hikaru1221

Having a BS in physics doesn't mean you're disadvantaged. Princeton EE for example has been favoring students with science background. The bottom line is, it's about whether your background would serve them well. For PhD admissions, personally I think your research experience, whatever projects you worked on, is one of the main factors, so you should see yourself the same as the rest, because the adcom may likely see you the same way as the rest! The competition is among those who have the research talent, plus probably suitable background. I was contacted by a few professors whose works are not within my undergrad area, simply because of my research experience, plus my theoretical background indicating that I may be able to relate to their research.

I have to concur with your advisor. Another thing to add: someone here can be a professor, or pretty much the students surrounding you

Some schools will ask you to complete some online form (which may be basically a click) to inform them of the decision. In that case, I would only send a personal email to my POI (or anyone who has been in personal contact with me) additionally. But that would have to wait a few days / a week after I receive their offer - I would not want to appear inconsiderate, especially to those who will review my papers in the future.

You never know if you don't try. You've got nothing (too much) to lose. GRE V 147 is not great, but not the worst. TOEFL < 90 seems to be the real danger, even if the requirement is 80. The thing is, having the capability to convey your brilliant research idea is just as important as coming up with the idea. I think it is best if you can get an interview with your POI so that he/she can justify your ability to communicate. Else you'd better raise your TOEFL score.

I'm sorry to hear that. In my opinion, applying to top schools only is risky. All top applicants head there, and we (yes, we) may never know who we are competing with. One thing that I understand from this process with the top schools is that they judge the ability to grow to the level they expect. You might want to look through some results posted on GradCafe of applicants to top schools and see who are accepted, who get rejected. This may backfire. You've underestimated funding coming from top schools (and lesser known but good schools). The rule of the game for them is, once they admit somebody, they guarantee the funding until that person graduates, because otherwise finance is simply another big big stress on the students (and consequently, less quality works). They might question whether you understand and face the arduousness of getting a PhD. They might even question whether you have done a thorough research on the PhD admissions game and PhD-relevant stuff before applying. Or perhaps not... So two things: either your credentials, or your mental preparedness that appears to the schools. But by all means, yes, please reapply next year. And apply to other schools as well, from top 5 to top 50.

Some official statistics from Princeton: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.princeton.edu/gradschool/about/docs/admission/admission_stats.pdf

I can't be sure, since I withdrew my application. My POI said the funding would be on him. TAMU is a good school, so don't expect to be expected to work for them without payment. My general impression of the AIS system is that it is just not really personalized, so the detail might not be there. Were I you, I would wait for emails from the POI.

Congrats zaphyr. Did you contact your POI at TAMU? As far as I know, it's the POI that promises the funding.

@EngineerGrad: Have you looked at the statistics of Quals at your intended school? Concrete evidence is sometimes the best way to calm yourself Although research is almost all I want to do, I sometimes find coursework and non-research stuff can be a good temporary escape. At least, I know what I am heading into when working on problem sets. It's just hardly the case for research - stuck, and will be stuck for long.

Do you mean the specific department at OSU where the OP applies to, or generic departments?

Do you have any professor at B to back you up? Department politics can become useful.

I second this piece of advice. After 2 topics opened, I suppose top 5 or top 35 or top 50 may not be that important, if the long-term goal is truly PhD & research career. (if you get what I mean)

Opportunity doesn't matter. Being opportunists matters. Just sayin'

I partially agree on this. First, let me point out that at least in my field, the terms "In preparation", "Submitted to", "To be submitted to", etc are acceptable. People generally concur that the manuscript should be listed in one of those ways only if it's ready, or the results are sufficient for a paper, and that it's listed with one's honor. One thing that I have to warn others is, while some professors do spend time reading your paper, some don't and only glance through the most informative details like whether it is published, the journal / conference, the date of publication. This was true, I can tell, from my experience with Stanford and Berkeley, and that's not because they are lazy, but I think because it's hard to tell the quality of a paper, let alone a manuscript, without working on that specific problem (yes, the problem itself, not the field!). Then how can a manuscript that is yet published be of any significance in this case? I think it's when the journal/ conference it is to be submitted to matters. It shows your own (and your professor's) evaluation of the quality of the manuscript. And the terms "In preparation", "Submitted to", "To be submitted to" legitimate the journal/ conference to be noted down. I'm not saying these are the only ways to highlight the journal/conference though. Possibly TakeruK's and fuzzylogician's ways can as well. All I'm trying to say is, it's never wrong to get the motivation right, howsoever the manuscript is listed. As far as this thread concerns, you would want the manuscript to add more weight to your application. The manuscript is not just a paper-to-be; it's the work that you would want people to pay attention to. Let me cite a piece of advice from this link http://graddecision.org/Application_RP.html Anyway reading the posts in this topic, I believe the matter is very much field-dependent. So it's best to consult people working in your field (as what the OP seemed to have done!).

I assume that you would choose the top 3 school if you had applied to and were offered PhD admissions instead; otherwise everything is clear. Have you ever discussed the opportunity to join PhD program directly at the top 3 school, or perhaps the possibility of changing MS admissions to PhD one? You seem to be a strong candidate and it may be possible for you to negotiate. The sooner the better - it would be a bit late if their funding decision for the year is done. By the way, if 2 years is the standard duration to finish MS at the school, I see no reason to not feel confident.

I doubt if they would read application folders that carefully. Just my subjective conclusion from various interviews though. How about "To be submitted to conference X / journal Y"?

