ghanada

ok let me preface my post by the fact that I am similar to the OP. I am a short, nerdy asian engineer and didn't start dating until college. However, I have had some great relationships since then, all at least 1.5-2 years long and no one night stands or anything. Some people might think this is terrible advice but I think it is worth reading the book "The Game". Now don't read that book as a manual or "how to" guide. Read it as an interesting and entertaining story, but pick up on the social constructs that are described. There is some good advice about self-confidence and alpha male mentality that a lot of guys never take the time to think about. There are definitely some ridiculous tactics and stories in there, but underneath it all the sociology of it makes sense. It has really helped me and the way I go into new environments and meet new people. I was always the typical "nice guy" and didn't get why nice guys finish last. But after reading the book I understand it and have a better idea of what women are attracted to. Just don't be a creeper. And don't let creepy guys read it, they will become even more creepy.

To save you the US News subscription, this was posted in the forums earlier this year: 1. John Hopkins 2. GA Tech 3. Duke 4. UCSD 5. MIT, Stanford 7. Rice, UMichigan, UWashington 10. Case Western, Berkeley, UPenn 13. BU, UT Austin 14. Washington University in St. Louis 15. Columbia, Cornell, U of Pittsburgh 19. Northwestern, Vanderbilt 21. Caltech, UC Davis For your questions: 1) Try and keep your Quant GRE 780+. Your GPA is a little low, but not terrible. And since you are applying for Masters and not PhD, your GPA doesn't need to be quite as high. It is really hard to predict chances, so the best advice is to apply to a MIX of lots of places--probably some top 10, a lot in the 10-30 range, and maybe a few lower tier. 2) The best way to find good matches is to just go through potential advisers' webpages and read about their research and publications. Assuming you are going to do a thesis finding an adviser that is doing the work you want to do makes the most sense. You can also go through the curriculum of the schools you are interested in and see if the courses sound like a good fit for you. 3) Getting a BME RA would help a bit, but it probably won't do much since you won't really have enough time in there to get a lot of experience, publications, or a letter of rec. If you can pull any of these off in the short amount of time, than go for it. 4) I am less familiar with Masters, but generally there isn't 1 particular aspect that is more heavily weighted. There are a variety of factors. From my own experience with PhD apps I can say that GPA matters a lot, GRE just needs to be competitive (it shouldn't make or break you either way), research experience matters a lot, publications help but aren't necessary, LORs are definitely important, and a good SOP is important. You should probably not just limit your search to BME. Check EE programs as well since there are lots of EE people doing biomedical applications. I particularly do neuroengineering with EEG myself so if you want specific names, PM me and I can recommend people.

Most people on this forum go with 2 options: 1) Only goto grad school if it is paid for or 2) Take out loans I personally went with both options. I first did my Masters and took out loans. Now I am going to be doing a PhD which is paid for. I would much rather take out loans and be a little in debt than ask my parents for money. Especially as an engineer, you will be fine paying off your loans after you graduate. Or you could choose to take some more time off, strengthen your application, and then get into a grad program that is paid for.

strange, I actually haven't heard of age counting against you. I know for admissions, it works in your favor. I'm 29 now and will be starting a PhD in biomedical engineering this fall. My age and extra experience because of that were absolutely critical in my acceptances to some good programs. I have never heard of age hurting you in job opportunities within academia, but I am not that familiar with stats departments.

ohh hmm ok. Strange that your PI doesn't have any grad students. You should definitely talk to your PI about all this, I am sure he can give you a pretty straightforward answer. The only problem with NSF is that they don't tell you if you won the award until AFTER you are admitted to schools and made your choice. So really if you apply to outside schools, it sounds like you are going to be a regular applicant like everyone else, but the added benefit of having done a Whitaker Fellowship. With your credentials and research experience I am sure you will get into some good schools though. I still think contacting potential advisers before applying is always the best method. If your current adviser won't doesn't have funds for you, you should see if he has any connections to other people in your school that would have funds, OR even see if he has connections to other professors at outside schools. Building these connections will really make a huge difference in gaining admissions.

