Tin Sn

Guys I .... dropped out from school I had been a PhD student in a small university for 6 months then I got the scholarship to study for MS and PhD in the US. How should I explain that 6 months..... The worse thing is that while being a student I only read the publications for my research and tried to figure out what I would do for my PhD thesis, No additional coursework, none project participated. I dropped out school to pursue my dream. but now i realized that this will not good for my CV. Will I ever reach my goal...

Hi all, I would like to ask for your advice. I would like to apply to the MS degree (in EE department again) in the US, even if I had graduated in MS degree (in EE department) from a country (outside the US). I have joined this forum during applying for PhD in EE department on fall term, 2014; I was rejected. I didn't feel sad as I always have an annoying thoughts that my qualities may not be enough for becoming a PhD student in my head. This kind of thought arises after I checked out the steps of getting PhD in many schools, and tried to read some researches of many professors. I felt that I may not make it. In fact, since working as the research assistant, I tried to learned by myself (through reading, and taking online courses). I knew that this is an important phase of becoming a PhD student, and I will have to face the feeling of knowing nothing, any way, if I am in the PhD study. But the fear of having not enough backgrounds make me feel that I really don't mind if I would have to take my time in MS study, again. I felt that it is much better to have the time to improve myself for the research and to have the chance getting to the classes. So I am thinking about applying to MS degree in the same department (at the same University), instead of PhD, but I don't want the school to feel that I don't have the strong determination. In addition, having said that i would like to studying for MS again, I did not mean that my previous MS gives me nothing. I was enlightened by the courses in the previous MS study, and during that time, I did have three papers in international conferences . I actually love doing researches in the same field, and I would like to be more ready for it. Would the fact that I have already had the Master in my country mars my chance in getting the MS degree ? If this will not hurt anything, should I ever wrote about my previous MS study and my publications in my CV and resume ? Should I express the reasons for taking the MS again? By the way, my qualifications is as follows: GPA 3.92 (Bachelor Degree in EE Dept), 4.00 (MS degree in EE) Toefl ibt 90/120 GRE 167Q/147V AW3 Also I would appreciate if you would give me suggestions on improving my qualification. In addition to this, I am thinking about applying to top 20 universities, but I also love to hear your suggestion on which ranks of schools I should apply to. Thank you for the suggestions you would give me Sn

I took GRE for three times.and I use Marathon and Magoosh during preparing for the GRE test. To be honest, as a student who graduated in a country outside the US and does not use English as the mother language, I believe that both verbal and quantitative score can hardly been improved within three months. As my scores are 161Q/145V 161Q/143V and 167Q/147V, the luck and stress have crucial roles on the drop and the rise of the score. Before the first round, I realized that my verbal skills is my weakness. Thus, I paid a lot of my efforts on this to improve myself. I began with the Marathon Flash cards and read its books. I bought all three books on verbals and three books for probability, words problem, and data interpretation. After finishing the plies which consuming about a month, I took my first test. Actually, I was disappointed by my quantitative parts as well as my verbal parts. I found that my lack of score is due to the fact that I forgot a lot of basics in Math. That is the reason why I moved to Magoosh product. Magoosh really helps remind me some important math rules that I forgot, as well as the explanation on verbal part is quit good for me. The exercise provided by Magoosh for verbal parts helps me understand how to analysis the reading passage, and how to answer the questions in text completion. However, the worst thing about Magoosh is that the questions are rotated. So, most of the time, my score on Magoosh is incredibly inflated due to that I was unintentionally recognized the answers. I spent two months on Magoosh, but my score on ETS pratice test showed a little bit of improvement. This is like a prediction that my score on the second round would be like a hell on the test day. Another point about Magoosh is that it cannot help me on the writing section !!!!!! All the things that Magoosh has on the writing section are videos guiding and giving examples on how to write. I needs to find another sources helping on my essays. My score is pretty low and lower than the previous one, but this does not mean that Magoosh is not good. In fact, Magoosh helps me understand the language better. The lower score is due to the stress that I put on myself, as I believed that I would be better, and I was very tired as I always had three section on verbal and two on quantitative. I decided to improve only my math part seriously. I omitted the verbal section as I really don't know what to do. I used Marathon (8lb book) for my math part. To my surprise, on the test date, I had three section on quantitative parts, and two on the verbal parts. I have less stress as I felt that I can do well. In addition, solving math problems consume less energy than reading a whole paragraphs and still wondering about the meaning of the authors. My score is better than before. I planed to take it for the fourth round. The average GRE score for EE dept is incredibly high, and with my current score I was rejected by many top twenty universities. Hope this helps

Dear All, I was rejected from my top choice, and I sent an email requesting for advice on improving my application to a POI. It has been three weeks or a month of waiting. That I have not received the email from POI means that the POI will never ever want to contact me again? Is this normal. By 'normal', I mean that any POI will appreciate only new prospective students. Should I still keep contact the POI ? Will this help improve my chance ? If this situation happened to you, would you try to contact the same professor for the application round ? I really love hearing your opinion

Dear All, I have not received the email from POI whom I sent the email requesting for advice on improving my application. Does this mean that the POI will never ever want to contact me again? Is this normal. By normal, I mean that any POI will appreciate only new prospective students. I really love hearing your opinion.

