ComradeTaco

Hello everyone, longtime lurker but first time poster here, I am a current sophomore student of civil engineering at WPI. Right now I'm sustaining a 3.94 GPA, and have also secured a 8 month construction internship at a large environmental and water firm. If reading these forums are any indication however, a high GPA is not nearly enough to secure a spot in a top tier masters program. Things to gain before I graduate include: A substantial amount of research experience High GRE scores, especially quantitative Recommendations that glow like a nuclear reactor My greatest interest for my masters is in transportation engineering. I would like to put myself in a place where I could be considered a serious applicant for MIT or UC Berkeley. I do not wish to pursue a Ph.D at this point in my life. I have had some issues so far. I approached a professor on getting actively involved in some transport related research, but I was told that we have none this academic year. I also feel like I may just be getting exclusively generic credentials while failing to demonstrate that I would meet the actual demands of the schools I hope to apply to. My question to you fine people is: What did you do to make the time before your application count?