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probably because the economy has people everywhere trying to save as much money as possible. I know a few schools took >30% hits to their endowments at the latest downturn. I'm honestly surprised that application fees haven't gone up, I paid $60-90 per school back when I was applying for undergrad 5 years ago.

email is faster than snail mail and more reliable. I personally prefer email. The cost of mailing is not just the postage, envelopes, the actual letter, whatever other materials they send, the labor it takes to put the packet together all cost money and time.

It depends on the school, some won't care at all, some may have a cut-off. You should contact the admissions offices of the universities you're interested in and ask how heavily they weigh the GRE.

I kid not. But as I said, only do it if you feel comfortable with them. I know the administrators in my college well enough that I'd ask them about it if I were in a situation like this. This is, of course, completely dependent on your relationship with your department/college office. I mentioned it because administrators have a wealth of knowledge not only about the related regulations but probably also of instances where it's happened in the past.

you can also email ETS with your confirmation number and date of the test and ask for the registration number.

from what abc said you should probably drop Toronto. your list might look like Berkeley, Stanford, UIUC, UT-Austin, Penn State, U M, Oregon State. you may want to add one or two pure safety schools. you might also look at some of the other top schools and make some switches to your list if you find schools/cities/faculty that you particularly like.

I think most schools frown upon it if he/she is currently your student but don't really care once they're out of your class. But the previous posters are right, check your handbook and possibly talk to your department office if you feel comfortable enough with them. I've had a few friends during undergrad who dated grad students so it's not uncommon. I've even heard of grad students dating professors.

In engineering, most if not all grad students are funded. If the school has professors that you want to work with definitely drop them an email. What is your concentration? UIUC is very good in DSP and solid state, Berkeley is pretty strong across the board, Stanford's MS does not require research.

you listed some of the top programs in the United States, it's pretty hard to aim higher. you definitely have a good shot at those programs, have you looked at Purdue, Georgia Tech, MIT, Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan, CalTech or Cornell?

I guess it was kind of optional for us. The senior design was a graduation requirement but one was allowed to substitute a thesis for it. In a department that grants ~200 B.S. degrees a year only 30ish opt to do the thesis. Not sure why it's not more popular.

As everyone has said it does seem to vary by University and field. For me, I had a choice between doing a senior design or a senior thesis, which basically boiled down to 'do you want to go into industry or grad school first?'. Senior design had you propose a project and then build and present it, or in some cases a company will come to the department and ask for a senior design team to solve one of their problems. The senior thesis is arranged with an individual professor and it's composed of a semester of research and then a semester to analyze data/tweak things and write the thesis. I do think that the OP's essay would be equivalent of a senior thesis.

hell yes. I didn't get involved in the programs that I'm a part of for the 'glory'. But this is the game we play. Hopefully somewhere down the road we'll evolve past all of this but academia is a area that accepts change one retirement at a time.

I was under the impression that they never identify the experimental section on the actual GRE since it would bias the test taker and render the data useless. When I took it last year I got an extra math section and although I could make a pretty good guess which one was experimental based on how the questions were written, it was never identified.

all good schools and you have a very strong profile. your grades are going to get you ranked pretty highly at the large state schools. What exactly is your research experience? out of curiosity, what's your area in ece? going by the fact that UCSD and UMCP are on your list and not MIT or CalTech, I'm going to guess solid state.

applying under engineering. although my deadline isn't until the 12th I've finished everything and I'm now just hesitating on the submit button. in regards to NSF's broader impacts, I understand it in the following manner. In terms of your research plan, broader impact refers to a number of things including potential applications of your research and how you plan on letting people know about your results. If, for instance, you are working on making a new polymer material with x, y and z properties, BI would be what this material could be used for. So you need to demonstrate that you know why these properties are desirable and what advantages it offers over any current solutions and the impact it could have on academia or industry. Also, you need to demonstrate that you know how to get your research out there, whether it's by giving presentations, publishing papers, contributing to databases or whatever. For your personal statement, BI comes into play with all sorts of things including tutoring but necessarily just of minorities. If you've mentored younger students in your field, if you've presented about your discipline to prospective students (ie tried to recruit young'uns in your field), if you've pitched ideas or worked on projects in industry, if you've started programs or initiatives that provide some benefit, and so on. Intellectual Merit is whether you have the brains to do the science. Broader Impacts is whether you have the 'soft skills' to turn that science into something that leaves a mark, something that can benefit people, the environment or whatever it is you're aiming at. Depending on the specific field BI is expanded to include things related to minorities. For example engineering has a very lopsided gender split (especially at the graduate level) and BI for us will include things like outreach to get more young girls interested in math and science (although this is supposedly secondary).

one of the first things you should do is think about what you want to say to the standard questions such as why do you want to study x? x being your particular subfield Why this school? Why do you want to do research? keep in mind that if this is a technical interview (ie if they're going to ask you to explain concepts related to your field) then they will probably rush the background questions so be prepared to answer them in 1-2 well thought out sentences. For technical interviews, I've only ever run across 2 types of questions 1) They give you some problem or ask some question related to your field and you have to solve the problem or explain the concept. You can prepare for this almost like you prepare for exams or presentations. 2) They give a scenario and ask you what you would do in that situation in order to achieve some given goal. This is harder to prepare for. You may be able to find case studies related to your field online. If you can, print them out, give them to a friend and ask them to run you through it (ie they'll describe the scenario and then you have to come up with an experimental design or whatever and then you can compare it to what was actually done).

I think the GRE is easier than it was 10 years ago because of the average test taker now has access to so much more information regarding the exam. That is, however, a double edged sword because sifting through that information and figuring out what's useful and what's crap can distract a test taker from the actual content. best way is probably to do some leg work and search a few different sources.

They started announcing in March last year. I believe they actually send it out in rounds. the honorable mentions didn't come out til like June.

you can start by making a list of points that the letter should include such as research experience with that professor. Then ask a friend to write a paragraph long "recommendation" for you. The paragraph will provide an outside perspective, phrases that you might use and also make you feel less like you're just blowing steam. pick what you want to include and frame it into a academic LoR format and you're set.

you can check with the schools you're applying to and see if they require anything beyond the general test. I'm in EE as well and I never had to take a subject test

learn the word roots and endings. They'll let you piece together words that you didn't memorize. regarding math, learn the tricks that ETS uses to try to conceal the answer, practice translating word problems into equations, learn the basic geometry laws. There's not too much to the math section, all of it is middle school/high school level, they just insist on wording things in the most idiotic manner imaginable. That being said, if you find that you're doing a taylor expansion something you're on the wrong track.

the general practice is to waive your rights. if you don't it sends the message that you're screening your rec letters which tends to imply that your writers may not know you that well.

I don't believe that they report to the school, it seems like it'd be a lot of extra logistical details for something that doesn't really accomplish anything. However, the reviewers are going to be people in the field so it is possible that you get a reviewer who works at the school you put down.

I think whether the application requires and interview is highly field dependent. Most music programs will probably require an audition of some sort, some liberal arts fields require an interview. If they don't say anything about an interview, it's most likely not part of their process. If you really want be sure, you can just give the admissions office a call.

Here's a short little Wired article from 2007 that counts the dangerous science jobs. Being a grad student made the list at number 6, but I would argue that it should be much higher as everything else on there needs an advanced degree. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/15-08/st_sciencejobs