Snowqueen

I am an international student. Both my girlfriend and I applied to PhD programs and we hoped to go to the same school. We ended up going to grad programs in the same general area but weren’t accepted to the same school. Now that I’m in grad school I can see how difficult it would have been for us both to be accepted together- we are at Cal Tech and UC Santa Barbara and each school has only one person per year per department from each country. We are from the UK and while both Cal Tech Applied Physics and UCSB Materials Science have close to 50% international students this still translates into more or less one student per country in each department for each admission year. I thought I would post something about this and would encourage couple who are applying to grad school to apply to programs in the same geographic area. For example- Cal tech is in Pasadena which is close to LA and within 3 hours of driving time to San Diego and Santa Barbara. Within this area there is UCLA, University of Southern California, California State, California Polytechnical Institute (different from Cal Tech), UCLA and many others (30 colleges actually- the lists are online). On the East Coast, trains are cheap and fast and University of Pennsylvania is 90 minutes from Columbia and Princeton. Drexel is two blocks away. Good luck to everyone with their applications.

Undergrad Institution: University of Washington Major(s): Applied Physics- Materials Science Minor(s): GPA in Major: 3.8 Overall GPA:3.8 Position in Class: Top 5% Type of Student: International GRE Scores (revised/old version): excellent Research Experience: During school year for three years, 2 summers,,2 publications, 4 national conference presentations Awards/Honors/Recognitions: two academic and one service Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutor for two years for 2 classes Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: completed masters and uundergrad in four years Special Bonus Points: I think working as a TA, attending confrences to meet people and taking graduate level classes as an undergrad may have helped. I love the field and can discuss research in the area quite comfortably soI included this in my S of P. Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: I did tons of co-curric stuff so perahps it shows that I can work without sleep :-) Applying to Where: Accepted (Applied Physics, Materials Sciecne of Engineering Physics)- Cal Tech (my top school), MIT, Princeton, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth Declined- Harvard, Yale

Cal Tech Applied Physics and Materials Science had their visiting week last week (Feb 18-2013) and traditionally professors call students they have met and discussed being an advisor for to tell them they are accepted during the next week. Formal university acceptances come a few weeks after this. They have their short list from the studnets who are invivted to Visiting Week, so they move quickly after this. Good luck eveeryone.

We need more information- brief summary of things like jobs, internships, research, papers, conference presentations, awards ...

Hard to respond because marks are only part of the admission decision- jobs, internships, research, papers, conference presentations, awards ...

Waiting for admission decisions is incredibly stressful; nothing really helps except receiving the decision. I have found that looking at CVs of students admitted to the colleges I was applying to helped me have realistic expectations (kind of, I still worried a lot.) I went to graduate programs and found names of graduate students. Sometimes their CVs were at the college’s website, but if their CV wasn’t there, I usually found it on LinkedIn. Or I went to department websites and got names of students who had won awards ... LinkedIn. Now in grad school at Cal Tech- yes dreams come true, yours will, too- I can see that experience seems to be weighted more than GPA- your experience is exceptional and your 3.3 is plenty strong enough to gain admission to all of them which I bet you will see.

Since they could of looked at your application and rejected you based on standardized test scores and so forth, so take this as a good sign that you have made it over one hurdle. Good luck.

My friend received an offer Jan 12 for admission to the University of Washington PhD program in Materials Science. Neither of us have heard from an other programs.

Some acceptances are starting to come for PhD programs in engineering. Jan 08/01/21012 I am a Caucaisian woman in Dartmouth in Engineering, 3.8 GPA, top 10%, full time summer and part-time school-year research jobs in field I am applying in (Engineering- electrical nanotech), GRE (800 math, 780/780), 2 conference presentations, no papers, two academic awards. letters of reference from well-known profs who know me well and seem to like me a lot- one I do research for, the other I TA for. TAed for 3 classes. Taken many graduate level classes adn received 90% marks. Caltec Berkeley UC San Diego Columbia U Penn U Washington- accepted Cornell-accepted Duke USC .

U Penn is a cohesive engienering department- great profs who are very dedicated to their students. I did an undergrad and masters there in a four year program and published 7 papers, went to conferences regularly and through professor's introductions met many many researchers in the field. The profs are very dedicated to mentoring and supporting their students to move on to successful positions in research or industry. (As a change from campus research, I had a summer job as a technical intern in New York that paid $50,000. I reviewed technical specifications of start-ups the firm was considering as investments. The Wharton Association with Penn opens many dorrs in industry, while researcher's connections help for future research jobs. i'm now waiting for PhD application acceptances and rejections. Philadelphia is a great city- not rural Cornell, but vibrant and fun. $20.00, 90 minute bus trip to New York.