB interviews a few weeks ago, but hadn't heard anything from MIT until today. I'm in the Applied Physics & Devices track.

Undergrad Institution: Big State Engineering School Major(s): Electrical Engineering Minor(s): GPA in Major: 3.89 Overall GPA: 3.83 Length of Degree: 4 years Position in Class: Not Disclosed Type of Student: White American GRE Scores: Q: 167 (94%) V: 157 (74%) W: 4.0 (56%) Research Experience: 1.5 years of research experience in field. 1 co-first author journal publication, 2 co-author journal publications, 1 first-author conference, and two co-author conference publications Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Tau Beta Pi, some university honors for good grades, and a school issued engineering scholarship. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: EE tutor for a semester, assistant editor in undergraduate research journal Applying for PhDs at: UT - ECE - UI - ECE - MIT - EECS - Harvard - SEAS (applied physics) - Stanford - EE - UCLA - EE - UCB - EECS - Cornell - ECE -

Neither did I. I don't think grad admissions are as competitive as the Hertz. The sample sizes are usually about the same, but as the Hertz takes in all types of majors, only the best apply in each field.

Did anyone apply? It seems interview decisions are usually made around November 15 or so.

I was wondering what people were planning on doing for proposed institution. I figure a lot of people just select the best institution in their field, but that's kind of stupid because NSF can't give all their funding to students at one school. I was planning on putting down my current school because I can argue in my Research Proposal that I know the facilities and am certain I could do the project.

By personal motivation I mean intellectual curiosity.

What are qualities of a good advisor then? I think of mentorship and research expertise. I've been told that the best advisor is nice and won't force you to work, rather they let their graduate students work by their personal motivation.

These are both good points. I'm a junior undergrad so I've still got a few more months before I start working on my applications. It's just stressful trying to think of not only where I want to apply, but who I want to apply to.

I've been talking to a lot of graduate students here at UT Austin about their personal take on advisors. My field of interest is Solid-State Electronics so UT, Stanford, MIT, UCB, Cornell, Umich, and Illinois are dream schools of mine. One student here said that if you want to go into academia after grad school, then your advisor is more important than what school you went to (considering it's a top ten school). I was hoping to start a topic on this subject. That is, how should an applying undergrad weigh school choice (say MIT or Stanford) over a university that isn't as reputable but has advisors they really like?

ETS posted the percentiles for the GRE since it's standardized. http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table1a.pdf

I'm planning on applying to all the big universities (Stanford, UCB, MIT, etc.) and a few safety schools. The ones that had it on their website said that they like quantitative around 90th percentile or above. I'm 95th on that, but I'm just wondering if the V and A are a little low even though it's for engineering.

Hey everyone, just wanted to get a feel on my GRE scores. My major is Electrical Engineering. Q: 167 V: 157 A: 4.0 Not very good analytical scores, and verbal could defiantly be better. I'm thinking I'll retake just for clarity.

Thanks for the responses! Sorry I was condescending about it's members in my first post. On account of the positive feedback, I think I'll join, or at least go to a couple of the meetings.

Hey everyone, just got the invite to the Tau Beta Pi branch of UT austin. I'm debating whether I should join or not, and was hoping to get some advice from people who did it. A couple of my friends were invited also, so I think I would fit in. However, I was wondering if anyone thinks it's worth it for applications (to be honest, I've heard that the people in are pretentious engineers). I don't really want to spend time doing the semester process of joining if it just ends up being like the IEEE branch at UT, which is a bunch of socially awkward EE's.

I was wondering if anyone knew what the nnin reu was like. I am thinking about applying for next summer (2014). Would that look better on a grad application than working on a summer research project at my school?