justinmcummings
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Posts posted by justinmcummings
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My status for the University of Minnesota had been final review for a week...I don't know what to think. I do know they are on spring break, does admissions really take spring break off too?
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You have a lot of schools that don't belong, and are missing many top EE schools; you are missing UCSD.
There are many factors for EE. MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and Berkeley aren't """the best""" for every EE field. There are way too many assumptions/ambiguities in your ratings it seems. It's hard to imagine you could accurately rate these while only attending 1 or 2 of them. Where Berkeley students want to go doesn't decide which programs are best (you seem to have a strong Berkeley bias because I guess you went there?)
This is ass backwards and is NOT a problem.
Selectivity has nothing to do with best EE program. Thinking this will lead you to conclude quality improperly. If pride is that important to you, then by all means go to the selective school with a poorer quality EE program. MIT isn't good because it's selective, and isn't neccessarily selective because it's good.
Rankings in general are just stupidly innacurrate/misrepresentative, but I find USNews to be more accurate.
The best thing you could do to increase accuracy is drop the "selective means good" attitude and categorize EE into circuits/devices/signal processing/comm theory/photonics/etc. USNews does this for CS, but apparently it isn't worth the time for EE.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings_2013/national_university_rank.php
At least this ranking website shows their criteria. According to them, Berkeley awards the most science PhD's, but that certainly doesn't make Berkeley a bad graduate school.
lots of good information there, but your screen name should not relate to how you present it LOL. I felt like you were yelling at me :-\
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I did one real quick for you it might help, click the link read the first page then click graduate http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cost+of+attendance+buffalo+state&l=1
- Papaya91 and caterpillar
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Right there with you. If you have had my application materials since mid-December and another school has only had my materials since mid-January, and they beat you to the punch then you might be doing something wrong.
but at the same time in my head I'm like no, you take your time and admit me...please admit me...I wasnt an instant rejection so please ?
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Ya I know the feeling, I cant help but to check my email every 5 min.
So far I have had 5/10 schools get back to me, from both ends of the spectrum. I have been rejected from the best schools i applied to and got into the lowest ranked ones.
Still looking to see where I stand overall, though on the bright side I seem to be the only person who did not get a rejection letter from Columbia this week.
You ever get the feeling schools are like "we don't want to reject you, but at the same time we don't want to accept you just yet. Lets just keep their status pending and not tell them they are sorta on a secret waitlist"
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I say still have some hope, I still have yet to hear from 5 schools (granted I'm EE) . . . I have mixed opinions of "visit days". I was invited to one back in February and they only thing hold up my application is finding funding for me and the other students because the department will not admit without funding. Then I apparently was not invited to another visit day to a university where I was accepted for PhD, but I know some masters students were ??? So yeah visit days, idk how I feel about them. But stay optimistic, its not over till the officially say no !
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Ahhh I see, I kinda assumed we were talking PhD this whole time. My bad. This changes alot in my opinion. If you plan on going to industry after your ms the school prestige will matter not very much, it is kinda sorta looked at but not really in my opinion. It will also matter a little less after a couple years if and when you get a PhD because they are going to look at what you have been doing, what experience you can bring to their program. If you were going to go for the PhD right away I would say the school prestige is worth the debt no matter the cost. I sorta agree with the other posters...this may be your only chance to go to the dream school. Also another side note, if industry is important you may want to look at the area around the school for companies you could work with or where graduates from that program typically go after graduation.
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Are your goals after you graduate academic or industry?
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I don't know about everyone else but I feel like the stress of this whole process is beginning to take years off of my life. Even now that I have a couple admits, the problems have gone from waiting to get in and constantly checking emails, to trying to decide what school to go too and what offer is the best. I am freaked out about accepting an offer based mostly off of monetary considerations and then regretting not going to my dream school for the rest of my life...even if my dream school may require taking out a loan. Then again, does the school name on the degree really matter all that much, or is it all about the person?
Now don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful to have been accepted and to have options, I know there are much worse problems that I could have. But, at the same time I find myself stressing out even more over making the decision than I did when I was waiting to get in. I am thinking that flipping a coin and letting the universe decide sounds like a pretty good choice at this point. I really just want it to be over. Anyone else feel the same way?
Have you looked away from the school and tried seeing where you might like to live more? And yes it could be worse...I think I would have taken rejection at this point rather than admittance with funding to be determined :-/ only because I don't have 200k laying around
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Anyone else regretting taking the advice of people who might have known what was up once, but are now out-of-the-loop?
So much regret this, also I think I should have replaced the nearly unattainable schools with more realistic choices
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Do you mean take a class non-matriculated and ask those profs for letters? I'm not against that idea if it comes to that.