yeah, I meant for my reply to be directed toward PhD admissions. I was trying to say that since admissions depends on faculty sponsorship then your Whitaker fellowship doesn't necessarily give you an edge because your adviser would still have to pay for you just like everyone else. Now having FULL external funding for the duration of your studies WOULD DEFINITELY give you a huge leg up in admissions since you are paying for yourself. So bottom line, I don't think the Whitaker fellowship on its own will help you with admissions. Now, I think I misunderstood your original post in that you are currently finishing this 1 year fellowship right now NOT as a student? I thought you haven't started the fellowship yet and that you would be applying to PhD programs with the fellowship so you would be bringing your own financial support for yourself for your 1st year. But in your case now, you aren't actually saving anyone any money if your fellowship is over. So the money part won't factor in to helping you at all in this way, but the fact that you actually did the fellowship and the experience you got from it WILL help your overall resume and strength as an applicant. I didn't realize you were already completing this fellowship and have been working with a professor at a school you want to goto. If this is the case, I would think you should have no problem getting accepted into your school if your adviser wants to keep you on board and has money to fund you. That is exactly what happened with me at my Masters school. My thesis adviser wanted to keep me and had money so I was basically accepted on that alone. Now if you want to go to a different school for the PhD than the fellowship itself will only help you in terms of what it adds to your resume. You will still be competing with other outstanding applicants trying to obtain a spot. Your credentials sound good so I would imagine as long as your current professor wants to keep you at that school you should have no issues gaining admission. If you want to go elsewhere my advice still stands that you should apply to LOTS of schools since there are really no "sure things" in terms of chances.

hmm that fellowship is only 1 year right? Having it is definitely better than nothing, but I am not convinced that it will help you with admissions the way having full external funding for all years would. That is because advisers are usually funding your way so they would definitely favor someone with full external fellowship all years. And for lots of BME programs, the 1st year isn't funded by a professor, it is funded by the school until you find an adviser that agrees to fund for you--unless of course the school is on a "match" system in which case this is an agreement made from the start. So this means that 1st year funding wouldn't affect them at all and they wouldn't really save any money with you. I would just be VERY cautious of what schools offer you for admissions since they might not say anything about funding after your fellowship is over. You better make sure there will be an adviser to fund you after that 1st year. Make sure you get offers in writing and be weary of schools saying things like "after your 1st year you can apply for RA or TA fellowships". While that may be true, it isn't guaranteeing you anything and that would be pretty scary to me. All of my PhD acceptances this year came with signed contracts that said I would be guaranteed X dollars for the duration of my studies. They were very specific in costs and breaking down my pay. Make sure you get something like that before accepting an admit. In general, apply to LOTS of programs because competition is fierce right now. Check out the BME PhD Applicants thread in the engineering forum and you can see how strong the applicants were and the types of schools we got admitted to. I've heard of quite a few people getting 0 admits! I was super cautious and applied to 18 schools, but luckily got 3 admits. There were definitely times during the process when I was sure I wouldn't get in anywhere and would have to look for alternative careers. You just never know how it goes. The best thing you can do to prepare for apps is start contacting potential advisers. If they want you and have funds for you after you fellowship, you should have no problems gaining admission as long as you are a decently competitive applicant. Best of luck to you!

@renoona - Are you going to reapply next year? The west coast was ESPECIALLY tough this year. I applied to a whole bunch of those schools - UCLA, USC, UCB/UCSF, UCSD, Stanford, UW and I got rejected from all of them as well. I heard from someone that got into USC that they only accepted like 7 people this year because they overaccepted last year. I also knew some people that got into MIT but not Stanford. I think the budget problems have really made those schools overly selective. I got into 3 top 15 BME schools but still got rejected from UCLA and USC which aren't even in the top 25! It is frustrating too since 2 of my 3 LORs came from UCLA professors and I really wanted to go somewhere on the west coast. Anyways, as renoona said, definitely apply to a mix of schools. I applied to 18 schools, got 3 acceptances. So don't be afraid to apply to lots of places and pick some that are not top tier. However, don't just pick random schools as "safety" schools because that doesn't really work for PhDs. You need to make sure you can find people that are doing the work you want to do.

