MCS_aspirant

the terminator

UMD college park is a signatory of this resolution. I would politely mention to the admissions office/department office and ask to clarify. Congratulations btw.

I totally agree, there is no need of the first paragraph. I would also try getting rid of some redundant words. Example: "One night" instead of "On one specific night" Get rid of the sentence "He was my protector" Just some thoughts,. Good luck!

It wouldn't hurt to be nice to other people.

I would have married soon. Grad school postponed my marriage for at least 5 years

One of my LORs was submitted 14 days after the deadline, but still the checklist of the application says "COMPLETE". Chill till the deadline (or a week past that). Then start worrying.

Fall is usually better because most of the graduate students commence their studies at that time. So it is easier to meet new people who are also willing to get to know new people, and also easier to find housing. I am confused about your second question- what do you mean by job requirement? I am still an undergrad. I wanted to start my PhD in fall. This is one of the main reasons I decided to stay one extra term to graduate in spring with one additional Bachelor's degree. This way I would start my PhD next fall.

I also think the grace period is roughly 2 weeks~ but it definitely varies with university. I would try calling her up, or emailing to a different email address (if she has one, gmail or yahoo sort of thing).

You sure want to do that?

I am extremely happy with my results, especially since English is not my first language. I am unhappy because it can be easily 'cracked'. I simply memorized 4000 words and pulled off a 93 percentile on verbal. Now, it doesn't imply that I have a superior understanding of anything (and I gladly don't remember even one word of those 4000). Another thing- I am in aerospace. I will give you a stack of 100 journal papers in aero, and not in a single one of them will you find a single word that I was asked to find the synonym/antonym of in GRE. Piquancy, Discommode, Vicissitude? Hello.... I am an aerospace engineer. After all, GRE didn't even come close to testing my any of my ability. The time I spent on GRE could have been spent on something productive, say the biographies of college drop-outs.

Honestly, your stats look impressive. But there a huge "But". It looks like you think only those numbers are all that matter. How about your research experience, letter of recommendations, internships etc.? Any projects? These factors carry as much weight (if not more) as your GPA and undergrad institution. GRE won't help you, but a bad GRE (sub-500 in Verbal and sub-750 in Quant) will hurt you. I am from south asia, but did my undergrad from a famous university in the USA (I have a 3.99 too, lol). Unfortunately, south asian students tend to think all that matters is grades. So, they do not invest time in anything else. Not to mention that there is almost zero research opportunity. This hurts them very badly. What a lot of my native friends have done is- get an MS from an 'okay' university, go incredibly well with tons of research, and then shoot for the top 10 schools in respective disciplines.

The entire test of GRE is ridiculous, each and every part of it.

I am really surprised that ETS has given you a pool of topics, and "when you take the test, you will be presented with one Issue topic from this pool." I never came across anything like this while I took my GRE in mid 2011 (old version). Is this pool a new thing, or it has been around forever? If I knew about this 'pool', I probably would have a much better AWA score

Hey people, I have an idea! New facebook timeline has an option of posting "Life Event". I think I will add it as my life event after I decide which grad school to attend. If people think it is not a "Life Event", then suck on that yo loosers What do you people think? p.s. we all need some bragging to live. After studying like crazy for 4 years, we need some occasions to rejoice.

I got into University of Michigan and my GRE has not reached the adcom yet. If your other parts of the application are super strong, you will be fine without GRE. This is what I heard from professors at my university. It can certainly vary. In general, I have heard from several sources what Admitedlylucky said: "I have had more than one advisor at top programs tell me that the GRE is one of the first things they look at in order to whittle the stack of applications from several hundred to a few dozen which they will look at more thoroughly... " Just get above average score for the institution you are applying, and forget about the GRE. Everyone knows GRE is a totally worthless test. How the hell are they supposed to measure the skills of an aerospace engineer and a philosopher using the same test.

The LoRs cannot be from PhD students, NEVER. It can certainly be from an academic advisor, or a work supervisor, or a research scientist (or even an experienced post-doc). The professor certainly does not need to teach a class to write a letter. I would certainly get the letter from the Dean and the academic advisor. If the third letter is from a professor who has taught, that would mean you have a great combo of 3 letters from 3 different perspectives. In the US, most of the introductory classes have graduate students as discussion leader (it varies from school to school slightly). The lectures are usually taught by professors. There is certainly an advantage of having one extra year, but there is also an advantage of getting your degree early and staying younger. I don't think you should feel at a disadvantage due to your 3 years degree. Getting LoRs take a lof effort, and usually people plan early in choosing classes and targeting potential referees. Once I wanted to go to study abroad to Imperial College, and I found out the whole course schedule is pre-set. That made me go to China instead of UK. If all the UK universities work the same way, it would be a little bit of a hassle in targeting letter writers. I sympathize ...

