finest_engineering

Thanks for sharing that csApplicant.. That makes me feel a bit better! I really do hope that if I am not getting accepted outright, that schools are waiting to see if I get a fellowship. Although they could just accept me and not offer funding to me, so I am not sure what to think. If they are waiting to hear about my Hertz prospects then I have a little bit of chance of nabbing an NDSEG or NSF too I guess. qpd: The NSF doesn't represent nearly as good of a deal to the school as a NDSEG or Hertz. The latter two fellowships pay full tuition to the school while the NSF only pays $10,500 for the year and the school has to eat the rest. Most of these schools cost $40,000-50,000 per year (summer included) so the NSF would only be paying a fraction of that.

Alice: nah.. I am EE, not CS. I know there is a lot of game theory in networks. I am more interested in the theory per se. I am not really doing EE anymore either though. The best description of the direction I have been going the past year is basically applied math. Octavian: I had great GRE's, 3.94 undergrad, 4.0 grad, a lot of research experience, work experience, a thoughtful essay, TA'd a grad course in my field, and all that didn't merit them looking at my pubs or CV. Doesn't the $100+ I paid them entitle me to having my applications materials actually looked at? What happens if I ask for my money back on the basis of this issue? Perhaps I should wait until I actually get rejected =)

belowthree: I was responding to Michigan who said a conference paper in 'systems or architecture' takes 12-18 months to get from conception to written. This is not true (at least in the general sense in which it was said) as I have generated papers in systems in shorter time frames. My statement about a chip, and most actual 'wet' science in general taking 18 months was meant to be taken as AT LEAST 18 months - so we are completely agreeing. Hey games people! I am doing game theory now too. It is fun stuff. You should be proud of what you accomplished in a summer Alice! Are you still working in games (or planning to in grad school)? I recently got into games and found out how to use a game theoretic approach to a class of problems (my prof. suggested the game theoretic approach to a problem, but I worked out the details and did all the subsequent work). I found the nash eq. and also have a decision process I can prove gets to the Nash from any i.c. I also coded up a simulation. In other words, enough for a conference paper and it took me only a few months. Unfortunately this work was after I submitted my app. I e-mailed the admissions people to add some notes to my file about my recent results, but I think they already somehow decided they didn't care about my application at that point. I feel so crossed that Stanford didn't even look at a single document (my c.v. or pubs) that I gave them the url for. For all the money I gave them I feel like I deserve for someone to actually download my freaking c.v. or LOOK at a first-author paper of mine.

I am in systems and I have written a first-author paper. I found the research problem, thought about it, came up with an algorithm of my own that solves the problem. Then I realized the algorithm was awesome because it applies to an entire class of problems. I formulated this class, came up with a rigorous proof of the optimality of the solutions the algorithm computes, and simulated it. The professor I worked with was an 'advisor' in the truest sense of the word- all my ideas, all my work, all my writing. That is what first author means. There is a huge difference between this and jumping in as a third or fourth author with a bunch of other grad students and a professor. I should know because I have been listed as a fourth author on a paper before. I did a lot of 'work' to get that fourth author nod, but the grad students and professor were calling the shots and the project was their baby. Michigan I am confident you will have this experience soon, it is a very rewarding one to go from a general problem to your own solution, all on your own. I disagree about your 18 month window. This is probably true for the sort of projects you have worked on as an undergrad, as it was for me too. This is because undergrads are never brought into a project unless there is a lot of grunt work and unoriginal coding to be done. In reality, and IN PARTICULAR in architecture and systems, a problem can be conceived, investigated, and solved in a couple months easily. This is generally the case in mathy type stuff. It usually does always take 18 months to fabricate a chip or something, those ttype of people always have much fewer publications. In systems when you can just dream up an algorithm, throw together some math, and do a simulation, not nearly as much time is needed. Your sub field might be different, but your statement was rather general. I am bugged that I actually know how to research independently, and a school like Stanford didn't even look at my paper (I can tell from download stats on the URL I gave them). THis is on top of crazy stats and what I consider to be a good essay. Well wish for a miracle for me!

Not all schools are taking off so possibly.

Whoa. hold on folks. michigantrumpet: Dude, I am not in any way trying to implicate that you don't deserve your admits. I don't know you, I don't know about your work or your field. That was not my point at all. I was responding to someone else asking about my stats because I was not rejected from Berkeley along with some others. I provided them and simply made the point that my stats being good didn't get me in everywhere last year, and probably won't this year. I don't at all think that they accept non-deserving people to these schools. I am merely saying that when their is 10,000 apps for 100 spots (or something like that) that means 100 rejects for every admit. It is impossible (given how busy these faculty are) for there to be much difference between the last 50 in and the last 50 out. My point is simply that there a lot of great candidates that don't get in and there is no simple explanation why, its just the way the cookie crumbles. My point about the third-author was to point out that their criteria cannot be reduced to 'stats', not that someone without a first-author paper shouldn't be getting in. Congrats on your tremendous admissions success, once you get into CalTech you'll have flopped a royal flush. bernard: it isn't easy for US students either, even with first-author papers.