I'm currently finishing up my M.S. at BU in a BME lab (although my deg. is in EE). I started out BME but switched to EE. I was actually accepted to BU's BME PhD as well, but ended up choosing to goto University of Michigan instead. Phd and MD are EXTREMELY different paths in life. You need to sort that out yourself regardless of the schools involved. I personally think doing med school without being passionate about healthcare is crazy. I personally wouldn't want to be treated by someone whose only reason for doing med school was because that is what their parents wanted. Honestly, figure out what YOU want to do. If you want to be a professor and do research, the obvious path is PhD. If you want to do clinical work in the the healthcare industry than do med school. Neither is more guaranteed success than the other. I know plenty of grads from BU BME PhD and they are fine. The success you achieve is completely up to you. If you happen to go into a popular field, work with good people, and do good research and publish, I am sure you will be incredibly successful. If you choose unpopular work and aren't a good researcher than you will probably struggle. Graduating from BU with a BME PhD will definitely give you opportunities for professorships. But whether or not you get a tenured professorship at your desired university is completely a gamble and depends on a billion factors. By the way how have you not decided yet? BU required decisions to be made by April 15th.

I think CA is completely what you make of it. That is the beauty of the state, it has everything you can possibly think of and if you are ambitious you can make live in any style you want. I was born and raised in CA, lived in various places for 26 years, 8 of which were near UCLA. I think @Bimmerman is really generalizing a lot, which you can't do for CA because literally every 20 min drive brings you to a new, different city and each has a completely different vibe. I lived in some cool areas near LA like Redondo Beach where I could surf within 15 min, snowboard within 1 hour, hike within 15 min, and the population is 66k people. So basically everything he said he wanted. Also, the roads in CA aren't that bad, it is all relative. I live in Boston now and I can confidently say that the roads here are 10 times worse because of the snow and salt. I used to have a motorcycle in LA and since roads are a serious for bikes I know that they aren't that bad at all. Again, I think cost of living is also very relative. CA is actually cheap compared to Boston and NY. It is more expensive compared to the midwest. But people are paid accordingly and the standard of living is really no different there than it is anywhere else. It really is what you make of it. At the height of my time there, I was living ~1 mile from the beach. I started my morning with a 20 min motorcycle ride to work along the beach, surfed at sunset after work, ate dinner at 1 of millions of great restaurants, enjoyed a jazz bar/club after dinner, and ended my night with a beautiful hike with 0 people around and meditated, all while the temp. was 70 degrees the entire day/night. Not a lot of places in the world I could easily accomplish this on a regular basis.

I have an MS in EE, did research and a thesis, and will be starting a PhD at U Michigan this fall so hopefully my advice is applicable to you. Why are you doing an MEng if you know you want to get a PhD? Can you switch to MS? I would seriously try and switch to an MS if there is any way you can swing that. If you are dead set on getting this MEng degree than you need to take it upon yourself to do research. This will mean you will have to do extra work and probably do it on a volunteer basis, maybe even take an extra year to gain more research experience. One of the TOP factors in PhD admissions is research experience and your potential as a researcher. Gaining lots of research experience adds a lot to your resume: you will be able to pick a subject that interests you and show that you are willing to work in a research setting to study that subjects, if you do good work you should be able to PUBLISH (which really makes you stand out), and you will also have LORs that speak highly of your ability to be a good researcher. Universities that you would want to attend for your PhD are based on research. The rankings and such highly depend on how much research funding the faculty brings in and how productive they are in publishing. So you can imagine how much value these faculty members place on applicants that have shown strong experience in research and publications. Also, by doings lots of research you will be able to specialize yourself and make you attractive to potential advisers that need specific skill sets. For reference, I had an undergrad GPA ~2.5, my MS is from a school not nearly as prestigious as UMD, but all my PhD acceptances were at top 15 engineering schools. I have about 4 years of full-time research experience, 5 first author pubs, and another 10+ secondary author pubs. All the places I got accepted told me they specifically accepted me because my research background was very valuable to their research and that they needed someone with my skill set. I would have been rejected otherwise since my undergrad GPA is so low. Also, this goes without saying, keep you GPA up. If you want to goto a top 10 school, you should have a GPA ~3.8.

