hikaru1221

I personally think you will need to "like" your adviser and vice versa, regardless of where you go; else the amount of compromise would not make you happy. But a renowned / influential adviser is a different story: he would help you a lot in networking, getting your work known to people, getting funding, etc. There are 3 factors that make a "good" paper: findings/results, writing, and networking. The former two are those evaluated in the PhD application - what they require from you (significant findings should be proportional to your research talent). The last one is the one that you ask from them. Have you contacted professors at the other schools? You can find out about them during the visit days as well. I believe that things should be able to work out, given that there is no such thing as perfect match between a student and any professor. The more senior the professor is, I guess the more efficient he is at handling compromises with the student, so that the relationship can be maintained satisfactorily. This is a two-way thing: you want to like that professor of yours, but he will also want the same, since it is a pain to meet somebody that one doesn't like every week (except that your professor is well demanded that he's absent from the school most of the time). Then the bottom line is to pick somebody who, first, gives you the impression that you can work with and respect (as I personally believe respect is the foundation of a good relationship), and second, is well-known in your field. I speak from my undegrad research experience by the way

I agree on this point. The first time I saw the 135-unit requirement, I freaked out, like What?! That is 3 courses per quarter for 5 years! On the bright side, at times I do realize courses that are seemingly irrelevant may become very handy. Still, such hefty coursework requirement seems discouraging enough to those who want to focus on research. @zaphyr: All the best to you for other schools

Stanford - if you can't secure a supervisor or at least funding, then the risk is apparent. At least, my guess is for other places, they admit "just enough" applicants. By the way, it seems that aside from Stanford, CMU is the other option to you, so why bother with the rest? And have you contacted with the prof at CMU? I'm unsure how things work out at CMU, so I can't comment more P.S.: I don't see how ranking really helps. I mean, the schools you got are nearly of the same league, in terms of engineering. P.S. #2: After talking with various professors, I suppose we should be more open to new research directions and not tie ourselves to a single professor.

I find this a bit odd: Is the prof at A the only one working in the large field you're interested in? Or basically how narrow is X? If A has more professors working in the field and you simply don't consider working with them because their works seem to be distant from X, then I suppose you might want to rethink. It is possible that the reason you're wavering between A and B is because you find yourself more familiar with the stuff at B, that B's stuff aligns with your old stuff. This may help a bit: http://jxyzabc.blogspot.com/2009/02/some-notes-on-picking-grad.html

Hi guys, As the title goes, I'm wavering between the three choices. Since I cannot come for visit days, I feel kind of disadvantaged - I simply have few clues about the schools. As they generally say, the impression is that MIT is an energetic place, Stanford has the start-up mindset, and Berkeley seems to be classically academic. However at the end of the day, I believe those are only the dominant qualities of the schools, and each does not necessarily completely lack other qualities. At the time, I have already scrapped off the idea of sticking to (or "reserving") some famous professor to work with, since it doesn't seem to be the way that those schools work. Correct me if I'm wrong: students there seem to first decide to attend the school, then try out some projects with a number of professors until they find out the match. So although I do find some sort of "research fit" with all the three schools, the definition of "fit" just seems fuzzier (which is not necessarily a bad thing). With those two criteria gone, I'm quite clueless of how to proceed for a decision. So I would want to ask for your opinions: If you ever decide NOT to attend one of those schools, what would be your reason(s)? By the way, I'm international student, so although I can google around for the cost, life factors, etc in Boston and locations near San Francisco, I would appreciate it if you enlighten me with your perspectives. Thanks! P.S.: Stanford EE is notorious for its qualifying exams, that it admits a lot of applicants then fails a lot of them through the qualifying exams. Although I would stay alert, some professors there have contacted me, expressing their willingness to take me in. Naturally I'm more or less on the safe side in this aspect. Now I seem to be contradicting my earlier aforementioned impression that the students pick the school before choosing supervisors - but yes, this adds more confusion to me.

Judging from the admissions letter, I think applicants are admitted to one out of 2 broad areas: EE or CS. It seems that this year they changed their area classification from like 7 or 8 areas, which are now sub-areas, to only 2. I would infer that the admissions processes for EE and CS are separated to some extent. However I think they also expect few people switching from, say, circuit design to image processing, so there should still be competition within one sub-area.