I dunno... I think most people do feel their essay is pretty good.. I don't think mine was that hot last year and I put a lot more work into it this year. I had it reviewed by a friend from college who is now a professional writer for the prose, and a legendary engineer / professor friend of the family who happens to also be in my field. I had plenty of research experiences to talk about and I spelled out specific professors and labs at the schools I applied to and discussed the fit. The only thing I can think my application lacked was my recommenders not being well connected at the schools I applied to. Case in point: A professor I am working for now who wasn't even one of my reccomenders (we had just gotten started at the app. due dates) was contacted by MIT about me... Apparently the 'internal' reference is extremely important to these people. I wish I knew how my app. was received and what was going on.

I went ahead and listed it in my publications and simply noted that it was 'to be submitted'. Some of the apps (Stanford, Berkeley I think) let you upload documents. The paper was 'done' to the extent that i felt confident submitting it along with my application. I am the sole author so I know when it is done. My professor had already gone over and made some initial suggestions that I incorporated and so it is basically now waiting for just a final thumbs up from the prof. The schools can look it over and see that it is ready to go out the door so I felt fine about it. The professor who advised me on the work was the publications chair of the same conference a year ago so he knows what will and will not be accepted so there was that too. I remember looking at some faq's and saw that you should even list 'in prep' papers. I think the litmus test (at least for me) is that the paper be done enough that you would put your name on it and send it to the school in question if they asked for it. I mean apparently one kid here got in everywhere with just one third-author paper. period. I am just starting to refuse to believe that there is any method to the madness. I mean, my app is frickin impeccable and I am hearing nothing. At this point I am hoping they are waiting on my potential fellowship because I have better odds of getting that than a 'true' admit at this point..

stats: grad: - first year MS student at top 10 school - first author conference paper to be submitted any day now (professor is being lazy about reviewing it as the deadline is a ways off) - 4.0/4.0 gpa - research assistantship for awesome prof - have generated results for another conference paper, still exploring some points related to it - teaching assistant last semester for main grad course in my area (systems) - Hertz finalist (one of 50 out of 550 applicants, ~15 fellowships to be awarded) undergrad: - fourth author top conference paper - two undergrad publications (one won an award) - a presentation and two minor poster sessions at undergrad conferences - 3.94/4.0 gpa at top school - GRE 800 Q, 630 V, 5.5 W recs: 3 research advisors, two undergrad / one grad, one was also the professor of the course I TA'd Work: Programmer at a .com startup and also worked in the research department at a capital management firm (researching algorithmic trading strategies). In other words, pretty filthy stats if I may say so myself =). I haven't let the paradoxical rejections I got from some top schools last year keep me from feeling confident about my skills and potential. You can look at my other posts to see more discussion of my experience last year. I really felt like a shoe-in this year, but I have still heard nothing concrete. A prof at MIT did contact my current research advisor and ask for feedback, and he was very positive. I am trying not to stress seeing as I am happy and well situated at a top program already. I am also trying to understand if schools are waiting on me because of the Hertz. I suppose if I haven't heard anything in a couple more weeks when the massive rejections show up on the results I can have some confidence that my theory is correct..

Is there anyone else out there still waiting to hear from Berkeley? I only applied to Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT and was pretty disappointed when the initial admits came up in the results and I knew I wasn't among them. Now I see that 'Berkeley take out the treasure day' has passed and I have still not received word.. which is somewhat encouraging... I told all my schools I was a Hertz finalist, I wonder if they are all waiting to reject me on the chance that I might get the fellowship. Approximately 1/3 of the finalists get the fellowship so it isn't THAT improbable. I am still sort of turned off because I really felt my application was strong enough on its own, but now I am just trying to understand what is happening.

