DiscoTech

If you believe that the reputation of the respective business schools is only incidental to placement success, I retract everything I said. Someone more knowledgeable about MEM programs would be a better source of advice. Good luck. Sounds like you have good options either way.

Outside of CS, the brand name of CMU is overrated. I am sure it is a fine department, but no one is ooh-ing over it unless you did something with robotics. However, you're not going into straight up engineering. I would pay attention to the quality of the business schools given the management/operations component to your program. Tepper is far superior to Krannert and, therefore, likely has better success at placing students into management roles.

A lot of schools, even good ones, accept non-degree students abd allow them to enroll in classes that are taken by current graduate students. I did this when switching fields/careers, not for GPA reasons. There was a very good R1 university near where I worked and I took 4 classes as a non-degree student. My professors in these classes wrote my recommendations for when I applied to the graduate program. Obviously you would need to do well in coursework, but a lot of schools (I talked to other people in similar situations) are willing to take a chance on someone their professors have personally seen do very well. The obvious downside to what I did was I had to pay for the 4 courses - $4k total. And I did get an RA for my MS because one of my recommenders mentioned my name to couple of profs looking for students. As long as you are above thay magic 3.0 mark, I think you will have little trouble enrolling as a non-degree student at most schools. Good luck. If you get a chance to get things back on track, work like hell to establish yourself.

Take the fellowship Berkeley. There's something to be said for having the flexibility to work with whoever you want to. Things dont always work out as you imagine with advisors. Plus, not having to TA is a big plus. Just focus on courses and your research. Columbia is a bit of an MS diploma mill and probably asks more of their students from a teaching standpoint than Berkeley.

Now all OP needs is for you to be on his/her hiring committees in the future. I was snarky before because everyone seems to be conflating Brown's well earned reputation as an undergraduate institution with excellence in postgraduate programs. This is decidedly not the case. In fact, Brown (as far as reputation among peers in the respective fields) is a middling postgraduate institution (https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/brown-university-217156/overall-rankings). But yes, the Brown name will impress randos off the street. Public policy jobs are tricky to get. Not all openings get posted and more often than not people tap their network to fill openings. I know this because my SO spent 6 years in doing public policy work in DC. What OP should care about is the reach of Brown's network maybe it is great. I dont know. Placement and network are what matter if what OP wants is to get the right job after graduation. I didnt know either place had a public policy school. Damned if I know. Which is why I havent chimed in with advice on one school versus the other. But from the sounds of it no one else in this thread has much of an idea beyond "Brown haz preftige!" or "No prestige!" OP - Find people in the field who know what they are talking about and ask them. All this thread is good for is arguing over what will impress a rando on the street more.

My bad. Didn't check timestamp on an earlier post from OP.

Cool story.

I get the desire of anonymity, but the quality of advice you receive will be proportionate to the amount of information you can put forward. Such as - are you choosing between Michigan and Harvard or between Cornell and North Dakota State? What field of study? Are you looking to go into academia? Without some meaningful baseline, very little advice will actually be relevant to you.

Pick the best fit.

LOL.

My snarky tone aside, I do not have a problem with what USC is doing. It is actually impressive given that they are diluting the reputation of their M.S. degrees. The one tangible downside, if you are a doctoral student at USC, is that your classes are stuffed with these folks who are just hunting for a credential. I don't know how this affects instruction or grading, but the effect can't be zero. BTW, what USC does is clearly different from what HBS does. HBS isn't giving out online HBS MBAs or watered down MBAs. The folks you reference are getting certificates, which no one will confuse for an MBA from the world's preeminent business school. With regard to the data science degrees, there is no mistaking them from graduate degrees from the respective math or engineering departments. To be clear, I do not mean to suggest that USC is alone in doing this. Columbia (probably even more so than USC) and Penn are in on the game. Cornell plays it cute by calling their coursework-based Masters an M.Eng. Any idea why MIT and Caltech aren't being "industrious?" The phrase "depending on what program" is doing a lot of work here. With the exception of maybe bioengineering, Caltech is by far the better program. So all of this is a distraction from my actual point - USC standing in the overall engineering rankings is likely inflated relative to its actual merit. I gave you my two reasons - (a) external funding for engineering research (#42 in the country), and (b) academic and recruiter ratings on par with schools ranked 20-30. (b) is certainly the weaker part of the argument. Do these reputation scores actually correlate with program quality? The clearest counterpoint is UC - Santa Barbara, which has middling reputation scores, but is probably one of the best 2-3 schools in the country for materials science, physics, and electrical engineering. This is validated by number of graduates they place into faculty positions at top schools. Maybe this is true of USC in fields that are not materials science, physics, or electrical engineering. I don't know. I do think the ability to attract external funding for engineering research is a good barometer of program quality. Clocking in at #42 on this measure suggests that USC is overrated by US News' overall engineering rankings. People funding the research clearly aren't as enamored. BTW, none of this is to say USC isn't a great program. There are world famous faculty there and I would be proud to go there. Good programs can be overrated relative to their peers. I do genuinely think what USC has accomplished with the rankings is impressive.

