Civil & Environmental Engineering - Fall 2018 Applicants

[dkt123]

35 minutes ago, David Silva said:

I did the same. I am just waiting for a rejection to be honest. Fortunately, I have some other great options

Fortunately, I have some great options as well. I just want this endless game to be over. 

[strawberrykat]

Has anyone heard about funding from Stanford?

[civil_phd]

Has anyone heard about the PhD program decision (Structural Engineering and Material) from UC Berkeley, Stanford, UCSD? Have they sent out the first round of admission/offer? Have been waiting since Dec.... 

It seems most admissions posted on gradcafe are Master. Do they really accept any PhD?

Have admission from Georgia Tech so far.

Edited March 29, 2018 by civil_phd

[Robin472003]

@civil_phd: I have not yet hear any news from schools that I have applied in California, too. (UCLA, UCDavis and UCI).
Wish you good luck

[civil_phd]

38 minutes ago, Robin472003 said:

@civil_phd: I have not yet hear any news from schools that I have applied in California, too. (UCLA, UCDavis and UCI).
Wish you good luck

Do not understand why the universities in CA are sooooo slow. Almost all their deadlines were in Dec.

[1PhDplz]

On 3/29/2018 at 1:06 PM, strawberrykat said:

Has anyone heard about funding from Stanford?

I emailed and they FINALLY told me this week that I don't have funding. I'd ask if I were you, they didn't seem bothered with me asking before the end of March at all. 

[laekkauai]

It's weird to have not heard either about an acceptance or rejection from Stanford yet. 

Even though I probably won't be accepted, and I am ~85% sure I will attend another school I visited, it would be nice of them to at least send out a notification after paying $125 for the app fee :/

[coffeegirl]

On 3/29/2018 at 12:06 PM, strawberrykat said:

Has anyone heard about funding from Stanford?

When I asked about funding at Stanford they said all funding decisions had already been made in the department...

I can't image going in that much debt this early in my adult life lol 

[strawberrykat]

45 minutes ago, coffeegirl said:

When I asked about funding at Stanford they said all funding decisions had already been made in the department...

I can't image going in that much debt this early in my adult life lol 

Thank you for satisfying my curiosity!

Yeah it's actually insane. When they mentioned stretching that masters out to two years, I cringed...

[ibtes]

3 hours ago, laekkauai said:

It's weird to have not heard either about an acceptance or rejection from Stanford yet. 

Even though I probably won't be accepted, and I am ~85% sure I will attend another school I visited, it would be nice of them to at least send out a notification after paying $125 for the app fee :/

I want to say the same thing to MIT... They haven't sent me anything yet

[thanasist]

For anyone waiting for a decision from Berkeley, the following was their answer regarding the decisions for Phd in SEMM :

By now all decisions have been made.  If you have not received an email by today - I would suggest you look at other offers.

 

Maribel

~~Admissions Staff

 

Academic Affairs Office

Civil and Environmental Engineering

750 Davis Hall

UC Berkeley

Berkeley,  CA  94720-1710

 

 

I am really disappointed and I believe that every candidate should have received at least a decent rejection letter and not a response like that. 

 

[civil_phd]

5 hours ago, thanasist said:

I am really disappointed and I believe that every candidate should have received at least a decent rejection letter and not a response like that. 

 

This is disappointing. At this time, I guess the other schools in California have made their decisions but just bother to send out rejections.

[Qunerzhizhi]

Still waiting for Stanford SDC. They said that all the decisions have been made. It's just the Admission Office is taking time to send out the letter on Web account and they are not sure when the decisions will be released...What are they doing.....pffff

[Qunerzhizhi]

1 hour ago, laekkauai said:

When did you contact them? I'm also waiting on their decision... just to get my money's worth from the application fee I'd at least like a letter. 

Two days ago. It seems that the decisions are released individually. They originally hope to release all the decision by 15th March, but now it was delayed...

[David Silva]

For all the MS Structural Engineering Applicants for UC Berkeley I received the following response

[Karan_taneja]

Well, I applied to almost all the UCs and Stanford and I just have an acceptance from San Diego. Berkeley didn't bother to send out a rejection letter, I had to beg for a response from them and LA. And all I received was a lousy "I suggest you look at other offers" email. A professor at stanford was keen before I applied but now he suddenly doesn't want to pick from this applicant pool. Don't know what that means. Essentially waiting for a rejection from them.