I see. You never told us that you have done / are doing research related to DSP. By "formal" I mean it should go at some depth. It was curious to me, since DSP (assuming it is the classical transform-based one, which involves mainly Fourier-type transforms) is not a new thing. If you get what I mean... All the hope is not yet lost. But to be on the safe side, how about preparing for secondary alternatives now (i.e. both your 2nd and 3rd options), while waiting for news until April / May? If you don't get into any and that doesn't crush your dream of getting a PhD completely, then I think there is still time to find research internship. Passion will guide you back the route you want and ought to take, so don't worry about options. However, to stay realistic, it would be better mentally if it feels more secure.

That sounds like a good plan except for this: There are 2 things you may want to note: 1/ Having publications is a great indicator of one's research potential, but not the sole one. Wonder how adcoms/ professors look at publications? My experience was something like this: _ Prof: So tell me about your past research. _ Me: Well, I explored X for the first 2 years, which led to a paper, but I'm not so proud of it. Then I moved on with Y. I found a lot of interesting things here. I did this, and that, and here, and there... _ Prof: Okay, so tell me the exact formulation of Y. _ Me: It is like this... _ Prof: I see. Well, what I'm doing is like this. Imagine you twist Y, blah blah blah. _ Me: Oh thanks, I can now relate better to your research. _ Prof: That's good to know. So basically they don't care what the paper is about. I would not say it's a bad paper - in fact, it's published in a well respected journal, and I was the first author. They possibly won't read the paper anyway, meaning they won't know whether it's a good or bad paper. The main thing they would want to find out is whether the applicant is capable of doing their research or not. Having published simply implies having experienced research for quite some time. If you worry about the show-don't-tell problem, here are places where you can show: _ SOP: passion for research (many professors may overlook SOP's though) _ LOR: nothing is better than a third person's evaluation _ Interviews: the personal touch 2/ I believe one should be strategic with the application. Padding means zero strategy. Highlight what you think should be catchy to professors in the CV, and leave out others. I can't be sure about your field, however.

I'm curious, why do you want to pursue signal processing / information theory while being without formal background in those? (I would assume your DSP to be classical transform-based signal processing.) My doubt is, it is possible that the adcom doesn't see how your research interest is realistic, given your experience. If that's truly the case, were I you, I would try to build up my formal experience in signal processing / information theory, either by works, or Master coursework.

How about taking the chance to travel around B's city, enjoy your dream to the fullest, then heading to A for grad studies?

Hi, As said, it's just the matter of wording - and you need to convince yourself and others that those course projects, those work experiences contribute to your sense of doing research, i.e. I would not distinguish them / categorize those experiences in terms of lab work vs coursework, so long as they are all research-oriented projects. You will need to talk at length about some (or all) of them in your SOP. I included one course project in my Research Experience section. Something like this: _ Title: Analysis on Human X-Mutation _ Supervisor: Charles Xavier _ Description: + Analyze how humans survive while their genome attains X number of chromosome pairs, where 22 < X < 24 and X is not equal to 23. + Propose a systematic method to make human superhuman. + BIO9999 course project Now that's the experience. If you want to show skills, then you may add another section with something like this: _ Skill: Use neutrino scanner to detect superhuman abilities. _ Skill: Program computer simulations of how human body structure transforms under the process of X-Mutation Sorry, that's how I imagined the Skill section might be I don't know if skills are important to your field. Anyway I suppose research experience and skills do not overlap too much, right? P.S.: Although I didn't write about the mentioned project in my SOP in the end due to length constraint, it's a nice piece of work that I thought would show my research potential. And so I decided to send the schools the report as a writing sample :-) Well technically you just need to be proud of your work, and so list those you are proud of in your CV.

I don't know your field - in my field, it is the research potential that matters, not the subject you researched on, since it is not hard to pick up a new field anyway. The way I see it, it's just a matter of wording, so instead of titling the section "Research experience," how about "Relevant experience"? P.S.: To make it more like a section on experience, don't list each item beginning with "Course XYZ project," which carries little information. Place this detail in the description, as a matter of formality.

In that case, I would urge you to "think" of where you want to apply. Research "fit" is relatively important, but a perfect match with a perfect professor is not gonna happen. Let me explain. 1/ Prestige should somewhat correlate with overall quality + amount of funding. You would want to be happy be surrounded by top-notch peers and good professors with secure finance. Professors at places like MIT, if not the best in the field, are then likely the second best (in terms of influence, networking, etc). 2/ You would not be sure about whom to work with until you are admitted and have talked to the professors in person. A good researcher needs not be a good adviser. You need to find out whether you would like a professor or not, and reading his webpage over and over just won't do the job. 3/ Now when you try to find out whom to work with before applying, your limited undergrad experience would limit your choices. There are many exciting things that you may not be exposed to during undergrad, and the lack of familiarity may discourage you from applying to great places that have great people that you could not evaluate. You never know whether you would resonate with VLSI tomorrow, and switching fields is a norm in grad schools. You may also never know about research directions that are within your field until grad schools give you a chance to explore. So applying to big schools with many people working in your field, as well as related fields in Electrical Engineering / Material Science / etc, would be a safer option, right? So the game before admissions is about choices you pick, and the choices that admit you. This process involves a lot of uncertainty. So to be on the safe side, there is nothing wrong going with prestige, provided that the school has people working in your field or related fields. You never know if you would be happiest with those schools, but you can be sure you will find yourself happy there. It can only sound wrong if you decide to go to Stanford instead of Berkeley based on prestige, but your choice cannot be wrong nevertheless.

Princeton EE seems to have the tendency to select students with undergrad backgrounds different from EE. It's a good thing that they focus on the science side of engineering, but I think it loses the advantage when being on the same table with Berkeley physics. Princeton also seems to be a small place, which limits choices and cross-faculty collaboration.

Bryc, so how about housing for subsequent years? I have a rough idea based on the statistics found on their webpage, but I want to check.