First time poster, I have a lot to say: I applied to grad school LAST YEAR. Some brief stats because I know you guys need to have them: 3.94 GPA from a very good/hard undergrad program 1 article in undergrad publication 1 conference paper ASME, but not first-author GRE: 800 (94%) Math, 630 (90%) Verbal, 5.5 (88%) Writing Work experience as a programmer at a web startup and later for over a year as a researcher at a capital management firm (doing a lot of simulation work similar to what I do in grad school) Although I made A LOT of money working at the cap. mgmt firm, I spent my prime undergrad years there (junior and senior years) and didn't get any publications even though I was doing independent research. I got the following admissions results (all ee, ece, eecs): Accepted: Stanford, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, U of Washington Rejected: MIT, Berkeley, CalTech Other: Turned down for NSF funding. I ultimately decided to go to one of the schools I was accepted to. I immediately felt that two things kept me from getting in 'everywhere'. One being that I didn't have a 'real' first-author publication, and second that I had done well working in a few different areas as an undergrad, but I didn't have a very clearly focused research interest to carry into grad school. Things are going really well here, I am and MS student and I have a research assistantship with a great professor. I decided to apply again this year to explore my options and when admissions deadlines rolled around this year I had accomplished the following things since last year: - wrote for another undergrad publication, but this time won an award for it (this was before I graduated) - was the TA for the main grad course at my school in the area I specialize in (control) - completed a first-author paper in control based entirely off my own ideas, now being reviewed Also, I updated my applications more recently with: - currently one of 50 Hertz finalists out of 550 applicants (nothing from NSF, NDSEG yet) - I have done the bulk of the research for another first-author conf. paper Before I talk more about this years admissions.. a note about this site. Last year I didn't know about this site and I am glad that I didn't. This site gives you the ability to obsess about admissions results all day every day. Last year I just waited, and waited, and finally got all my results. I don't see what checking the results page three times a day and trying to figure out if some school gave out ALL their acceptances yet does for you. Either you will get in or you won't, you will never know for certain what result you get until you are told directly. All the questions I see asked and answered here are all things that an undergrad advisor or professor could easily answer, and would be happy to. That said, now that I know about this site I watch it like a hawk =) even though I know it is unhealthy. Anyhow, considering the caliber of school I am already at and the fact I am happy here, I only applied to three schools this year: Berkeley, Stanford, MIT. I was going to throw in a bunch more, but a bit before the deadline I decided that any school that I wouldn't go to if accepted to is not worth the time and money to apply. Its amazing how long it took me to make such an obvious conclusion. Anyhow, I am beginning to think I didn't get into Berkeley because results came from there and then sort of dried up, with me not hearing anything. Stanford hasn't given any EE results yet from what I have seen. I got some encouraging news from MIT the other day though: My current research advisor is pretty well connected there, I didn't use him as a letter writer because when deadlines rolled around we were still just starting to work together, but I mentioned our research plans in my SOP. A professor from MIT who knows my professor contacted him basically asking for some feedback on me because they are doing admissions. He gave them a very positive response. I feel encouraged by this for several reasons: 1) They obviously haven't thrown my application in the trash yet. 2) My application got all the way to a professor whose name I specified in my application as someone I would work with, which is good. 3) The guy I work with now is very respected there and gave me a very positive recommendation. 4) I would think that they wouldn't have bothered asking my professor about me if a positive response still wouldn't get me in... This information also flatly contradicts the post somewhere up there that said they already made all their decisions.. Anyhow, I feel a little grimy about what is happening with MIT because I filled out their application completely and had all my recommendations sent in so why should they be seeking out other recommendations for me? I would assume that they aren't google'ing every random professor mentioned in an SOP who didn't submit a letter and asking for feedback. There is a sort of buddy-buddy thing going on here that is pretty unfair to those out of the loop. Anyhow, this corroborates my long-held belief that the admissions process at the top schools is a crap-shoot. I am not going to bother feeling guilty about admission at this point seeing as I haven't even gotten in! A few words of advice from a survivor of this process: 1) The 'name' of the school is not that important. The professor you ultimately work for is the most important thing. 2) Your prospects after graduation will largely be determined by your level of productivity in grad school and how well you learn how to 'sell yourself' in person and in writing. 3) Admissions at top schools is so competitive that although the very best students do tend to get in to most places, there is not much difference between the last ten in and the last ten out. Also, once in grad school, I find it alarming how many people still act like undergrads in grad school... 1) They procrastinate, rarely starting homework assignments immediately when they are assigned, but rather waiting until a couple days before they are due. 2) They let work pileup then pull 'all-nighters' and get stressed out and lame to be around. 3) They work on everything as a group. This never made any sense to me. You will learn the material best by figuring it out for yourself. 4) They think of research as 'a professor gives you a task, you do it, then write about it'- rarely do people spend time THINKING about original problem formulations or solutions. My advice- grow up. Treat grad school like what it is, a full-time job. Get up early, work all day. Read your textbook chapters twice. You are investing in yourself. THINK. Spend time thinking about research, not just plugging away at someone else's tasks. You are sophisticated enough to think up a research question, find the relevant literature, read through it, and identify an area where a new contribution can be made. Good luck on admissions!