Edge

Nowadays there's no difference if the institution is accredited, but historically BEng and MEng were originally considered professional degrees and BSc and MSc were more theory based.

External funding will definitely help your chances of admission. The school views it as free money. Try and talk directly with a POI and discuss it with them.

Speaking from experience, Stanford sends their responses back notoriously late. Which I always thought was ridiculous since they were one of the first applications due.

It is exactly an unofficial interview. It's one of those cases where they want to make sure that you are everything as advertised before formally admitting you. So attend, be on your best behavior and get your acceptance.

There is no "eligibility" for a MS. You can get one right out of your bachelors or wait 40 years. Your prep time depends entirely on how much you're willing to allot for preparation. Some people do 6 months, some 4, some are still in school and do very little. Personally I did 2 months and thought it was fine. Could I have used another month? of course. Anything less than 2 months and I probably wouldn't have felt as confident during the exam. There are several prep guides that some people like more than others, Magoosh, Manhattan, Kaplan, etc. Read reviews in the forum.

The university I attend basically rejects the bottom 70% immediately, and simultaneously accepts the top 15%. The middle 15% gets a more thorough review and/or waits for responses from the top 15%.

Current PhD Student here. In my program the other PhDs in the cohort ONLY give opinions on PhD applicants that visited and we personally talked to. Usually what happens is the professor will meet with a prospective student, then me and a few members of the cohort will give them a tour, take them to lunch, maybe grab a beer and talk to them about their interests, why they're here, what they want to study etc. It gives the student a more relaxed environment to ask questions. Then we can offer our recommendation to the professor. We DO NOT give recommendations on ANY masters students. We generally don't meet with them as my professor doesn't take on any masters level research assistants.

MS Project is a super easy way to make Gantt charts. If you want to get more advanced then use P6. Oracle used to provide it for free to anyone with a .edu email. Not sure if they still do.

You can never go wrong for business casual. What's the worst that happens? You're slightly overdressed? Wear slacks/khakis and a button down. No tie, no jacket.

Me: "Hey mom, I'm bored so I'm gonna go be a doctor"

There could be a lot of reasons why there was such a small cohort: -The professor (not school or major) doesn't have a lot of funding for many students. -The professor might have a heavy courseload or do consulting so he limits the size of his research group. -A bunch of students in the cohort just graduated. -University sets a limit on number of students permitted per professor. -The website isn't updated to show all the students, it might just show students that are actual PhD Candidates. -Many more.

If you have a TA or RA attached to your PHD, you'll probably have to show up 1-2 weeks BEFORE classes start. For training, getting your office in order, etc. My classes started Aug 25th, but I had to check in and take training on the 15th.

As a current PhD, I only reach out, tour or talk to prospective applicants when instructed by my advisor. However I have heard of other departments using a mentor system so they could be reaching out for that reason as well. Either way it's a good sign, someone wants you there.

I graduated from with my BS and MS over a decade ago, my GPA was decent, not great, from a very tough private college. But since it's so old, what indication, good or bad, does it have on my current level of intellect? Without the GRE the university wouldn't have any standardized scores to compare me to applicants coming fresh out of a masters.

I took mine mid-October and my first application was due Dec 1st. The scores got there well in advance of the deadline.

Write a stellar personal statement and any writing samples you have to submit. This will show the applications committees that you are capable of writing, just not under pressure. My Q/V GRE scores were slightly lower than yours and my writing score was only 3.5, but I wrote an extremely well thought out personal statement and it got me into my number 1.

I'm one of 3 TAs for a 135 person class. We have 4 assignments, 2 tests, group presentations and individual papers to grade. We split it up so that the work is covered evenly. For example, I'll be grading 2 assignments, and all the papers and abstracts. Another TA will be grading 1 assignment, 1 test and be in charge of all the handouts/learning materials for class; and the third will be doing 1 assignment, 1 test and grading the presentations. The way I grade assignments is first I complete it myself. We are not given a rubric, we have to make it ourselves. So i list all the possible mistakes that could be made, then i mark all the assignments WITHOUT taking points off, simply noting what is wrong. When I'm done with that I assign point values to each of the mistakes. More common mistakes get fewer points off than they should in my opinion, but it's a graduate level class and my professor is on the lenient side so I adjust point deductions accordingly. Then I go through again and assign actual number grades to the assignments.

I aim to read 1 paper per day (1st year Engineering PhD). I make a print out a cover sheet summarizing good points, lacking research, things i would want to reference, etc. and put all the electronic cover sheets in a single word document so I can search in one document for keywords I'm looking for. I also have an excel spreadsheet of all the papers I've read, even the garbage ones I won't be using.

I'm about two and a half weeks in and it seems like the class load, w/ research, and TA responsibilities will be tough/challenging, but manageable. I'm sure that tune will change while I have to grade 140 research papers while trying to finish my own.

Most schools don't let you take it until you've completed 1 full year. They not only want to discuss your proposed research topic, but make sure that all, or most, of your coursework is complete.

In my opinion it comes down to how often you'll actually access the book. If I think it will be a reference book for the next few years, I buy the actual physical textbook. If it is ONLY for the 4 months you're taking the class, e-text is fine.

US News just released the 2015 list of best grade schools, ChemE is below. http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/chemical-engineering-rankings Your schools seem realistic. I had slightly worse stats (but more experience) and basically applied to the top 10 that had my program, which turned out to be 6, I got into 3. I think you'll be fine.

Normal timeline for fall admission is to be accepted in the spring of that year, in which case many students will not have graduated until May of the same year. Schools do not wait for the degree to be awarded however the admission is typically contingent on your degree being obtained prior to your enrollment in the graduate program.

Most prep classes/books also have an online tutorial that mimics the material in the book. I reviewed that and did practice tests questions/sections as suggested in the course material. I studied for about 6 weeks, maybe 15-20 hours a week. I took one diagnostics test BEFORE i started studying to serve as a baseline, then 3 full length practice tests before my official test date. Best of luck

I think my longest was about 700 words according to MS Word 'word count'. The shortest was just shy of 500 (as requested by the application). The rest were about 650 words.