I did not have any interviews, nor did I contact any professors beforehand. Only 2 emails: one was an unofficial advance notice, and the other was official. I'm EE by the way.

I didn't contact any for all the schools I apply to as well. Among the professors who interviewed me, one was not named in my SOP, while another was but did not seem to be able to take more students (i.e. this professor simply wanted to talk to me). I would say contacting professors may not be that important - if they are interested in a student, they would personally contact the student. Professors are also busy enough to mindfully ignore emails from prospective students - I have seen my professor's mailbox and it was stunning. Besides, at this point, I think contacting them may be just a waste of time, given that your application has gone through certain review rounds. As far as I understand, Stanford takes in students, letting them going around and finding a suitable supervisor during the school year. Stanford is also notorious for Quals, which usually wipe out a number of those who couldn't find supervisors. As such, I guess it is not mandatory for applicants to be "personally admitted" by POI's before the official admissions. In some cases like UCSD, they even discourage such practice. The admissions game does a lot of funny things to our minds - so chill

Mine is communications - roughly speaking.

I will be starting in the fall. Thanks - although I would avoid unofficial information

Ah I have to emphasize that even though the professors who interviewed me specifically said they would nominate me for the fellowship, they did not say anything explicitly about admissions decision. So the best I can infer is, decisions have been made for some people. They also told me that the way funding at Stanford works is, EVERYONE would get 1-year fellowship (note: the fellowship for nominated applicants is the 3-year one). I can't be sure of the information - I may misunderstand what the professor meant. Fellowship, the way I understand it, is to give students some "free" time to concentrate on coursework and finding a supervisor without committing to any specific project, and Stanford seems to endeavor to provide such for everyone for at least their first year. By the way, the professors also mentioned the rotational program, where a student can try a number of projects under different professors until the matched one is found. This again consolidates my conjecture. In any cases, I believe you should not worry much about funding; most PhD applicants demand funding. By the way, I have been assuming you're applying for PhD programs - I don't know anything about MS admissions at Stanford.

Alright, I guess I should share some of my knowledge. As far as I've known, the fellowship committee has met. I would conjecture that decisions have been made for quite a number of applicants. The way Stanford admits a large number of applicants, that they have notorious Quals (which technically put those who are yet to find their supervisors in danger), and past-year results on GradCafe would tell me that interviews are not a must for admissions. From my own experience, my interviews with Stanford professors were about getting to know each other and Stanford as well, which tells me that interviews might not be that crucial to admissions. Cheers

Think of how much time John Nash's professor spent on writing this single-line recommendation: "This man is a genius."

Everybody has a chance. And top schools are definitely more mindful when judging GPA. Some say GPA doesn't matter much. My professor says, when schools ask for his LOR, he also at times has to answer some questionnaires e.g. on how he thinks the applicant is compared to the rest of the cohort, so your concern is possibly cleared somewhere other than LOR/ SOP, even if the schools don't know much about your program. At this point I believe your application files have been submitted and complete (I'm EE as well ) - so why worry? Chill and focus back on the rest of your undergrad program

Here you are:

Thanks for pointing out some unclear points 1. I'm unsure of the specific practice, but as long as one is not registered as a graduate student, he doesn't hold any graduate status, no? I believe taking graduate courses in advance can only give one the advantage of waiving the course prerequisites when he formally starts his graduate education, since he hasn't earned any graduate credits yet. A way to work around this complication is to register graduate courses using undergraduate credits, i.e. counting them towards the bachelor degree. Yet, given Usmivka's warning, the case of external fellowships might need certain considerations, since the school has no control over these. 2. I would be very careful distinguishing the standard of the conference/ journals and the standard that really matches the research at a specific university. Stepping over the former doesn't guarantee the latter. In the same international conference (even one that is supposed to be first-tier), one may observe a wide spectrum of quality of works - this can be area-dependent, though; at least, it happened in my field. To researchers, communicating one's discoveries and ideas is definitely one of the ultimate goals (the other one is to discover / come up with brilliant ideas). However it might not be in the case of gaining admissions. At the end of the day, professor X at Y university might simply not know how to interpret one's paper, unless he is well familiar with the topic (although one may recognize certain traits of a good paper just by looking at it). So if not ideas / discoveries, what is conveyed to the professor? In the context of admissions, it is that the applicant's competence is evident. That is not to encourage people to write papers just for the sake of gaining admissions, though. Without a clear goal of being a mature researcher, there is no point getting a PhD. And because the goal of the OP is so vivid, I believe there is no reason not paying practical considerations to the admissions process. Just my 2 cents.

