Edotdl

Depending on your background/interests, Stats to ML/CS is probably not that uncommon.

From my (limited) experience, much of your graduate experience will be shaped by your peers. I believe there is a benefit to having a sizeable number of other students doing research in the same general area so you can share ideas and talk with. It might also be better to look at the size of the program relative to the number of faculty too. I personally do not really prefer small programs.

This seems odd to me. It doesn't make sense to me to only limit potential PIs to having a physics PhD. While I understand the sentiment, there are most likely plenty of PIs strong in physics who do not have a physics PhD.

@myhairtiebroke You mentioned that you also reached out to some professors. How did that go? If they seem to be interested, they might be able to provide some insight on why you were rejected previously and may be able to help with your application.

I'd second bioenchilada's suggestion. My first suspect was the SOP too. Assuming your LORs and SOP were good, I'm surprised you were rejected from every program two years in a row.

To answer your question, generally when people say you shouldn't go to engineering grad school if you aren't funded, it is directed towards PhD. There are very few engineering masters programs that are funded. Generally people will pay for their masters. since the increase in salary with a MS usually offsets the cost of the MS. Usually the funded MS programs will be just as competitive as PhD. It is not unheard of though to have masters students TA classes, but the probability of this happening depends on the program and priority is usually given to PhD students. The way I'd interpret the professors' suggestion is that you should use the MS as a stepping stone to overcome your GPA - with the understanding that you will likely be paying for this opportunity.

From what I've seen, "researchy" industry experience is typically treated similarly to research experience in engineering. To my knowledge taking a gap year is helpful for engineering too and probably has a similar effect as in biology. In general, engineering masters are not funded.

If the courses will be used to satisfy requirements for your undergrad degree (as you stated), then I'd send the transcript unless explicitly told not to. Some schools will say they only need transcripts from colleges attended for at least one semester full time or something along those lines. It's probably best just to ask each school though. Not worth the risk, imo.

You should probably take a practice test and use that to determine how long you need to study to reach your desired scores. I went from ~155 to 162 in verbal in about a week. I took it only once online the August before applying.

While the senior project is good, I think the overall amount of research is still on the lower end. The top schools on your list will be difficult, so I'd add some lower ranked schools if you want to improve your chances of acceptance somewhere.

I don't think graduating early will impact your application much since you'll have submitted your applications already. I think you should be able to get into a PhD program, but not necessarily the ones you listed (not in the field, but they seem to be generally top ~20 programs). If you are ok with going to a lower ranked school for a PhD, I'd recommend you add some mid-tier options that you'd be comfortable going to. Otherwise, if you're aiming for top programs, doing research for a year at a top school should help your application. Although your research experience is reasonable, without a publication, since most of it was done at your school, the admission committee may question its quality (unless your PI is relatively well known). Sorry if this is a bit harsh, but hopefully it's helpful. Also, as always, these are just my opinions and I have not been on the adcom before.

Most likely.

Cold emailing Stanford CS professors will most likely not be that helpful. However, if you know someone that could refer you, you could try that. In terms of next step, if you want to get a PhD, I'd start looking a programs you want to apply to and start preparing your application for this cycle.

I think it depends on the program. If the program does rotations, it is probably not necessary to contact POIs. However, if candidates are admitted directly into a lab, it is probably beneficial to contact POIs to have them support your application (although even if this happens, it still might not guarantee acceptance). FWIW, I did not contact any professors during the application process, but if you have the time I don't think contacting them would hurt (assuming you don't end up annoying them/giving a bad impression).

In general AWA is the least important when applying to quantitative fields. Whether or not it's worth it to retake depends on many factors, such as which programs you are applying to and your other stats. Unless you need your GRE to make up for other aspects of your application, I think your current scores are not a make or break thing - ie if the rest of your application is strong, you probably don't need to worry.

I think this is generally how it's done, even in typical academic lab settings. Usually you aren't working directly with the PI, but rather with a grad student or post-doc. So even though the PI is the one to write the letter, I think they generally ask the grad student/post doc for their insights/details.

FWIW, I applied to EE and BME PhD programs with LORs from only Neuro professors that I've done research with. I'd go with the psych prof if you think it'd be stronger. Is there anything the third phil prof could add to the other two LORs?

You might get a desktop for your office, so you could do the heavy computing there. Durability, portability, and battery life are probably the most important, IMO.

This may vary from school to school, but generally this will be the conversion for a 4.0 system: A/A+: 4.0 B+: 3.3 B: 3.0 C+: 2.3 C: 2.0 D: 1.0 F: 0.0 For a 4.3 system everything is the same, except count A+ as 4.3 now. Hope this helps. Note: Since it seems like you do not have '-' grades, keeping your current (4.5) grading scale, but just counting all A+'s as 4.0's is a valid conversion too (ie B+,C+ are 3.5,2.5 respectively). Generally they will ask for an official transcript anyways, which will be what they focus on. If they ask for your GPA on the application form, they may specify whether you should: report the original, report a conversion, or leave it blank.

Does your school have a 5th-year master's type program? From what I've heard, getting into those programs is much easier and may be more lenient about any GPA cutoffs.

Could you describe your 4.5 scale? If you are given letter grades (ie A, B, C, etc.), does using the standard 4.0 weighting not work?

I don't have any experience at the schools you listed, but I feel like your research experience is on the shorter end, given that you are applying for PhD programs and need to offset your GPA. Of course, quality>quantity but 8 months really isn't that long. Did you have work experience through an internship or something before too? For an engineering program that could help. You'll also likely need 3 LORs, have you thought about who will be writing them? It's best to have all 3 come from research advisors.

I believe it is generally possible to change your PI at most schools. However, the level of difficulty will vary between schools/programs. In programs that offer a rotation you might not even need to decide on a PI until your second year. While in other programs, your acceptance might be contingent on available funding from a specific PI. In the latter case, in order to switch PI's you will need to find another advisor who is willing/able to support you or find your own funding.

I don't have personal experience with MS admissions, but I think you should have a reasonable chance for a MS at the schools you listed. A PhD might be harder since your research experience is probably around average and your GPA/GRE is on the lower end. Although ideally you'd want a 165+ Q as an engineer and to offset the GPA, I'm not sure how much of a difference it will make in the end. You might be better off focusing on writing the best SOP you can and/or reaching out to professors that might be able to support your application. Good luck.

I'm not familiar with the field, but that is why I put research in parenthesis. I'm working under the assumption that there is some type of experience (eg. research, observation hours, internship, volunteer, etc) that benefits the application. Once again, I am not familiar with the field, but my general impression was that for mid to low ranked schools GPA and GRE matter significantly more and may be one of the major factors. However, for top schools, since there are more than enough people with top GPA and GRE scores, they look to other things to distinguish candidates. In some sense, your advisor's advice still holds though, since having a good/decent GPA and GRE is usually necessary (but not sufficient) for better programs. It may also be worth noting that it is generally easier to get more experience versus raising your GPA, after you graduate.