@buddy16cat - I think you are reading too much into your rejection. After going through grad school applications for 3 seasons now, I have learned that there are just too many factors to pin it down to 1 particular thing. And believe me, the prestige of your undergrad or Masters school has very little to do with your chances of acceptance at a top 10 school. Once of the larger factors in your acceptance comes down to which advisers you match with and whether or not they have space/money to fund you. I know I was personally told by faculty members at schools I applied to that they were interested in me but didn't have any space for me and weren't accepting any more grad students into their lab. For this alone, I was rejected by the school since there wasn't anyone else that I could work with. Had I applied last year or maybe next year with my same stats, I would have been accepted. Timing is a HUGE gamble year to year and this alone could be the reason you didn't gain acceptance. Now, I think the reason you tend to see a lot of top undergrad universities represented at top grad schools is not simply because of the prestige factor, but rather because of the fact that the typical student from a top undergrad uni will be a strong applicant. It has little to do with school name though. It just so happens that school's with big names tend to be big research universities that also tend to attract top professors. This means that the students there will have access to lots of research opportunities and these top professors. So there is a good chance that if you did research there, the people you worked with would be well known and well respected so that when you apply to grad schools they will know you came out of a good lab and you probably have letters of rec from names they are familiar with. It just makes sense. And since you are applying for a PhD, research experience is one of the MOST IMPORTANT factors in gaining acceptance. Unfortunately, gaining that research background is often harder to do in small liberal arts schools. Were you able to do do substantial research work and publish? I also think you need to realize that large states schools with separate regional campuses are actually considered COMPLETELY different schools and they even compete with each other for students, funding, professors, etc. I know the diplomas are more or less the same and it seems like they should be more unified, but that is just not the case. You are better off considering them as having nothing to do with each other and that they happen to share part of their names. I did my undergrad at UCLA so I can personally attest to this fact since nobody would ever consider UC Merced to be in the same league as UCLA. UC Berkeley students also consider themselves to be superior to UCLA, which in fact might be true. I'm a realist, I understand that as good as UCLA is, UC Berkeley is better. I am also going to be attending University of Michigan - Ann Arbor for my PhD. Anyone in Michigan would clearly favor UMich - Ann Arbor over the other campuses. I know you don't think UIUC is an "elite" campus, but in the science/engineering realm is certainly is. Like I said, I am coming from UCLA but I respect the hell out of UIUC and it was one of the few schools outside of Cali that I even knew of.

I agree with everyone else, they never "encouraged" you to apply. Even so, I don't think any school will specifically say not to apply. They obviously want lots of applications for more money and more prestige. Also, you should understand that GPA isn't everything. I have heard LOTS of first hand accounts as well as from admission committee members that it is not uncommon to reject 4.0 GPAs. I have definitely even heard of a person with a 5.0/5.0 GPA at MIT getting rejected from a PhD. There is so much more that goes into the application decision. If you are planning on re-applying, your best bet is to speak to the POI that you wanted to work with there and try and get that professor to offer funding for you. This is a nearly surefire way of getting admitted into a program. Especially if one of your LORs knows this person personally, you should have tried to get an in through this route.