The rest of them sent out their rejection letters in the first week of April. But jesus, after this process, I honestly feel like a number for them and not a person.

At UCSD, I still have no information on the funding for the program. Is anyone facing the same issue? I have accepted the offer as I have nothing else in my hands.

Edited April 8, 2018 by Karan_taneja
typo; update.

[sydstar]

On 3/18/2018 at 11:14 PM, 1PhDplz said:

 

 

What the grad students told me was that if you were admitted with the expectation of going from MS to PhD, a professor would have contacted you by now. When I said "Really? That's like the exact opposite of what we've been told all day" the current PhD students said that even though they've asked the professors and people in charge of admissions to be more honest and upfront about this, they just aren't. So they get a bunch of people to come for the unfunded masters because "people will pay for a masters from Stanford." I found this super dishonest. Honestly, just directly admit to PhD if that's the case. 

I emailed the graduate coordinator on Saturday asking if I'm being considered for funding or not (I was originally waiting until the end of march to be polite). My guess would be not since I haven't been contacted yet, but I'm checking because they did offer to reimburse some expenses from the visit day. I'll let post on here whatever I hear back. 

A few other negatives I got from the visit day:

-It  seems like funding is incredibly scarce in the department. I had one professor mention that it's not usual, but definitely possible, for your advisor to run out of funding for you, say during your last year as a PhD student. It kind of makes sense because when an advisor takes you on, they financially provide you the tuition and stipend money. But you'd think the university would wave your tuition so that each PhD student doesn't literally cost the advisor half a million dollars of grant money (not an exaggeration). 

-I heard a few other grad students say that their advisors are never around "because they're really important people." That might be true, but I'm looking for an advisor who has enough time to be a mentor, just not my cup of tea.

-The master will cost $99.7K and TA and RA positions are reserved for PhD candidates so that their advisors aren't paying tuition from their own grant money. I was told there is practically no possibility of getting TA or RA positions as a masters student.

-I got the feeling that MS students who do join in on the research groups (what they recommend you do to advance to the PhD) are pretty much free lab work (i.e. undergrads) and the likelihood of doing your own project is slim. I got this vibe from hearing some PhD students talk about MS students in the lab.

Positives:

-The program requirements are really flexible. The head of the department said you can even substitute the "mandatory" program requirements for whatever you want as long as you can make a reasonable appeal to your masters advisor.

-Most of the PhD students seemed to enjoy the program, they just really don't like how the department handles admissions and the whole MS thing.

 

My whole take on Stanford at the moment is a little jaded and I do realize that there are probably a million great things about the masters program and to be fair, one of the professors there started as a masters student with no funding at Stanford, so I guess transitioning to the PhD isn't impossible.

 

Can't believe I'm finding this thread so late! Figured I'd throw out my details if it helps at all. Applying as Environmental PhD.

Accepted to Stanford, Georgia Tech, Boulder, UT Austin, and UMBC. Heard all of this back in Feb. Just recently got my rejections from UCLA and U of Arizona. Still haven't heard from Colorado Mines and Virginia Tech. 

My original top picks were Stanford, Georgia Tech, and Boulder-- went to each of those visit days, except for Tech which I went on another weekend for a one-on-one visit day. Didn't like Boulder that much, had a great visit at Tech, and had a meh experience at Stanford. I agree with basically everything @1PhDplz said about the Stanford visit day experience. I'm sure we even ran into each other since I was in the EES PhD group as well.

RA funding at UMBC and a possible project at Boulder (I let that go a while ago so I'm sure the PI picked another student). Just hoping for funding from Stanford or Georgia Tech (don't think that's happening) and deciding between those at the moment.

[1PhDplz]

19 hours ago, sydstar said:

Can't believe I'm finding this thread so late! Figured I'd throw out my details if it helps at all. Applying as Environmental PhD.

