iCyborg

I emailed almost all UIUC profs in the area, and got several interviews. Then I ended up with an RA. I heard from them that, the funding this year is very limited because the state's owing the university 0.5bil. The situation isn't getting better soon. I am very lucky I guess.

A comment I forgot to add is a great paper can get you in great program. So try to make your coming paper great. I believe people at Gatech always produce breathtaking publications, not just publications.

I have a roughly similar situation. I dropped off my undergrad once, and started again. My undergrad GPA is around 3.0, second upper class , which is bad for a PhD applicant . I got average GRE, and a good masters degree, by the way. Although it is not stated, but I believe my GPA hurt my chances quite bad. IMO, the best like MIT, Stan, Berk, etc may be very difficult. But you have good chance at the second best like UIUC, Austin, UMich, etc. By the way GPA is only one aspect of your application consisting of many, such as research, LOR, essays, and so. All the best my friend.

I started undergrad at 18, then dropped out after two years, and started all over again. I was 24 when I got my bachelor. It took me three years to get my part-time master, while working. I will start my PhD in this Fall at the border line of 27-28, which is not too late I think. Matured enough .

Thanks for your information. I've got off the phone with my potential advisor. He I will be receiving the stipend of 18 500/year, which is the "minimum department stipend". I think it is a quite fine amount, I don't know why it is "minimum", because I saw some other guys getting less than that. I did not know if it is 9 or 2 month, so I asked him whether I can take an internship or another job during the summer. He said yes I can have a summer appointment. So I guess it's 9 months.

Thank you so much folks. Your comments are very useful. I was honest with all the professors, by emailing them the truth. Some of them were not happy and cancel the talk, some are ok and schedule the interviews. The good thing is they are very frank, they said what they thought. And I am very happy with that. Somehow, they all know I contacted whom and mention that in the email they sent. So the lesson learnt is never do what I have done (contacting multiple profs at the same time), and always be honest. I have another question, the prof accept to support me implied that I will receive department minimum stipend. Unfortunately, he did not mention the exact amount. Does anyone have any idea what probably is my stipend at Illinois?

I said it's a mistake because I was advised to contact professors one by one. But since it the last try, I emailed multiple prof. I am scared that this will somehow make them hate me.

Hi all, I am facing a very very weird situation. I emailed many professors for RA since the early of March when I receive the Illinois admission. I got no reply. So I thought everything is over for me with Illinois, and I should do a last try. So I email like 10 professor during yesterday evening (stupid huh!!!). Unfortunately (or fortunately), 5 of them asked me to arrange an interview. I don't know why this thing is happening to me. ( Now I choose one professor to talk, and what should I tell the others? I know I made a terrible mistake emailing multiple professors. Please advise me a way out for my case. Thank you so much.

After the UIUC nightmare, I got the admit from UT Austin. This time, the situation is just a little bit better. They offer me a stipend of 17k/year (it's only about 1200/month after tax). Please, anybody tells me if I will suffer with that amount of stipend in Austin. I am scared of starving over there.

Your situation is still much better than mine. I got admission to UIUC Mech, but asked to seek for advisor myself. I started emailing a number of Profs a week ago, but got no reply. It's funny as fuck. They don't have funding to get new students. It's alright, not big a deal. Just reply me saying that. Why keeping silence. If they dont give me a chance to get contacted, admit me for what the hell?

JHU: Why the hell is the processing tooooooooooooooooooooo long?

I've just got the reply from Northwestern and UT Austin regarding to the date of decisions: Northwestern : UT Austin:

I've just got an PhD admission from UIUC. But I was asked to search for funding myself from the faculty. Is it normal at UIUC? Or it is an admission withoud funding (which is equal to a reject for me)? Please advise! /*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++*/ At this time your admission to our graduate program does not include an offer of financial assistance directly from the department; however, it is our hope that you will be able to obtain a research assistantship based on individual faculty needs. Such an appointment�if you obtain it�would include a monthly stipend, a tuition waiver, and a partial fee waiver, along with other benefits. Since research assistantships are offered by individual faculty members, you should contact individual faculty if you are interested in such opportunities. By reviewing the departmental web site, you can identify faculty with active research in your areas of interest. The Graduate Programs Office will try to help you in whatever way we can. /*+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++*/

How about Berkeley? Anyone heard anything yet? Berk is the first university I submitted the application, but still get no news yet.

However, there were very few admits from MIT Mech Dept. So I guess (hope) the official wave of decisions from this particular dept is yet to come.

So far, except for a painful reject from CMU RI, I haven't got any news from the others. Things are boiling inside.

Memorizing word-list for gre is the worst for me. If I had super power, the first thing I would do to the world is to destroy ETS.

Same here! Nothing, nothing at all.

Wow you are all so special. I've just realized I don't have anything unique.

All the arguments in this thread were based on only one from-no-where post. IMO, the way they process applications varies from university to university. The bottom line is that when you check top schools' student profiles, they all are great. This means the process works. And the number of applicants who were wrongly assessed are very limited. Also, I know some guys with GRE below 1200 are in top schools now. So I think it is the assessment of all factors in our applications. If one has potential to conduct successful research in grad school, with their experience the adm comm can very easily and quickly detect him/her out from the applicant pool.

My weaknesses are all about numbers -My ibt speaking is low (19) (one relieving point is some schools waive me TOEFL) -My undergrad GPA is low (yeah I really enjoyed those years )

My positives are mostly in research: -10 published papers, including major conferences and an IEEE transactions. -Start publishing since 3rd year undergrad. -2.5 years as a research staff in Uni -regular reviewer of major conferences. -Hopefully good LOR, but not guaranteed (because I don't know what they wrote, but got no reason to believe they are bad)

10, submitted 8, 2 to go. All are in Mech Eng (Robotics). Is anyone in the same boat?

I've got the same problem with all universities using applyyourself system. They've remained the status of incomplete since I submitted a month ago. I just assume that they are processing the doc, and have no time to update the online status. I think if our applications really lack something, they will email us the problem. So don't worry.