I agree with the last 2 posts completely. This is one of the most ridiculous pairings I have seen in this forum, which is why you are getting the ridiculous responses so far. If this is a serious question, then you are wayyyyy too into rankings and fail to understand that rankings should be one of the lowest factors used in making decisions for a PhD. Particularly if you are choosing between 2 schools in the top 10, the difference between like #1 and #10 for US News is like a fraction of a point on their scaled scores and the particular positions of schools shift around practically daily. From this point on, forget about rankings and in your mind consider the schools to be tied for #1. Now think about everything else that really matters. Have you found your advisers in each school? Who do you have a better relationship with? Which school has better projects for your thesis? Who has better connections to the industry you want to go into? Do you prefer a large public school vs a smaller private one? Will there be a significant difference in cost of living? Seriously, over analyzing the difference between #1 and #2 on US News is like taking advice from a 5 year old on who was a better basketball player between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

Hi asterisk, I don't know if there is a "right" answer for your situation, but I will give you my opinion. For me, I have an undergrad degree in neuroscience, M.S. in EE, and will be starting a BME PhD this fall at University of Michigan so I am in a similar field as you. Regarding a PhD or not, to me, the rule of thumb is don't do it unless you need it. So I think you really need to sort out exactly what type of job you want and whether that is something you can achieve with your current skills and background or if a PhD is NECESSARY in order to do that. Keep in mind that you just happened to choose 1 particular job for 1 company in 1 specific field of engineering. There are thousands of other jobs with completely different daily duties that you could have gone for, so try and not let your current job completely shape how you see the entire BME or ChemE field. Try and explore other branches and learn more about other jobs that are out there. With that, I think the #1 differentiating factor with a PhD vs Masters vs BS is research. The PhD is completely founded on the basis of research. You should figure out if research is what you want to do or not. It sounds like you did a few research jobs in undergrad so it seems like you should know whether that is path you want to explore or not. Doing a PhD will require at least 4-5 years of intense 80+ hours per week of research. This includes (but not limited to) reading papers, lots of meetings, countless experiments, meticulous data analysis, tedious powerpoints, non-stop grant writing, traveling to conferences, and massive investment into 1 specific topic of interest to write a extremely comprehensive thesis on. As I have witnessed and been told by many PhD students, if you don't have a crazy passion for research and the that 1 thing you are studying, you will hate grad life and doing the PhD. This is why like half the grad students never finish the degree. Now, getting a PhD doesn't mean you will be limited to research when you graduate, but that tends to be the most common path for people. For instance, I am 50/50 torn on whether I will stay in academia or goto industry. If I stay in academia I would want to be tenure-track professor, have my own research lab, maybe have a start-up side company on the side, and maybe do some consulting on the side. If I goto industry, I would probably want to be a research director for a start-up or biotech company and basically lead the R&D department. So either way, I know that a PhD is necessary for both of these paths so in my case I consider it necessary. In fact, the work I want to do (neuroengineering) is so new and immature that it is really hard to get into without an advanced degree and almost all industry development is in the start-up sector. It sounds like you aren't particularly interested in academia. So if you want to do industry, try and find jobs that interest you and reach out to people with those jobs. They will tell you whether an advanced degree is necessary or not. Say you are interested in product development, most industry people I have talked to said a PhD isn't necessary at all and a BS is fine, but a MS would be preferred. I am not super familiar with all fields of industry and all types of positions, but it seems to me that if you goto industry (besides a start-up) than having a PhD wouldn't be necessary unless you are leading research teams. ok, if you do decide a PhD is right for you, here are my answers to your questions: 1. Being out of school will only HELP your application. Most advanced degrees give favor to older applicants, especially if you work in the field during your time off because it shows you know what you want to do and are committed to the program. I am 29 for reference. 2. Your tech GPA is decent, but you didn't mention your overall GPA which is also important. From my own experiences and from other applicants I have talked to, having above a 3.5 GPA is a good starting point and won't exclude you from any programs, but the best programs tend to accept applicants with around 3.8+. However, your work experience and undergrad research will surely help you out because PhD admissions favors research experience a lot. Study hard for the GRE, try and keep your Q score above 780 and your V above 550. For LOR, I would advise you to use your 2 research letters from professors and 1 industry letter. I would approach your writers no later than late summer/beginning of fall about this and make sure they can write you a STRONG letter of rec. In your SOP, be sure to highlight your research skills and experiences. Also, try and show your job skills are relatable to research skills and how that experience has lead you wanting to do the PhD. Be specific in the types of projects you would want to work with and name a handful of professors that you are interested in and how you would fit into their labs. Also, start contacting potential advisers at all the schools you want to apply to at the end of summer/early fall and tell them about your interest in their labs, your background, and whether or not they are accepting students and would be interested in you. Try to make these e-mails concise but yet specific to each lab or else the professors will know you are just mass e-mailing people and will be less likely to respond. If there is a person you fit really well with and you can make a strong connection with that professor, maintain contact through the application process and that professor should be able to get you admission if they have funding. That is how I got 2 of my acceptances. 3. (answered this already) 4. I don't know a whole lot about BioMEMS, but I know almost every top BME program that I applied to had professors doing work in that field. You might also want to browse professor profiles in the EE dept because I know BioMEMS people tend to be in either BME or EE. In fact, if you are interested in the technical side of BioMEMS at all, I would actually recommend you consider applying for EE PhDs as well. Especially for industry, EE is a more favored degree and will open up more doors. Since you already have a BME/ChemE background, if you were to get an EE PhD you would basically be well qualified or any type of biotech job in industry. This is the reason I specifically did my M.S. in EE even though I knew I would do my PhD in BME. ok, hope that helps, feel free to message me if you have any questions about the things I said or anything else. I have spent a lot of time in grad school, research, getting advice from a wide variety of sources, and doing lots of apps (I applied to 18 schools, and this is my second round doing apps).