Many points have been well made. I would want to point out a few details, although I'm still in the process of applying: 1/ If you have thought this far ahead (and are sure of what you're aiming for), I think you should really aim very high for top schools where you have to worry less (much less) about funding (as well as GRE). If a professor wants you, he/she will find all the ways to recruit you. 2/ If possible, it might be good to settle with one project that you really like and can work on throughout the undergrad years under a dedicated professor. This means: 1 - an excellent LoR is guaranteed, 2 - you have far more experiences than many applicants who research experiences are scattered (which gives you an edge since PhD research should be concentrated), 3 - your chance to be allowed to do independent research, and thus produce your own publication, is higher. The drawback might be that you are less aware of other areas. Taking some graduate courses, which require you to read papers or do course projects at the research student level, can well compensate for that, and you can find good LoR writers from those. I cannot stress more on how important having a dedicated supervisor is. This is because if you really aim high, say, for publications during undergrad, then a good supervisor would pay more attention to what you're doing, give you more chance to explore independently, and ultimately provide you suggestions on the possible directions that can lead up to publications. By independent, I mean you're in charge of your own research direction, where you start to discover new things. Yet from my own experience, not all new discoveries can be published. And when you publish once, you know what is publishable. Going from no publication to publishing something that's worth people's attention for the first time is a big step and there you need a really good supervisor. Now having publications is good, but that's not the ultimate goal. The caveat is, looking at one's paper, the adcoms may understand how much efforts and dedication have been put into it; but at the same time, if the paper does not reach the standard quality expected in the school he's applying to, then regardless of efforts and dedication and whatsoever, there is simply no fit and thus no admissions. It is not uncommon that applicants with a bunch of publications at hand get rejected by all the top schools. All what these mean is, the paper you publish is a tangible piece of evidence of the level of research you can cope with, aside from LoR's which can be somewhat subjective. To sum up, there are 3 regimes: undergrad doing grunt-like works, undergrad doing independent research (into new topics, not replicating old stuff), undergrad having achieved something with his/her research project (publication is one; award is also another way to show recognition). The first requires simply being recruited into a project, while the second requires a dedicated supervisor, and the third depends on your ability and luck. If you're stuck with the first regime for long and just touch on the second, LoR's from well-known professors should be more helpful. After working towards that high aim for a few years, by looking at the profiles of PhD students at various places, you definitely know where you are Just my 2 cents. P.S.: I have been talking about publications where you're the first author. It can be hard for others to judge your contribution if you're the second or third author, in which case LoR from your supervisor becomes more helpful.

There have been (many, I believe) people going to top schools without undergrad publications. See, e.g. http://www.pgbovine.net/grad-school-app-tips.htm Still I think it is more tolerable if one has done researches in many areas, before deciding on a specific one to work on in PhD. In the case that a research project has been pursued for a long duration, being without publishable results may leave a small question mark, I suppose. Just to be realistic, it might be safer to address that somewhere (e.g., LoR)

I believe, in these kinds of ethical dilemmas, even going straight to refuse his supposed-to-be letter can be very unethical. At times, we just have to endure with it - not accept it, but endure it. Before you proceed registering your professor as your recommender, if you decide to, consider this: Some schools somehow know some notorious professors / schools, and will just dismiss any applications coming from that professor or that school right away, unless the application is so shiny with publications, for instance - assuming PhD admissions. I would suggest you find out where his alumni go and decide whether his letter is still trustworthy in the eyes of others or not. I couldn't agree more on this. Writing style is so easy to be revealed - it is not surprising that schools may use SOP only for the purpose of knowing your writing, i.e. not caring about what you care, to put it bluntly. If you really have to ask for his LOR, then possibly you may want to draft out in the point form the outline of the letter. There are facts about your works in the class that perhaps both you and your professor know, then write them down. There are comments on comparison between you and the rest of the cohort, for instance, then possibly you can write the skeleton for those sentences and leave a few blanks, and tell him you're unsure of how to evaluate yourself and ask him to do a quick one. Of course, you should be giving him necessary facts to do so, by listing them out. Take it as a brag sheet or *cheat* sheet, which is the widely accepted version of this kind of unethical letter. Then you can try with NothingButTheRain's suggestion. In all cases, I guess the letter would simply turn out to be a standard one, which does not weigh so much, howsoever you write it. So if that's the case, possibly you would rather want to gamble with other letter writers, who offer to write the letters by themselves, unless this professor is some big name in the field. This also means, unless you don't know any other professors to ask for letters, don't take his. Just my 2/100 dollars.

