newms

I would advise you to cultivate your interests. You can do that be reading articles and other publications, attending conferences, presenting at conferences if you have the opportunity. The more you get involved in the field, the more you will get a sense of what exactly it is that you really want to do. musicforfun makes an excellent point about talking about your interests, the more you communicate them, the more you will visualize them in your own mind and the more concrete they will become to you. It helps if you can find people who are interested in the same field as you and just talk with them about your common interests.

You still have some time before you apply if you're applying for 2012 Spring. I would recommend what starmaker suggests. It will actually look really good on your profile if you go and seek out opportunities for research outside of your school, if your school doesn't have research opportunities. It shows your dedication and the level of your interest. Failing that, you could also look at (research based) Master's programs and use a Master's program to get research experience before you apply for the PhD. Of course, funding is limited at the Master's level in the US so you would have to consider that as well. Research based Master's are not very common in the US but other countries, such as Canada, have funded research based Master's available. Keep in mind also that research experience, while necessary for applications to the super competitive top 10 schools is not necessary for schools that are not ranked as high - as long as you can demonstrate your potential for research.

I would advise you to check with the department first. Sometimes the graduate school sets the word limit for all programs, but the departments don't really have a limit for themselves and would accept an SoP that was above the limit set by the grad school. If the limit is set by the department I wouldn't advise going over it. Sometimes people have found that cutting down your SoP to get to a low limit like 500 words actually improves it helps you find out what is really necessary and what is fluff.

lace fern

Congrats musicforfun!

The most important thing for PhD applications that admissions committees consider is your research experience and potential. Not knowing either about you, I can't really say how good your chances would be. Also the interests that you list are quite broad and you would have to narrow them down considerably on your SoP for a PhD application. Without quality research experience, CMU PhD will be near impossible to get into. UCLA, UMCP, Rice, Purdue and Columbia will all be quite hard to get into as well, but they would definitely not be as hard to get into as CMU. USC, UNC and Ohio State are top 30ish schools that will still be competitive, but probably won't be as hard to get into as the others.

Yes professors are busy. If you had a thoughtful question then I don't think that you would have annoyed them. Like you a few of the professors I emailed didn't reply, some did and encouraged me to apply and some said they wouldn't have space for new students.

Hi speed, If its a research based degree you are applying for then the admissions committees will want a recommendation letters from people that can speak to your potential to do research. If your boss has supervised you on a research project then it should be ok, but otherwise go with professors that can speak to your research abilities and potential.

Understood..thanks for the clarification.

Hi speed, It is generally encouraged to name professors who you are interested in working with in Engineering or other Science fields. Even if you haven't contacted them before.

Congrats rs_nucl and Nano!

I understand that in some fields, like English (I believe), your funding isn't tied to a prof's research group so you are not expected to contact profs before applying nor mention profs in your SoP. I'm not sure about IR specifically though.

My guess is that it would be seen as a good thing, but I also think that they will see it on your transcript - so there really isn't a need to repeat it on your SoP.

I guess it really depends on the field. Most top schools in my field will get almost 1,000 applications and the very top ones like MIT will get over 2,000 applications

Your extra curricular activities (unless they are directly related to your field, such as maybe volunteering at a conference) have little to no impact on your application. Your essay should focus on your goals - i.e. what it is you want to do? Possibly you could describe a project or two that you would want to work on or research for your Masters. The essay really shouldn't focus on your academics since the admissions committee can see your performance in school by looking at your transcripts.

sharp edge

I haven't come across any that have a 1 year masters program. Most master's programs are 18 months to 2 years.

Are you applying for a research degree or a terminal degree? If it's a research based degree and you ultimately want a PhD a lot of unis in the US encourage you to apply directly to the PhD, so you may want to consider that. If its a research based degree you want, the most important thing the admissions committees look at is your research experience and your research potential. Carnegie Melon is a top 3 school (rated higher than MIT in some areas) so it will be very difficult to get into even for the very best applicants. It is still worth the shot to apply as you will never know if you could get in unless you apply. Georgia Institute of Technology is another top school but it isn't as exclusive as CMU, so you would have a better shot here. For the other schools you would have a decent shot I think, but it depends a lot on the strength of your SoP and your recommendation letters and your research experience/interests.

I guess it really depends on the field. In some fields there may be 200 applicants competing for 1 or 2 spots at the very top universities. In others, the very top universities take maybe 5% or even 10% of applicants. If a program has an acceptance rate of around 30% or even 25%, then I would consider that a place where a well qualified applicant *should* be able to get into (its still a crapshoot as they may not have faculty to advise you or funding available). Ultimately, if you have a choice, you don't want to go to a school (everything else being equal) that has a very high acceptance rate - it may not enhance your career prospects much (of course this is a generalization and there may be exceptions). Remember also that universities often admit several times the number of applicants they have places for, expecting that most will go to another uni. So a top school that has 20 spaces might admit 60 or 80 people.

get ahead

Not necessarily true. If the paper gets accepted before decisions have been made, say in early January, then you could let the department know this. Also, the paper getting accepted could help you in the case that you end up on a waiting list. So it won't count for zero if the paper gets accepted.

The only way I would do this is to first make sure that whatever password I used at the ETS site is something that I don't use anywhere else and would never use anywhere else. Otherwise, it is possible that a malicious individual could get access to other accounts you use.

That's true, but I'm always very skeptical about giving access to my online account anywhere to people who I don't know.

I wouldn't give unis access to my GRE account. ETS will send them the scores as long as you have requested/paid for it. Sometimes schools ask for a scan of your GRE report, which is something ETS will mail you and you can scan and upload.

I don't think it would be frowned upon to ask. Just make sure that it's not available on their website first though.