I agree with all the other comments, you can overcome a bad undergrad GPA, but it takes a lot of extra work to make up for it, connecting with the right people, and a dose of luck. I also think it is ABSOLUTELY important to address your GPA in your SOP even if you don't have extenuating circumstances. I just said that in undergrad I was young and lacked focus and had no intentions of wanting to do grad school so I just cared about passing classes. But then I showed how once I figured out my goals I worked 10 times harder than everyone else to achieve great things and set myself on the correct path toward grad school. Doing this at least shows you acknowledge your mistakes and understand why you didn't do wel, but that now you have your passion and you are willing to work hard to get there. I had a 2.57 undergrad GPA from a top Cali school in psychobiology. I decided I wanted to be a biomedical engineer so I did research for 3 years, got 2 first author pubs, 10+ second author pubs, some great letter of recs, top 90-95% GRE scores, and then did a MS in engineering with a grad GPA of 3.8. I applied to all top 20 PhD programs in BME this year and got into BU, Columbia, and University of Michigan...all top 15 schools in my field. I will be attending UMich in the fall fully funded + stipend, and it is #7 in the country. It was not easy, it took a while (I am 29 now), and I worked hard non-stop since undergrad. But I made it to a top 10 school in engineering so in the end it was all worth it.

Yeah I agree with you on that summer position. I understand that. That is like being hired as an RA for a specific job. Also, during the summer you aren't taking classes and often times your academic year stipend isn't covered during the summer months so technically in that case you are doing an RAship as a regular work job. But I still think that if you are a PhD student and you are titled as an RA as a means for funding your education during the academic year than it seems really weird to me to count hours like a regular job. Especially since you are probably taking classes full-time, most grads I talk to don't technically spend 40 hours/week in the lab during that time. Granted, with classes, studying, and research they are putting in a combined 80+ hours of work a week, but nobody counted their hours or expected them to be in the lab from 9-5. My point is, if the OP is unfamiliar with how RAships work during a typical PhD program, then I think the OP should probably understand that time spent in the lab isn't counted in the same way a normal 40 hr/week job happens. There is no timesheet or card swiping to log that. Time spent in the lab is an understanding between you and your adviser and if your adviser is a reasonable and decent person, they most likely won't sit there counting up your hours and counting your vacation/sick days. I honestly don't think I would work with an adviser that told me I couldn't take a short winter break because I haven't accumulated enough vacation days or something. Again, I only think this is true if you are a PhD student with an RAship in your thesis lab during the normal academic school year. If you are doing RA work as like a contracted paid position that isn't with your own thesis lab and it is just a regular job, than my comments don't apply.

