twocosmicfish

A lot of professors do this prior to selecting their students - they call a very short list of qualified applicants and try to feel them out to figure out their actual selections. This is usually a very good sign for your admission chances, because few professors want to waste time or raise expectations talking to too many potential students.

Has anyone heard anything about UIUC yet? How many spots they have, and when they are notifying people? One person has already posted an admit, but I am not sure if that is official or not, nor in what area.

Well, I had 3 relatives (2 grandparents and an aunt) pass away in the course of 6 weeks during my first semester of grad school. During that time, I also had a niece (who I helped raise until she was about 4 years old) get arrested and get pregnant (unrelated events) at the ripe old age of 15. Stress happens, all you can do is keep swimming.

Handing out assistantships varies from school to school and even between departments. Generally, TA allocations are made by department (or committee), with individual selections made either by the supervising professor or by a committee. Some assignments are made early in the spring semester, others may not be confirmed until August. To get a TA, you usually need to fill out a department application and then interview with the supervising professor(s). The department office can usually point you towards suitable vacancies.

"http://ep.jhu.edu/"

My MS is from Johns Hopkins. UCLA's program (as you are describing it) sounds different than other programs with which I am familiar, although my understanding is that the research project is an option, not a requirement - you can do a comprehensive exam and an extra course instead. IF you are taking courses from the regular faculty, as part of the same curriculum as the full-time students, using the same textbook and materials, then I would not see a huge problem with the program. Do you have full access to the same labs and facilities? Is the range of courses similiar to the full-time program, or is it a limited selection?

There are some up there - Electrical Engineering at MIT typically enrolls all of their initial offers.

The point of a safety school (to me) should be that you cannot accurately know your own competitiveness and should therefore pick a range of schools. You pick superior schools because you might be more attractive than you thought, or might just fit a particular spot well. You pick lesser schools because there just might be 200 people in your specialty who all have a 4.0 gpa, 1600 gre, and 5 major pubs. "Settling" should not come into it - if you have a good reason to believe that you really were competitive (for example, waitlists instead of denials) then it may be worthwhile to try again in a while. But if you apply at ten schools and only the "bottom" two are even a little bit interested, then you are not settling, you are coming to grips with your actual competitiveness. Of course, you should NEVER go to a school where you do not feel you can be happy and successful, and if your lingering resentment will cause you to fail at that safety school then you should not go.

Acceptance rates are only really straightforward for the top schools, where 90%+ of accepted applicants actually enroll. For all the other schools, they accept a lot of students who are well-qualified but were not realistically going to enroll. This would make their acceptance rates look deceptively high. For example, a given school might accept 25% but only enroll 5% as the other 20% go to "better" schools. Given that most schools have this issue, the acceptance rate begins to mean little, and does little to differentiate between different qualities of schools. For example, the 100th best school might have an enrollment rate of 5%, just like the 2nd best, but that does little to describe the quality of the applicants - the 100th best school is taking 5% of a very weak pool. For that matter, acceptance rates are often skewed by non-academic issues - schools in unpleasant climates get fewer applicants than equally strong schools in CA, FL, and HI, but does that really make them more competitive?

"Well-qualified and matched" misses a few points - first, that the ones who really WERE well qualified and matched got in, and second, that the criteria are often very difficult to discern. There might be very few things really discriminating between the top 25% of candidates at top schools, so it really comes down to little things that you might never be able to figure out pre-app. Also, my point was that a good strategy includes some reach, probable, and safety schools. If you get in nowhere, it essentially means that either you applied to too few schools to handle the quirks of the adcoms (the little things above) or that your safety schools were actually reach schools. On the competitiveness thing, it is just a factor of life, and you need to balance your passion against your chances and make some contigency plans. The problem is that people get so sold on the "I'm going to be an astronaut" dream that they don't plan for motion-sickness. Make alternate plans, whether it is a lesser PhD and a low-paying low-security teaching job, or perhaps skipping the PhD and going to a company or government.

My degree is an MS, while full-time daytime students received an MSE (Master of Science in Engineering). And just because 2 degrees hold the same title, they can still be incredibly different - especially when programs have restrictions placed upon them. I stand by my statement that these programs are weaker - the courses are often taught by adjunct faculty who often lack theoretical knowledge and teaching skill, the courses are generally less focused, labs are more limited in time and equipment, and the lack of a research project results in a much more shallow understanding of the material. Of the ten courses I took, only two utilized published textbooks, with many of the others using photocopied notes, often handwritten. Part-time programs often hold classes 1x week, 2-3 hours at a shot, which is a good format only for labs and small discussion groups. There are probably more reasons, but it is late. This is not just my experience - I work for a Fortune 100 company, and I have had it from a few managers that they prefer the full-time degree, and have never heard a counter argument.

If you get rejected everywhere, it basically means you either had a bad admissions strategy (like the guy who only applies to MIT) and/or miscalculated your competitiveness. It can happen to anyone, so try to learn from the experience and try again next year...