After getting a rejection letter from UW, I wrote an email requesting the grad-admission on help pointing out my deficiencies, so that I can improve my chance in the next year. But the tone of the reply disappoints me than its rejection letter. "Since applications were already carefully and comprehensively reviewed, appealing the admission decision is not an option." This just make me wanna shout " I did not try to argue. "

Hi all, I am writing this post as I had applied to seven schools and had received some rejection letters. I wonder which schools told you about your deficiencies and which schools told you only that they cannot provide enough roomห for all applicants. This would help deciding which schools are worthy of the application fee....... Best,

Getting rejected not only by the top choice but also by your bottom choice program at the same time. Yuckkkkk I got it. In fact, i was sad for two weeks and I wonder whether the schools that did not send me any letter will also reject me.

Dear ssynny, I can feel it. Please let me know if you have any updates about your life and goal. By the way, I would like to thank you for your helps, and thoughtful suggestion. Sincerely

Dear Admission Advice Online, Thank you for your reply. In addition, if my intention is to apply to the same program which rejected my last year in the same university, will this be worthy ? I would be thankful for your helps and suggestions. Sn

The next round means the next spring or fall. Looking its admission statistics , asking someone has this kind of experience, and checking the grad admission result in the gradcafe are ways to help you guess about the size of the class . In my opinion, taking a break, making better scores, contributing some researches can help improve the profile for admission to the schools that was not considered me/your applications in this fall. You may say that this is my plan B, and many people do this. By the way, why are you so hurry about finding schools in this round? I am just curious. Best wish for you.

Well, ...the main reason that I suggest Purdue is that the research environment of the university is very good, and perhaps, you may find their research interesting. I mean that if your research interest does not match to the university, despite the high test score, you can still be denied by the grad. By the way, Syracuse U is a good one, but you should check the size of the class. I means even if the ranks/ official score is not high, the school can be very selective if they can take only a small amount of students. In addition, I realized that I am an applicant who has high possibility to fail getting to the school in this round, thus, I will retake the GRE and toefl before applying to the next target schools. I stop at seven schools for the sake of making the first impression with the better profile. I mean that we can impress a person at once. Therefore, re-applying to the school that rejected me last year may not give me a good stand. Finally, I apply to OSU during late February, however, I haven't heard anything. My future is in vagueness, or the grade is doing some research on my application. In addition, I find that the advice from katiegud interesting. Well, I think this is a nice suggestion. Now, I am considering schools in the other zones such as Edinburgh U and South Hampton. Even if both of which are in the UK, they have the professors who share the similar research area as mine, and it seems that there is no deadline for applying to the PhD program

Hi, all I had been rejected by some schools and many of them have not yet send the rejection/acceptance letter. However, some of the universities that I apply to are pretty good in term of research. There are ten of people who share the similar research topic as mine. Thus, I would like to know if it is worthy to apply to the similar program in the same University (that will reject /have rejected my application) ? , and what is your opinion on this kind of risk ? I love to hear both cons and pros, and your experience......^ ^ Thank you for all comments Best wish to all of you.

Well, if you would like to apply to a good university that has a lot of reputation , you may consider applying to Purdue. The deadline is 1 May, 2014. Best wish PS I am sorry if my poor English leads to you to think that I was convincing you to go to Delaware. Personally, UDelaware is the best fit in term of research .....hmmmm my research, despite its name is not known by many.

In same boat in at the similar department, I apply to seven universities. Most of them are not in top ten, because I need to do the research that can be supported by my background. But things turn out like. Rejection. I apply to two top twenty schools and I was rejected by the two. One of them is my top choice as the research of the professor is the same as mine. I still cannot figure out yet for the reasons. I am probably hanging in two ambitious university ( one top ten, and other has small department). I can presume that they will also reject me after April, 15. So, I have three left, but is not quite good. In one of them, I am not good enough in research area that I choose which is electromagnetic, and my background is in signal processing. Then, probably it will be another rejection. Then, I thought of myself that I will have only two universities (UofDelaware and OSU) that do not send any thing to my inbox, and it is very hard to guess about their decision. I hope that I would not be rejected, again. T T