Read the admission pages of the schools you are applying to. They are almost always very clear about this. They often state 1 of 2 things: 1. "If your final goal is a PhD, apply directly to the PhD" or 2. "If your final goal is a PhD, apply directly to the PhD but you will need to complete a Masters first along the way. If you already have a Masters, you will be accepted directly to the PhD. " Bottom line: if you want a PhD, you should apply to the PhD. Since you have a Masters already you should be eligible to go directly into a PhD program unless your Masters is not in the same field as the PhD, in which case you might have to take a few courses to meet their requirements. Also, it is usually stated in the application or you indicate in the application that if you are not accepted for the PhD that you will be considered for a Masters.

ok well I guess it depends on the OP's specific situation. I have worked as a full-time paid RA (while not a student), and in that case I understand the hours being counted and what not. HOWEVER, I will also be starting a PhD this fall and my official funding comes under the title of Graduate RA so technically I will be an RA as a grad student, which is what I imagine the OP's position to be since this forum is "Officially Grads". Again, if you are a grad student and have an RAship for funding, I have never heard of hours being logged. Your time commitment is usually in the form of your adviser's expectations. And from my past experience and future situation, my adviser's have never counted my hours and got mad if I wasn't in the office unless there was a meeting or something. I guess I just assumed that is how it was everywhere.

Interesting post, and you make some valid arguments. I am not in public health, but I am getting a Masters too at BU and my gf graduated from Harvard last year with a MPH. I agree that BU is extremely expensive and I am sure the school is profitting from you expenses. However, why is this so different from any other school? You should realize that your cost is not just paying an hourly rate for somebody to teach you material. You are paying for resources, networks, recruitment events, a grad experience, access to profs in your field, and most importantly a degree with a school's name attached to it. I don't think you realize the value of having that piece of paper. I know there are successful people without fancy degrees, but that is not the norm and there are plenty of employers that won't even consider you without that degree. Now, I am not saying this is the way life should be, but I recognize that is how it is at this time. You should also realize that you are doing a professional degree and for the majority, these are always non-funded and quite expensive. Think of MBAs, law school, med school, etc. They accumulate A LOT more debt than you and they aren't complaining. They realize this is the way it works and what you are paying so much for has value. If you are upset with BU and their program, that is one thing. But to be surprised that you are doing a professional Masters that is expensive and be mad about that is your own fault. Most people spend lots of time thinking about costs and benefits and decide beforehand if it is worth it to them. If you didn't do this planning and just jumped into $60k+ debt, that was your responsibility. Thousands of people make this choice each year and accept what that means and are fine with it. I have the same amount of debt as you from my Masters but I am not worried about it as I know the degree will pay for itself. My gf has that same amount of debt too, but got a consulting job after getting her MPH and she makes well over $100k salary and now she will pay that off in like 2 years. I can guarantee you she would not have gotten her job without paying for that expensive degree. She even told me that her company ONLY goes to recruiting events that aren't opened to the public and therefore you can only access them if you goto top institutions. This is the type of thing you are paying for. Of course anyone can read books and teach themselves the material for really ANY degree if you are bright enough. But to tell people there is no value in a degree because of the cost is misleading.

I have never personally heard of that school and I could safely say that I don't think the average person in the U.S. would know of it. Most the people over here have very limited knowledge of foreign schools so I mean it might be a good school, but just unknown over here. If you think you want to get a job in the U.S. after your Masters than it would most likely be a better bet to goto a U.S. school, especially one in the state you want to work in. The 3 schools you mentioned are all good, but they are each more well known and respected in their particular regions of the country. Of that list, USC is the most well known and nationally/internationally respected.