Does it look very bad if a letter of rec comes from a prof at a 2-year local community college?
its better than not having one at all
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after you apply you need to email the program director and tell them that you have external funding, if your stats are good they should accept you almost right away. I went to a conference with some of the top graduate recruiters and they said that I after I apply I get a company or fellowship or whatever source of money after I have applied to contact the program and let it be known...they want your money.
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I wouldn't worry about your GPA too much, it sounds like you trended upwards and that's good. However, having said that, you must find a way to get a min of 3 letters of recommendation. For my program at least, an application was considered incomplete if you did not have at least 3. Incomplete meaning they would not even look at it. I think some ways you can make it easier for the LOR writers is to send along your resume, paragraph about your goals and interests in school and after you graduate with xyz degree, and if they are not familiar with you possibly some unofficial transcripts? What year/semester are you apply for? If it's not till Fall of 2015 you have a decent amount of time to keep asking and figuring out how to get those LORs. Best of luck to you!
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Lower tier programs often offer money to compensate for their lack of prestige. Higher tier programs know that they can get away with not offering as much because people will pay to have that name behind them. Honestly, for a masters program I would definitely go for the funded option, since you can always apply for fully funded PhD programs after and there's no point in handicapping yourself with debt. I wouldn't say you would be less happy in a more expensive city but you'd have to spend more time doing low budget things and managing your finances. Imagine how much travelling you could do with $30,000 that you don't take out in loans.
great point, ~20k in Washington would be difficult to live comfortably on
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My money would be on University of Washington, its in an amazing town, it has the prestige, I've seen employers state Umich, Uwashington in job postings in before. Uwisc sounds great! I have been accepted to the PhD program there also just the communications/signals program. They are rubbing me the wrong way so far though...wasn't invited to a visit day...no contact from a professor...and still no word on funding...and all since being accepted in January. I visited Ames Iowa last year for TBP honor society conference. The campus is beautiful, the engineering building was less than impressive but I wasn't allowed to see inside any of the labs. The town is extremely small and from the locals its a bar / football type of town. Personally if you are getting those kind of offers for just a masters, you might want to consider doing your masters at a well known school where you will get even more exposure and I'm betting you can get offers for PhD from the top programs in the nation if/when you reapply for PhD. Just my opinion
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In regards to #2, it depends if you are declaring yourself as a dependent or independent. Typically you will get more financial aid as an independent because you won't have as much of an income.
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So I just received an email back from MSU, they are waiting for faculty members to offer RA positions. I guess they cannot officially admit a student without guaranteed funding. More hoping and waiting in my future!
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I can't speak to that program specifically, but I had some low GRE scores and was accepted to 2 programs without interviews. For some engineering disciplines interviews aren't needed. I can also say that Northwestern is taking their time with admissions. I emailed yesterday and they say that acceptances can come all the way up till the April 15th deadline (for my department, I'd assume all engineering is similar?)...I'm hoping for that school also. I say keep positive, I feel as long as your not instantly rejected you still have a chance! I'm keeping hopeful about my 5 other schools and funding. Good luck!
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Trying to bring this dead post back to life, now that some time has past. Has anyone been offered funding for UWisc for EE PhD??
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I'd be interested in hearing some advice also, when I applied my advisers told me that I would 100% be funded for my PhD...but I came from a small school and I think my advisers were out of the loop. I have been accepted to a PhD program with funding still to be determined. The department said only about 10% of incoming PhD's are funded. I was also accepted to a MS program unfunded (I applied PhD but got offered MS). Should I be begging people in the department to hire me or should I spend more time applying for places like Best Buy and live off that and loans?
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Emailed Northwestern yesterday and the responded today with:
"Applications for Fall 2014 PhD applicants are still being reviewed and decisions being made, and will continue through the end of this month. Some final decisions may be made as late as our April 15 deadline"
Side Note/Mini Rant: If all the schools are going to require us to accepted by April 15th, they need to inform us with enough time to be able to tour the schools to make the most informed decision.
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Anybody know anything about UCLA?
I just saw a ucla acceptance come through the results search
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My uncle on going to grad school: "When you're done, the vaginas will start lining up!"
As fond as I am of my family, I really must question them sometimes.
My parents keep hinting at the fact that by the time I get out I will be almost 30 and still have not started life in the real world...let alone have a serious relationship. I guess its impossible to date in graduate school? Funny they would know this because neither of them went to college :/
Need to Tell Decision to School by April 1st, but Wait-Listed at Another School...
in 2010-2015 Archive
Posted
Also you might want to check and see if you are bound by a contract at school A if you accept, because they are offering you funding.