You might have shell out for a copy of US News' rankings. Or find a bootleg copy on the web (you should be able to find last year's without too much work).

If what you want want to do is work in industry and "start companies," why are you looking to waste time and money a glorified 5th year of undergrad (course based Masters)? Nowhere in your intro was there mention of any actual interest in a particular field of research. If you know you want to go to industry, do that!

US News has put out their annual monkey-throwing-feces-at-a-dartboard rankings. Some schools game the rankings well, while others not so much. Here's my Q: in your opinion, what is the most overrated program? Why? For many years going I have been in awe of USC for being able to scale the rankings despite having a decidedly mediocre program. Here's why: (1) They do a great job of massaging the numbers they send US News. Each school reports its funding totals to the National Science Foundation. Unlike what they send US News, NSF gets the true numbers. No double counting funding that goes to the ISI or the physics department and whatnot. USC clocks in at a whopping #42 with only $65M in externally financed research (https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/herd/2016/html/HERD2016_DST_55.html). (2) Their peer and recruiter ratings (3.7ish) are really low compared to their overall ranking. Now that is just damn impressive. Their reputation should put them at #20 to #30 school. (3) They have ridden their number fudging to build a great cash cow - foreign students fork over $50k for the honor of having USC name on their diploma. $50k for what basically amounts to a 5th year of undergraduate work, but with lax grading. This really is an impressive feat. A program with middle-of-the-road funding numbers builds a diploma mill, which probably generates $50M-100M in revenue. A good chunk of this money likely funds research at USC. MS students are probably the largest source of funding for research at USC! Give them some credit. * On the flip side, UCSB and Harvard always struck me as underrated by US News' metrics. On a more serious note, between ASEE data, NSF data, and citation metrics shouldn't is be possible to put together are more useful comparison of programs? The NRC used do something along these lines back in the day. Oh well. At least it is fairly straightforward, with a little digging, if a school's business model is built around a diploma mill.

It really isn't. (1) US News specialty rankings are only a little more accurate than a monkey throwing feces at a dartboard. CMU's civil engineering department does a paltry $3M worth of research each year. Anyone who knows what they are doing doesn't apply here (link). For comparison, Purdue and UIUC do ~$20M in research per year. And schools like UCSD are at around $11M per year. US News specialty rankings are nothing more than a brand name familiarity contest. Worse they are snapshots of the past since it takes a while for reputations to catch up with actual program decline. (2) CMU might also be operating their CEE program as a cash cow. Did your classmate get funding? I am guessing not. A lot of top engineering schools have moved to cash in on their brand names by offering up glorified participation trophies (essentially a 5th year of undergrad with lax grading) for $50,000 since a lot of foreign students (and a depressing number of domestic students) are willing to light money on fire to get a fancy name on their diploma. In my field, masters programs at USC, CMU, Columbia, and Penn are nothing more than revenue generators. (3) You friend could have had great recommendation letters and maybe your sense "extremely low GPA and GRE scores" is a little skewed. 3.5s are good enough to get into a lot of top programs. (4) Why do you care where someone else goes to school?

If you drop below a 2.75, however slightly, you are toast. Not sure what to make of the departmental minimum since it is much lower than the 3.5 I am used to seeing. If a depart is willing to drop down to a 3.0 minimum I have a hard time believing they would hold hard against admitting a 2.98. Then again, if your GPA dropped that low, it implies a terrible last semester in school. You might be fine here, but I wouldn't count on anything.

Are you interested in getting a PhD or simply like the idea that UT admitted you to the PhD track? If a PhD is your goal, this post is missing the most important part of the equation - the number of, and fit with, potential research advisors. If you just want a Masters, the reputation of the school is certainly more important it would have been if you were going for a PhD, but I would put some thought into where you are more likely to do well. No point in getting a shitty GPA at a Masters program, especially if it is a coursework-only Masters.

If you want a good answer to this question, you might need to post the GPA requirement they are asking you. I say that for this reason - the graduate school as a whole has a first/lower set of standards that all their departments need to meet (usually a 3.0 UGPA). However, individual departments often have higher GPA requirements (3.5 UGPA or 3.5 major GPA). If the former case applies to you, you could very likely be dinged. Graduate school standards are rarely ever waived because they are so damn low. If the latter case applies to you, you should fine (especially if you are funding your own studies). The department would need to file a petition to waive its rules for your situation. Hope this helps. Good luck on this semester.