I would remember that the more visible tattoos and piercings are, the more they will impact your career. Many universities do not like to see it, many companies do not like to see it, and most government agencies do not like to see it. How much this affects you depends a lot on your field - I can tell you personally that anything on my face or hands would completely change my desired career path. Please note that if you can cover it without appearing odd (for example, by wearing gloves) then you are probably fine. Otherwise, are you strong enough to pass up 20-80% of your potential employers? If there are 10 spots for people with your qualifications, and 5 will reject you because of your visible body art, are you a top 5 candidate?

Ouch - that gpa/gre combination screams out "intelligent (or at least good test-taker) but undisciplined" which is not what grad schools want to hear. Not in your field, cannot recommend schools, but as a strategy I would aim for a masters program at a ~50th ranked school. Do well there and you have a shot at a decent med school or PhD program.

For all those freaking out - the AW section is recognized as the most arbitrary, and is therefore regarded the least. Further, your SOP and any writing samples will be available as an immediate check on your writing ability. If you get below a 4 you are definitely in trouble, but higher scores do not necessarily mean anything. Remember also that the GRE is looking specifically for technical/scholarly writing, not literature - they value focus, organization, and logic, not style. You could be a Nobel Laureate in literature and get a 4 if you are not phrasing your essay in that scholastic manner.

These programs have been around for a while - I did my masters at Hopkins while working under a similar program. Academically, these programs are weaker than a regular program (especially a research-based program) and employers know that - they will give you more credit than a BS holder but not as much as someone with a research degree. It also hurts you a bit in PhD admissions but is not insurmountable.

There are two issues with doing this: First, under what circumstances do they grant the MS? Some schools award it during PhD study, such that every student gets to the the point where they have MS in hand and could conceivably bail. Some schools award it only if certain non-mandatory circumstances are met - a thesis, usually. A few only award it if you drop out - ECE at MIT being a notable example. If you want to go this route, you want to know how hard it will be to get the degree you want before or as you leave. Second, how much do you need the goodwill of the faculty? If you are perceived as having lied to them, getting PhD funding whilst secretly only a masters student, then you need to expect that they will speak poorly of you when asked. Will you need a reference from them at any point?

I have been told by several professors at different schools that applications are up, but the number of "quality" applicants has not changed. Undergrad gpa's and preparation are not shifting much, so you get the same number of 3.5+gpa grads as before, and the ones who want to go into industry generally can - it is the 3.0 or 2.5 gpa grads who are struggling for jobs and swamping grad admissions - but since they have lower gpas and less grad preparation they usually wash out early in the process.

First of all, if your professor turned down MIT for Tufts (in engineering), that was a big mistake. If you have a lead on Tufts and NYU Poly as being BSEET-friendly I would go ahead and ask them directly what their policies are. I only know BSEET-Unfriendly schools. Tufts has a great reputation in liberal arts and especially international relations, but I am unfamiliar with their engineering reputation. Good luck!

Most schools will accept GRE's taken before the application deadline, even though the scores may take a few weeks to report. Anything in November should be fine for December deadlines, so just worry about doing better on the test.

I have some bad news for you - most engineering departments specifically bar BSEET holders from applying for graduate programs. The tech degree is specifically oriented towards application and lacks the strong theoretical base required for research - or at least that is the perception. I would approach this program from the other direction - if people are telling you that graduates are getting into grad programs, ask THEM which grad programs are taking them. If you are interested in grad school, why are you in a BSEET program? Can you transfer to a different program or school to get the BSEE instead?

It is certainly possible - I have two guys sitting near me who are doing that very thing! You just have to negotiate the conflicts between your academic and job responsibilities. For our guys it is not uncommon for them to take a year off from work towards the end to nail down their research, but some work through either full or part-time.

There is no "general stipend" for graduate school. The school will charge tuition and fees which you are responsible to pay. If you are a highly desirable applicant they may offer you a fellowship which will pay all the costs (usually) plus give you a stipend for living expenses. You may be chosen at admission (or apply while in school) to be an RA or TA, as which they will pay all costs (usually) plus give you a stipend for living expenses in exchange for 20 or so hours per week of research or teaching. If you do not have a fellowship, RA, or TA then you have a very large bill which you need to pay plus you will need to figure out how to pay for books, travel expenses, and basic living necessities. Please note that fellowship/RA/TA is almost always an either-or proposition - they do not generally allow fellowship holders to take paid RA or TA positions. Also note that, with the exception of national fellowships, the amounts of the tuition waiver and the stipend may vary considerably - tuition waivers can be 50-100% and in the case of a state school may sometimes only cover in-state tuition, and the stipend can be anywhere from $12k to $30+k per year.

One bit of advice is to take a few practice tests and see what kind of questions you are missing. Boning up on grammar is completely different than vocab or interpretation prep. Also, getting some practice scores in will give you (and us) an idea of the amount of work needed - if your first few tests average 550 then getting 750 will be very tough.