OH YEAH

I'm not in MechE... but... doesn't that depend on your research interests?

If you are interested in quantum stuff, Waterloo is the best place in Canada for that.

I don't think this is quite right. I know at Princeton graduate students get charged half tuition, even if they are only taking "dissertation credits". The students don't have to pay it, but someone does: your adviser's grant. Large government grants don't pay as much as you think, because of overhead: at MIT it is over 50% ,at Princeton it is 62%. I quote: "So a CAREER grant for 5 years at $500K (which is standard for CAREER) funds a SINGLE grad student per year, plus $20-25K left over for (1) conference travel, (2) misc (including student laptop, etc.), and (3) 1-1.5 month of PI salary." Here is another: "Of the $580,000 award, more than half is immediately taken by MIT as overhead tax, where it goes toward funding MIT operations in general. Of what remains, most goes toward funding (a) my three PhD students (yes, they apply for and sometimes get their own stipends, but those are harder and harder to come by), ( a postdoc who’ll be starting with us next fall, and © my summer salary (which, following the standard practice, MIT doesn’t pay)."

I think that sort of thing is usual. Our stipends are around ~33k. The university charges half tuition (which is silly, but whatever) to our advisers, which is ~18k or so? Then there is summer support, travel, conference fees, "computing fees", and a generic "overhead" on every grant...

I love advice links, especially on writing. I save all of those to my computer. However, big warning: it is easy to get caught up in reading all the advice you can. This happened to me a number of times... There are a few fundamental basics that you need to know about applying to a PhD program. After a certain point, you should stop reading stuff and actually work on your application--reading advice links is NOT the same as finishing your SoP!

If this is a sincere question, yes. If it is not a sincere question, then note that I bring up Princeton only because it is a school that I actually know enough about to make statements about. It is not bragging; many of the other users on this forum go to good schools as well. What is the point in trolling? I have no more time for this topic.

At Princeton, it costs about $80,000 a year to fund a single graduate student. I can safely say I have never stolen that much.

That is not a reasonable assumption. I came from a very poor family, went to a very shitty undergrad. I know others who have had similar experiences. By saying things like that, you come off much worse than your "suckers who had it good in life". I am in a PhD program because I love research. Your situation is not unique, and your background doesn't give you any excuse to take advantage of others.

My adviser and colleagues are so cool. I couldn't imagine doing this to them. A PhD is a very "personal" thing. I'd feel very manipulative and I would feel like I was letting the team down if I dropped out. The process is tough for us students, but it is also tough for advisers: they are putting time, money, and energy into us. We take a gamble on picking a school, hoping that our advisers are supportive of our ideas, and at the same time, our advisers are taking a gamble on us. Before starting my PhD program I would have been cool with this, but now that I know what it is like, I wouldn't recommend others try a stunt like this. It's a real jerk move.

What you should do is actually ask around to see if you can do research. If you can't, ask if someone will supervise you doing research on your own.

I feel like you might have better luck searching in engineering departments than in CS ones. But I could be wrong.

Oh, I am sure UVA has a great program, it was just a joke... I wouldn't put too much stock into acceptance rates though. I am sure universities are good at figuring out who they have a chance at getting and don't spuriously give acceptances to those that they think they will lose to other universities. I know at the undergrad level the high ranked schools do this all of the time to keep yield rates high/acceptance rates low...

Ally Hacker got into Berkeley, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT, and she is considering UVA?!?!?!

Embedded systems seems like more of an EE research area than CS...

I don't want to come across as a jerk, but I wouldn't have any expectations of getting into a top 10. Maybe not a top 20 school either. Might as well apply for shits and giggles, though. It doesn't sound like you have a lot of research experience. Most likely, your LoRs will be from people who are unknown to the adcomm. This is salvageable, but it doesn't sound like your LoRs are "best student I've had in a really long time" material, and you are having trouble even getting enough LoRs. The most damning thing though, is that masters students are held to a higher standard than students with just a B.S. With all of that extra time in school, adcomms expect a lot of research experience, and I get the impression that most of the contenders will have more research experience as undergraduates than you have had as a masters student. Of course, I could be completely wrong about your situation. You didn't really give much information about yourself. However, I'd aim for smaller programs that have faculty you are really interested in working with, and wouldn't underestimate how difficult it is to get into a top program without known LoRs. For comparison, the vast majority of students admitted to Princeton this year graduated from an Ivy league school/Stanford/Carnegie Mellon/Berkeley/Indian Institute of Technology/Peking University/Tsinghua University. It is possible to beat this bias, but you've really got to have spectacular research experience and LoRs. Good luck, though! If you want someone to read your SoP feel free to PM me.

... fellow bloggers...?

From what I've heard, Cornell's M.Eng is really easy to get into. A lot of (most?) people who applied to Cornell for PhD and got rejected were also automatically to the M.Eng program. I doubt it is as easy to get into the other programs as it is to get into Cornell.

Princeton fully funds all masters students. It's a very hard masters program to get into because of that, however.

If stats is anything like CS or Math, no. Do research.

I must say I don't know anything about masters admissions. I'm curious though, why not also add NYU, CUNY, and Poly to increase your chances of getting in? Is the subway ride that bad?

It would help to know which school this is. A masters degree costs a whole lot, I wouldn't waste money taking more undergraduate courses...

My GRE wasn't very good, but I imagine 720 math will raise some eyebrows... come on, spend a few hours and at the very least raise that to a 750-770. The average at Princeton is almost 800, I imagine the other schools will be the same. I know MIT doesn't look at the GRE at all, I don't think UIUC looks at it either.... I don't know anything about wireless networking conferences. Is ICNCC a particularly prestigious conference? I can't find much information about it, so I assume it is not. Note that IEEE sponsorship doesn't imply "good", the majority of the conferences they sponsor are complete shit. That doesn't mean that your work isn't good, but I wouldn't hype "IEEE OMG" on your statement of purpose. What was your level of involvement on the paper? Were you the first author, or just the guy who made pretty figures? More importantly, what do your letters of recommendation have to say about your research experience? I wouldn't mention "e-learning portal" or "toy car software" in your SoP, this is not research and adcoms won't care. The most important part of your application is a suite of recommendation letters (ideally from known academics) that can vouch convincingly for your research potential. Therefore, it is also necessary that you have 1) done a lot of research and 2) kept a mentor in the loop with your research. Of course, a (good) publication is very good evidence that you have research potential Your GRE doesn't matter as long as it isn't absolutely terrible, and some may say that it doesn't matter even then, but I would err on the safe side. Same for your GPA. Use your statement of purpose exclusively for discussing your past, present and future research, don't waste space talking about your childhood or your courses or your awards. Be sure to identify specific faculty you want to work with!!! Good luck.

Madison gave very few funding offers period. Most top universities (i.e., any private university) will guarantee funding if you are accepted.

tikz, and usually that is it

Could you elaborate more on your profile? What are your recommendations like? Did you do anything cool in your research courses? Where was your paper published, what author were you (or how much did you contribute)?