tulips

Does anyone know when MIT's recruitment weekend(s) is/are?

Any information about recruitment weekends would be great! On a less important topic, even after reading other threads on it, I still don't know what I should wear to these visits haha. Also, if you don't mind me asking, how are you liking grad school so far?

I downloaded Magoosh's GRE vocab flashcard app on my phone and would flip through them whenever I had the chance (on the bus, on the way to somewhere, waiting for something, etc).

Congrats, ducktape! Ann Arbor is a great place to be, IMHO.

Congrats, cafe_au_lait! Haha yeah I'm starting to realize that too. I wish there were more ChE applicants on here too but maybe more will show up once more notifications start rolling out.

I was the one who submitted the result. Not sure who else may have heard back yet, but I also don't personally know anyone who applied there. Sorry I'm not more help!

The Results Search (above taskbar) is a really useful tool, but keep in mind that this is just a small sample pool (Grad Cafe-rs who actually post their results). From looking through the Results Search, I see one post about an interview from Johns Hopkins on December 23 and a couple from UCSF on December 17 and 18.

Congrats! I may message you later about it. I'm assuming you're going to the recruitment weekend in March? I wish they had two options for us. That weekend looks like it's going to conflict with at least two other schools' weekends.

Hi all. Figured I'd bump this since acceptances/notifications have been trickling in (personally and from obsessively checking the results search). I'm starting to think I applied to too many schools hah, but I guess better safe than sorry!

From the people I've talked to (including the head of graduate admissions at my undergraduate university), I think it's best to try to stick to their guidelines (or even try to make it shorter). The committees have to read so many essays, and I'm sure they would appreciate a succinct SOP rather than a long one. That being said, I don't think you'll be penalized for going half a page over their "guidelines" since they do say "roughly," so if you do think that your SOP cannot be cut down any shorter and that it is well-written as it is, then I think you will be okay. But if there is anything you can cut out, I would definitely do so.

I would recommend checking out the Results Search. People tend to post their acceptances/interviews/rejections on there. After a cursory glance, from what I can see, it looks like there hasn't been any results posted yet for Michigan State, Colorado, North Carolina, or South Carolina. Keep in mind this is a relatively small sample pool though (as in just the people who use theGradCafe and actually post their results. But looks like there were a couple interview invitations from University of Michigan on December 19.

Ann Arbor is an amazing place to live. It's a wonderful college town, not too big and not too small. The school spirit is crazy, and hopefully our football team will be back on the rise soon because even as someone who isn't big into sports, the games had been a great fun experience. There's plenty of things to do right on/next to central campus (restaurants, bars, shops). I can't say I know a lot about the outdoorsy stuff because I'm not a big outdoorsy buff myself, but when it's warmer, you can go canoeing on the Huron River. And the Arb is a beautiful place for walks and such. However, it does get cold fairly early, which limits some outdoorsy activities (but then opens up some other winter outdoorsy stuff!). I wish I had more information for you. All the places I've had experience with don't allow any pets, but I also haven't been actively searching for a place that would allow pets.

Hi all. I hope this isn't a repeat topic, but I wanted to get some input from you. So I'm beginning to hear back from programs this week and receiving invitations to attend their recruitment/visitation weekends (none of the programs I applied to require interviews, so I believe this would be a weekend to check out the campus, meet potential advisors, etc). I understand the general gist of these weekends, but what should I expect/prepare for these weekends? Are these considered business casual events (so dress up?) or just casual (but not look like a bum)? Although they are not an "interview weekend," how prepared should I be to "impress" the potential advisors? Also, if I cannot attend their official recruitment weekend due to a time conflict, is it common for programs to host a pseudo-recruitment weekend so that I can at least check out the campus, or would this be on my own expense? And if they do host unofficial visits, then how comparable would this be to the official visit? I'm curious if I'd still be able to meet professors outside of the official recruitment weekend. Lots of questions, but just generally, I would appreciate any information about these recruitment weekends! I figure that I will probably send these questions over to the programs in question, but I wanted to garner a general idea from you GradCafe-rs first. Many thanks in advance!

No, ChE doesn't do interviews (at least none of the programs I applied to)

Just an update, I received another call today (and left my phone not on vibrate this time haha). I got accepted! Thanks for all your advice, everyone!

So I got a missed call earlier today from a number I did not recognize, but they didn't leave a message. When I looked that number up, it correlated to the number of a professor (and grad advisor) at one of the universities I applied to (and thus I began panicking and berating myself for keeping my phone on vibrate). When I tried to call back, I would just get a busy signal. Not sure what to make of this. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, especially since they didn't leave a message and because it seems too soon for decisions since their deadline was yesterday. I guess I'll just wait it out to see if they call back again tomorrow, but I'm going to be so distracted for the rest of the night!

Undergrad Institution: Big state school, good engineering rep Major(s): Chemical Engineering Minor(s): Biochemistry GPA in Major: 3.91 Overall GPA: 3.93 Length of Degree: 4 years Position in Class: top 10% Type of Student: Domestic, Female GRE Scores: Q: 170 V: 163 W: 6.0 Research Experience: 3.5 years at my undergrad institution with the same PI (albeit with different projects), two summer REU programs. No publications, some poster presentations Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Some general academic awards/honors, nothing prestigious Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Officer/Executive Board at student organizations, nothing really pertinent Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Applying for PhD (all in ChE/CBE) at: MIT - decision/date/funding Stanford - decision/date/funding Berkeley - decision/date/funding UCSB - decision/date/funding UT Austin - decision/date/funding Michigan - decision/date/funding Northwestern - decision/date/funding Penn - decision/date/funding Penn State - decision/date/funding Colorado - decision/date/funding