Sure, you too

I imagine GRE profiles at these big schools are like this: http://www.princeton.edu/pub/profile/admission/graduate/ Still, if you come from a major school, with such good GPA, I suppose GRE becomes a minor factor (do they expect undergrads from top schools to always be high test scorers? hmm, that can be the opposite story). Extracurricular activities are usually assumed to be minor anyway, unless there is something really special that shows some of yours personalities that are crucial to research. P.S.: Why do some people call Caltech CIT?

I think I misunderstood the point In that case, I don't think there is a problem. I know people doing all kinds of researches that don't just belong to one subfield during undegrad, whereas their intended research field (the one written in the SoP) is a focused one - and some are at the best schools. As long as, 1) there is a good reason to pursue your intended field, 2) there are professors willing to verify your capability, then done. Stick with your plan then. I noticed something from this site: http://graddecision.org/Application_SOP.html It seems that they don't care so much about how you picture yourself in grad school, since many people would change their mind anyway. That, I assume those schools are the top ones (where, e.g., contacting the POI before submitting the application is discouraged). Some may tie their funding with available projects and contacting the POI is generally accepted, so I imagine these schools can be slightly different. Still when they refer to your SOP, if they happen to see any anomaly, I suppose that's definitely not a good sign and can be a turn-down in the decision. All are speculations though. I'm also applying this coming term - that's why I didn't dare to make firm claims (anyway, everyone gets to be admitted once, and small-sized sampling doesn't help). My field is in Electrical Engineering, broadly speaking

I guess yours is an odd case. It can be hard to convince schools that you will be of "use" to them when you did A and B and now you want to do C. Perhaps consulting a professor (possibly one of the first two letter writers of yours) on this, before deciding on the third writer? At the end of the day, LoR's are just pieces of evidence that you choose to submit as parts of the application. I'm not sure though, but stating that you want to do the superset of A and B, which includes C, might sound somewhat more reasonable. P.S.: I think having a diverse background is fine, so long as it shows your potential to do competent research. Some schools, like Princeton, simply give away the first year for students to find their research topics. I have also seen people whose research topics at the MSc stage are different from the rest of their PhD studies. My speculation is, schools are fine with admitting students who don't have a focus during undergraduate, since they know students may change their mind anyway. But an applicant with a wrong excuse is possibly another story.

How come it sounds to me like you haven't done transportation research before? It might be your bigger problem in that case I suppose.

Hi, Just a few comments: Option 1: Do not underestimate "informal" research. I personally believe, except that one publishes a paper as the 1st author in a well-known journal/ conference, there are little proofs to show that he has true experiences in conducting formal researches. Even having a paper as 2nd author may possibly mean he mainly did grunt-like works. My academic adviser actually said, for any student doing bachelor thesis under him, it took him only one or two weeks to know the student's capability in research and determine whether it would be a strong or mediocre letter for this student. Surprised? I also had roughly the same thought before approaching a professor whose graduate class I took and worked on a paper review in (that is, I wrote a review on a paper, how good and bad it was, not producing anything new other than my own opinions). I asked him for a positive recommendation letter, and he replied he would write me a very strong one. By the way, I have never talked to this professor even in the class before. What I would suggest is, find out what this professor of yours has in mind about you. I'm unsure of how people in the US perceive this matter, but if you can frankly discuss your choices with this professor and see how he reacts, it may be good. That carries certain risks, but still, I have heard of professors helping students to find a better letter writer after rejecting their request, so I suppose that's not impossible. Option 2: The same as above, as I would treat a class project the same as "informal" research - that they will show your skills/ work attitude, but not formal proofs of independent research. You never know what will come until you find out what he thinks. Option 3 seems odd to me, personally. Actually I have a feeling that you feel more confident with the simulation project than the one on probability. I suppose, if your skills and aptitude in either one are already revealed in the other letters, then what kind of values can it add?