Slorg

UT Austin strikes me as much richer than UCSD. Which professors are you interested in at each school? (I go to UCSD, and I've also worked for a professor who is now at UT Austin.)

Just to balance out the nervous people, I wanted to say I'm not anxious about this award. It will come out when it comes out, and the results will be what they are. Embrace the zen!

Sounds good to me. I think some wording is a little on the whiny side (but this is coming from a blunt and straightforward person). Overall it sounds very standard to me. If they've mentioned giving you extra money, I would personally mention it, but you probably don't need to.

Hi guys. I'm 90% sure I'm coming to Berkeley in the fall. Regarding housing, most of the graduate students I talked to said to stay away from on campus housing and that the south side wasn't great for graduate students.

Yep!

All I have is 3.5 years of college, so take my advice with a spoonful of salt, but I say Princeton hands down.

I haven't committed yet, but all signs point to Berkeley.

From what a professor told me, if you want to become a professor, it's very important to get your PhD from a top university. Also, although I don't know your situation, I've heard it's very common to be nervous/doubtful about difficult programs. I chose an easier program in part because of a similar fear, and sometimes I regret it.

I have no clue which program is better, but I'll offer my two cents anyways. Hope it helps. Of the two ECE professors that wrote me letters of recommendation, one said that Princeton and UIUC were about the same in the areas of solid state/nanotechnology/energy (areas I was interested in). The second professor, when UIUC wasn't on my list of schools I planned to apply to, said that I should add UIUC. He seemed to regard it very highly. I don't know anyone from UIUC, but people that I know at and from Princeton have seemed to really like Princeton (but these people are not science/engineering majors). When I worked at a utility once, they said they recruited power engineers all the way from UIUC. I think UIUC has a strong power engineering program. Personally, I think Princeton is cooler than UIUC. I think this is because UIUC seems like it's a crummy location with crummy weather, has less overall prestige, and didn't have a visit day. But these are just my impressions and I really have no idea about whether these are true or whether they matter.

zxcv, could you clarify what you mean by self employed? Nevermind, I misread your sentence. As I understand from my undergraduate scholarships, scholarships are indeed taxable. However, you can deduct what you spend on tuition (but not housing).

Are you planning to visit both? Meeting with faculty and current students might help more than my random internet advice.

Stanford finally (!) got back to me about visit day. Apparently those of us among the 'second-class' admits are welcome to come on March 12, but there is no travel subsidy. Curiously and perhaps coincidentally, Stanford only responded to my emails once I started asking "Can I come to the visit day on March 12?" instead of "Is there a visit day?" Heh.

Mark123 said that at Stanford it's nearly impossible to find an advisor without passing the quals. If that's the case, how does one go about identifying or meeting potential advisors, before enrolling at the school and taking its quals? Is it a mistake to contact Stanford professors now? And if so, how should someone decide whether to attend Stanford or not? Just based on general feeling and prestige and funding, rather than a concrete position in your advisor's research group? At other universities, it seems like professor take an interest in the students much earlier, which makes this decision easier.

Here's the letter I got. It has no mention of visit day. I also emailed them five days ago asking if there was a visit day. I still haven't received a response.

Do you plan on visiting either school?

Don't bother thanking the blanket, standard admission emails. Staff are usually really busy during this season, and hundreds of graduate students sending thank you emails is just a hassle for them. Of course, if a professor specifically informs you or invites you to his or her group, then it makes sense to thank them (but it's still not necessary). IMO.

Interesting... it wasn't in my email either. I guess it's an exclusive visit day!

It looks like most Princeton decisions came out today. Judging by last year, Caltech won't be for a while.

I don't know much, but I do know that the Berkeley MS&E open house is on March 5th, so if that's the same thing as the admitted student visit day, then I would guess that all admitted students have already been notified.

Undergrad Institution: UCSD Major(s): Engineering Physics, Mathematics-Economics Overall GPA: 3.84 Length of Degree: 4 years Position in Class: Somewhere around top? Type of Student: Domestic white male GRE Scores: Q: 800 V: 670 W: 4 Research Experience: Worked on photovoltaics in an academic lab for about a year. No real results, no publications. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Jacobs Scholar, Gordon Scholar, Calit2 Summer Scholar, ACBL Scholar, Woodrow Wilson 21st Century Scholar, a bunch of honors Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Grunt summer engineering intern, smart grid summer intern Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Nothing special Applying for PhD at: MIT - EECS - Waiting... UT Austin - EE - Accepted 2/12/10 Berkeley - AST - Waiting... Princeton - EE/MSE - Waiting... Cornell - EE - Waiting... Michigan - EE - Waiting... Stanford - EE - Waiting... Caltech - EE - Waiting... UIUC - EE - Waiting...

If I ate lunch with the previous President of MIT (Charles Vest) earlier this year and then read his book, would it be any good to work that fact into my statement somehow? Will anyone care?

Haha, that's exactly what I changed it to in my next draft!

Thanks for the advice! I appreciate and agree with all of it. I'm going to keep editing, and retool my horn-tooting phrases.