Some schools will require TOEFL no matter what (English is not your first language). I would first get a rough idea of the schools you want to go to, and then check their requirements. In general, I would recommend taking TOEFL for two reasons- 1. To be on the safe side. 2. Get an outstanding score given that your English is much better due to your experience, and stand out of the crowd. A lot of international students apply, and a good TOEFL score may help. And if your GRE expired, you must take it.

I just got into Michigan's aerospace PhD which is in top 5 in the nation. I believe EECS program is at least in top 10, and consequently quite tough to get in. (I have a bit odd story of getting in so early. Let us not bother about it.) I am pretty sure you will get into Michigan with assured funding for 5 years. A cool thing about Michigan is they guarantee funding to all of its graduate students. If you have been able to demonstrate your research experience, I hope you will get in. Your C's and D's won't look great- but you have other things to back up. Also, I am not sure how well known your undergrad institution was. If it was the best in Nigeria and you were the top (or one of the tops), that would mean you are almost in. Also, at Michigan, the professor who would be your potential research mentor would be almost all in all in the decision process unlike most other universities where graduate admissions committee takes in students and plays the major role. Try to contact some faculty if you can asap. Michigan opens on January 4th after winter vacation, and the review would probably begin soon afterward. Michigan has an Applied Physics program through aerospace department, and the usual EECS program. I assume you applied to the EECS program. I was bit confused because you said "Engineering Physics" which is an undergraduate only program at Michigan. I can tell you have a similarly good shot at berkeley, UIUC and Gatech (since they belong to the same tier as Michigan). For MIT and Stanford, no one probably can say for sure even with 10 patents and 20 journal papers. And I am curious to find out about MIT and Stanford myself (I am also waiting for decision from these).

I kind of disagree with your straight "No". I mean- it is better to submit something and have the application complete than an incomplete app that is not going to be considered anyway. If the 'friend'/'colleague' is in somewhat supervisory role (e.g. you were an intern, and your referee is an intern coordinator), you may get away with it.

Not a chance. Get some random letter from a colleague or a supervisor or whoever you can. From my experience, your application won't be even complete without 3 letters. The schools usually send an email that 'your application is complete' once you have submitted everything.

I would suggest sending them right away. GRE scores matter very little (from my little experience with grad admissions so far). After you submit your app, most of the schools will take you to a 'status/tracking' page (definitely if they are using collegenet). On that page, you should be able to see whether the schools have received your GRE scores. Also, why so worried about schools not getting GRE scores? Almost all the schools will notify you of your application status sometime after the deadline and will accept the scores you report yourself for reviewing purposes. You will have a chance to re-submit the scores if they missed it.

Yes, almost all the schools have 2-3 check boxes that ask about how you compare with your peers in academics, in research bla bla bla. Even one school had a textbox asking to comment on teaching ability etc in one or two sentences. Now the inevitable follow up question is how do I know. Well, one of my referees was kind enough to show me a print out of the forms. She said I should know what information they are asking of her.

I hear you folks. I have been waiting and waiting for Stanford app to be up as I want to register my referees to all the universities at the same so that they would get a batch email and won't get lost trying to find all the emails from the 8 schools I am applying to. Also, it is a reminder to keep your expectations low even if you get into the most amazing school. I mean, they can't even get their application running in due time. I go to a top 5 aerospace undergrad program, and the most famous professors are the shittiest teachers.

The title says it all. Lot of other applicants have the same question. Is it worth paying almost $100 to an essay review site like essayedge.com? Especially, if you used such a site, was it helpful at all? I am an engineering student hoping to start graduate school in fall 2012. Thank you!

The thing is- MIT Aero clearly says "Please submit only three letters of recommendation, using the electronic recommendation service that is part of our online application. Our online service will only allow for the submission of three letters, and our committee will not accept further paper recommendation letters." Any further thoughts? I will certainly send 4 letters whichever universities possible.