wait, so are you guys saying that your schools/labs actually keep track of your hours you are there??? Like you have official vacation and sick days? Like this is a standard 9-5 job? I have never heard of that before. I have worked in quite a few research labs and am in a lab right now for my Masters. I will also be starting a new school and new lab for my PhD this fall. My advisers have never kept track of hours or vacation days. The way I have always seen it work is that it is up to you to get your work done and nobody cares when you are in the lab working. And actually all the labs I have been in allow VPN connections so that you can work from home if you please. I can't imagine doing a PhD and having someone keep track of my hours and tell me when I can't take vacation days. Anyways, if you really need to book plane tickets, I agree with above that if you are going to be in this program for a while than it makes more sense to just book roundtrip plane tickets from your school to home and then back to school. It will more often be the case that you will have to sort out your schedule to visit home while you are at school, rather than vice versa. But if you are set on booking tickets in this opposite manner, I don't think it is a big deal to ask your adviser about this, but do it in a way that you just ask what the standard protocol is for winter vacation time and if it is typical for students to be working over the break or if people are out of the office. It has been my experience that labs tend to shut down between xmas and new years so everyone just takes that time as vacation.

I just want to warn that this is not always the case. It might be true for certain programs or schools but I had a completely opposite experience. My undergrad GPA was 2.6 so I worked for 3 years in a research lab at a top 5 hospital, got 2 first author publications, was a secondary author on over 10 other publications, then I re-took a whole bunch of math/physics/science undergrad courses with a 3.6 GPA, then I got an unfunded Masters with a 3.8 GPA, gained 3 more first author papers, and my GRE scores are about 95% for all sections. I got flat out rejected from 15 of 18 PhD programs that I applied for. I was told by admission committees that my app was very strong except for my undergrad GPA and therefore could not gain acceptance. They told me that as strong as my app was, there were other people that had all the same credentials as me PLUS a better undergrad GPA. So to be honest, I personally believe it isn't true that you can completely overcome a bad undergrad GPA. This application process was very disappointing and I really thought I did everything I could do to make up for my undergrad GPA (which was 6 years ago), but when it comes down to it there are just a lot of other people that worked just as hard as you and never messed up. With that said, I did only apply to top 20 schools for an engineering PhD, and in the end I got 3 acceptances with full funding for top 15 schools. But at the same time, it was not easy and I had a lot of faculty and help fighting for me to get accepted. I consider myself extremely lucky and could not have even gotten these 3 acceptances with an extraordinary amount out outside help. To the OP, I don't know how competitive your field is or how highly ranked the schools you want to attend are, but if it is really competitive doing an unfunded Masters might be your best bet and the best option you will have at this point. Do really well in that and you should have some good opportunities after for a PhD. But be sure to apply to lots of places and find potential advisers to support you.

I applied to U Pitts for the BME PhD back in December and they still haven't gotten back to me. I have e-mailed the department a few times and heard things like "best to ask professors that have money"...like they don't actually know what is going on. I don't even care anymore because I am already going to a better school, but it is pretty upsetting that I spent all that time, money, and effort and they can't even acknowledge me with an official decision.

I agree, the difference is more by field than anything else. You don't really have a "choice" within a particular field. Since you are posting this in the Computer Science forum I will assume that is what you are looking at. In most cases, if you apply for a Masters, it will be an "academic" degree. I think there are some schools that do a Masters in Engineering (MEng) for computer science, but these are probably more rare. MEng degrees are becoming more popular these days and are meant for engineers that want to go into industry. However, as I have heard from lots of engineering professors and professionals, the MEng still doesn't have quite the same respect as a M.S. Professional degrees are usually meant for a specific industry like medicine, law, public policy, business, etc. These are less likely to be funded and are often very expensive. So to answer your last question, yes, it is less likely these degrees will be funded and be offered RA/TA positions. Think about it, these degrees don't really have research components or thesis, so you wouldn't be an RA and usually TAships are for "academic" oriented people, particularly PhDs. Bottom line, if you are in computer science and you want to go into industry, you will be fine with a standard M.S. That is the norm and the route lots of CS majors take. You won't have a hard time getting into industry with a M.S. However, with that said, you still might not get funding regardless of whether or not you are doing an "academic" degree. Funding at the Masters level is much tougher and definitely not the average case. Most funding is reserved for PhD students, while only some funding is given to standout Masters students. You might be eligible for RA or TA positions, but again, they usually aren't guaranteed at the Masters level, so how likely it is you will get one of these positions varies from school to school.