Hello, my friends. I am in the middle of a writing a statement of purpose for PhD programs in electrical engineering. Please do your best to tell me what you dislike. Be specific. Be unrelenting. Be honest. Be forthright. Be as helpful as you can, knowing that I'm a metaphorical ankylosaurus, with a layer of thick armor protecting my feelings and insecurities. Specifically, I'm wondering how to best phrase the introduction (which sucks now, since it's the last two sentences cut from my older, suckier introduction). I'm also wondering if there are inconsistencies in voice and background info, and whether I do too much telling, and where I should elaborate more, and where I can cut unnecessary chaff. Thanks for any feedback you give! Here is my draft: My dual passion for deeply understanding fundamental physical phenomena and for using that understanding to design useful devices has strongly influenced my decision to earn a PhD in electrical engineering. I am particularly attracted to MIT’s energy research, an area where I have a significant background. I got my first taste of energy research in 2007, when I had the privilege of working for Professor Joe Schmo on the ASDF Project (A Stupid DeFinition). As part of a team of students, I helped build, program, and install a wireless network of solar-powered weather sensors across campus. An immediate goal for the sensor network was improving campus energy efficiency by exploiting local weather conditions: by feeding real-time data from the sensors into UCSD’s energy management system, we enabled UCSD to more intelligently heat and cool its 11 million square feet of facilities, saving the campus energy, water, and money. A second goal of the ASDF sensor network was to characterize the temporal and spatial variability of solar radiation. I learned that understanding the variability of solar radiation on partly cloudy days is critical to predicting and managing the negative effects of solar power on the electric grid. This, along with the fact that the sensor stations were solar powered, led me to my next research interest in solar cells, of which I’m very proud. In 2008 as a QWER Summer Scholar, I began researching third generation solar cell concepts with Professor Jil Schmil at the UCSD Nanostuff Laboratory. Professor Schmil and I were particularly interested in using computer models to gain insight into how various parameters of core-shell nanowires (such as length, width, core-shell ratio, etc.) affected the optical properties of core-shell nanowire solar cells. Our investigation built upon MIT Professor Gang Chen’s 2007 paper on nanowire solar cells, and I had the pleasure of briefly corresponding with him. Working that summer on finite-element simulations allowed me to see firsthand how the physics equations from my courses were applied to actual research problems. I also learned how to teach myself from technical papers, a skill I’ve found beneficial ever since. And at the end of the summer, I gained valuable technical presentation skills by presenting my results on core-shell nanowire absorption at poster sessions and in an online video. The high quality of my work over the summer caused Professor Schmil to invite me back to work in his lab during the school year. During this period, I calculated theoretical efficiencies of core-shell nanowire and quantum well solar cells. I also trained one of Professor Yu’s new graduate students, who joined me in performing these calculations. My experience here was formative, introducing me to modern solar cell research and work in an academic laboratory, both of which have informed my decision to pursue a PhD. As I gained academic research experience, I complemented it with classes covering solid-state physics and energy technologies. My lab classes taught me to use techniques such as x-ray diffractometry, interferometry, superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), thin film deposition, etching, and photolithography. My graduate classes, such as Seminar in Electronic Devices & Materials and Energy Materials & Applications, exposed me to many current, fascinating research topics and showed me that I could flourish at the graduate level. However, these classes still lacked [something industrial]. In 2009, I decided to see how energy technologies were used in the real world. After earning a spot through the Jacob School of Engineering’s prestigious Team Internship Program, I spent the summer doing industrial research at SDG&E (San Diego Gas & Electric), ranked by UtiliQ as the most intelligent utility in the country for its renewable energy, commitment to energy research, and advanced smart grid deployment. SDG&E tasked my four-person team with investigating the future problems that may arise from very high penetration of residential solar power and how residential batteries integrated into solar inverters might be used to solve these problems. Over the summer, I read many technical papers, first educating myself on the basics of solar inverters and the smart grid, and then more complex topics, such as solar intermittency (with data provided to SDG&E from the ASDF project!), voltage and frequency regulation, vars control, harmonic injection, power backflow, and fault current problems that residential solar power can cause. One product of my summer research that I’m especially proud of is an inverter-battery control algorithm I devised to solve the most pressing of these problems and also provide peak shaving and ancillary services to the grid. SDG&E is currently pursuing patent protection on my algorithm. Because my team was given so much autonomy, I learned to set goals, choose how to best pursue those goals, effectively communicate my progress to bosses, thoroughly document my work, and ask for resources and feedback when necessary. Our summer research project was deemed so successful that we were invited to present our results to members of the scientific and business community, allowing me to hone my scientific communication skills. I gave presentations to SDG&E executives, Balance Energy (a microgrid startup company), the Jacobs School of Engineering Corporate Affiliates Program, and the Jacobs School of Engineering Advisory Board. In addition to my academic and industrial research, I have contributed to a number of student groups. My solar energy research experience has helped me inform debates over energy policy at the Roosevelt Institution, a student-run policy think tank. It also proved useful in 2009 when I helped Engineers Without Borders build a solar-powered computer training center in Mbita, Kenya. For accomplishments such as those, I was selected as a Gordon Scholar by the Gordon Engineering Leadership Center. This gave me the opportunity to participate in a comprehensive engineering leadership education and training program, where I am now gaining leadership and communication skills that I know will help me spread my future work within the scientific community. [Concluding paragraph discussing my reasons for choosing program X and my career goals and whatnot. I'm still trying to figure out what to put here. ]