Undergrad Institution: Oregon State University
Major(s): Electrical and Computer Engineering
Overall GPA: 3.69
Length of Degree: 5 years
Type of Student: Domestic
GRE Scores: Q: 164 V: 167 W: 5.0 Research Experience: None! This was the limiting factor of my application.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: An employee recognition award, an honors society and some scholarships
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Two six-month internships, one of them with Intel
Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Applying for MS in ECE at:
UT Austin - Rejected
Georgia Tech - Rejected
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (CSE) - Accepted
Oregon State - Accepted
University of Wisconsin-Madison - Accepted
NC State - Accepted
University of Washington (EE) - Accepted
UC Boulder - Accepted
UC Davis - Accepted
UCSB - Accepted & attending
No funding offers all around, possibly due to lack of research and teaching experience. U-M would be great but is way too expensive without funding. UW-Madison would also be great, but the professors who I was interested in were unavailable. UCSB offers the best batch of professors, courses and job opportunities for my focus.
I mixed it up with recommendation letters, going with two industry / one faculty for some, and one industry / two faculty for others, except for UC-B, which requires four total. It turns out that I applied to too many universities because I was expecting admission at the master's level to be more difficult.
To anyone thinking about Oregon State - if they offer what you are looking for, do it! It's a great university for engineering, but they don't offer much in the way of computer engineering at the graduate level, and I wanted to go somewhere fresh.