Um, why did you apply to these schools if they are "doing nothing" in your research area? OK, so I think the I know the answer to this question based on your other posts. Let me start off by answering your initial question - $50,000 for Columbia is worth it for YOU and and YOUR SITUATION. So here's my guess (and if I am significantly off, disregard the above advice). Since you are an international student who is not particularly interested in pursuing a career in research in the US (why else would you apply to schools "doing nothing" in your research area and salivate over Columbia which is pretty mediocre for Mech E), your primary goal is to get a prestigious sounding degree . Now, there is nothing wrong with this. A lot of foreign countries (well, companies in foreign countries) are overly fixated on "IVY!" and it makes sense to play to your eventual employers. Plus, there is the added social capital the accrues to someone with an Ivy League degree in Asian countries. Thankfully, a lot of the lesser Ivies (not Harvard, Yale, Princeton) have noticed the opportunity to lend their prestige for a price of $50,000-$100,000. This is usually a good deal for the schools because it doesn't truly water down their reputations. Most of the people getting these degrees do not usually end up pursuing a career in pure research and ruining the school's reputation among academics and researchers. A good chunk of the students entering these programs already have their sights on management, finance, or the field-of-they day (data science/machine learning). Furthermore, the schools bank tens of millions each year in exchange for handing out glorified participation trophies (Columbia makes $50-100M/yr from its Masters students). The way you know a school fits this category is that they graduate 10 times as many masters students as they do PhD students. Columbia is something like 10:1 (1366:142, link). If you're a masters student looking to get an RA or a TA to defray your costs, you are competing with a ridiculous number of students who are in the same boat. If the transaction Columbia is offering makes sense given your goals (prestige for foreign employers or employers outside your major field), go for it. Just don't plan on getting too much money out of them. I mean, look how they are treating you - you get two weeks to make a huge decision and have to pay a $1,000 deposit. No student on a research track is treated like this. They usually get funding, pay no deposit, and usually have months to consider their decision (April 15 deadline). p.s: With a little digging, Penn (9:1 MS:PhD ratio) appears to also be offering similar M.S degrees and to a lesser extent Cornell (6:1). Harvard (0.5:1) and Princeton (0.3:1) are definitely not yet open for business. Hope this helps.

It is going to be really hard for you to get anything more than very general answers to this question. There's a big difference between a new nano-engineering program at UC Berkeley, which will likely be an offshoot of well-established programs, versus a new program in social media studies at UC Santa Cruz. I understand the need for anonymity on these boards, but realize that it really degrades the relevance of advice you receive.

A. No. B. n/a C. n/a Write a nice handwritten thank you note and mail it their respective campus addresses.

None of them. Universities are never "focused" on one sub speciality of an engineering discipline.

You can either trust the person from the actual program or someone on an anonymous forum who based their opinion on how they think prospective advisors will react to an inquiry from you. Every program is different. Listen to what their people are telling you. 2 of the programs I applied to last year recommended that I contact POIs even before being admitted (admissions and financial aid decisions were one and the same at these places). One program told me to reach out only after an admission decision had been made. The final program (smallest program of the bunch) asked me not to reach out at all. I probably emailed 8 POIs at the first two schools I mentioned. 7 got back to me. 7 set up meetings (or Skype chats) with me. 6 offered me funding. Trust the school to know what is considered appropriate by their faculty and staff.

Given the limited information you have offered, everything @rising_star said is spot on. However, not all majors, not all undergraduate institutions, and not all Masters programs are created equal. In science and engineering a strong publication record/significant research experience can make up for a lower UG GPA. Furthermore, a 3.3 from Princeton is not the same as a 3.3 from Sonoma State. Given my personal experience, a sub-3.5 UG GPA does automatically take one out of the running for fellowship/assistantship support. That said, I am an engineering major with meaningful research experience and degrees from what the dipshits at US News consider top schools. The particulars of your situation are important. A vague profile will get you generic advice.

I guess I'll focus on the the fact that you applied to English PhD programs. Liberal arts programs are under tremendous pressure thanks to the rise of the businessman-university president (see University of Iowa, Purdue, etc ... and places like Wisconsin where the state government is doing everything it can to gut its state's flagship university). Anything that falls outside STEM or business is viewed as a source of cuts (or future cuts). People who have spent their entire careers figuring out how to goose quarterly profits are not going to be the ones to recognize the value of a grounding in the social sciences and humanities. Unless one is going to one of the top programs in the country and/or is open to starting one's career in Europe or Canada, a PhD seems like a dicey proposition.