Accepted to Stanford, Georgia Tech, Boulder, UT Austin, and UMBC. Heard all of this back in Feb. Just recently got my rejections from UCLA and U of Arizona. Still haven't heard from Colorado Mines and Virginia Tech. 

My original top picks were Stanford, Georgia Tech, and Boulder-- went to each of those visit days, except for Tech which I went on another weekend for a one-on-one visit day. Didn't like Boulder that much, had a great visit at Tech, and had a meh experience at Stanford. I agree with basically everything @1PhDplz said about the Stanford visit day experience. I'm sure we even ran into each other since I was in the EES PhD group as well.

RA funding at UMBC and a possible project at Boulder (I let that go a while ago so I'm sure the PI picked another student). Just hoping for funding from Stanford or Georgia Tech (don't think that's happening) and deciding between those at the moment.

I emailed Stanford's grad coordinator and asked about funding and only then was I told a definite no. I'd recommend asking since it's so close to April 15! The guy I emailed didn't seem bothered that I was asking at all. 

[CMULiszt]

On 3/13/2018 at 10:02 AM, Voidaaa said:

How do you like CMU?

I've been admitted to the MMC program, but a bro told me that the professors hardly offered research positions and did their teaching thing only. Is that true?

The Research opportunity is competitive for Ms student, but it still exists chances. Some of my friends got acceptance to the PhD program after the Ms. 

I think CMU is a great place for learning. Everybody is hardworking. Everybody talks about computer science. It would be a good place especially for those who love programming.

Edited April 10, 2018 by CMULiszt

[carolsg]

Hi guys. I've noticed this is one of the few threads in which Structural Engineering applicants are active, so I would really appreciate your help. I am planning to apply for spring 2019 (MS), but I'm not sure whether or not my background is strong enough to get me into one of the top 30 US universities. 

So, for those of you who have already been accepted to a masters program, could you please share your background, like undergrad GPA, GRE, previous work/research experiences, and other relevant activities?

Thanks in advance. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by carolsg

[Nels Nelson]

Applying to Environmental Engineering MS (and later PhD) here. I got an acceptance from Carnegie Mellon Feb 1st (funding but not full ride), and an acceptance from Montana State University March 27th. I still have not heard back from the other two schools, (Oregon State University and University of Minnesota). Minnesota is my number 1 pick because of their Bioremediation focus (my focus). But I don't know what to do because the April 15th deadline is this Sunday. Also Minnesota seems to be avoiding me because the professor I have been communicating with there for the last year is suddenly unresponsive and the admissions department is also not responding to me...

Do yall think I should just accept my number 2 (Carnegie Mellon) and withdraw if I get a good offer from Minnesota? I would rather not tarnish bridges and be out a $100 deposit if I don't have to. Carnegie Mellon said they would give me another week past April 15th if I need it, I just don't know how long to hold out and I am going crazy. 

 

GPA: 3.69

Major: Biology

GRE: 159 Verbal (83%), 160 Quantitative (76%), 4.5 Writing (82%)

[1PhDplz]

17 hours ago, Nels Nelson said:

Applying to Environmental Engineering MS (and later PhD) here. I got an acceptance from Carnegie Mellon Feb 1st (funding but not full ride), and an acceptance from Montana State University March 27th. I still have not heard back from the other two schools, (Oregon State University and University of Minnesota). Minnesota is my number 1 pick because of their Bioremediation focus (my focus). But I don't know what to do because the April 15th deadline is this Sunday. Also Minnesota seems to be avoiding me because the professor I have been communicating with there for the last year is suddenly unresponsive and the admissions department is also not responding to me...

Do yall think I should just accept my number 2 (Carnegie Mellon) and withdraw if I get a good offer from Minnesota? I would rather not tarnish bridges and be out a $100 deposit if I don't have to. Carnegie Mellon said they would give me another week past April 15th if I need it, I just don't know how long to hold out and I am going crazy. 

 

GPA: 3.69

Major: Biology

GRE: 159 Verbal (83%), 160 Quantitative (76%), 4.5 Writing (82%)

I would recommend going with Carnegie Mellon, even if that means you'll have to take out some loans, but wait until the week after April 15 to avoid the potentially awkward withdrawal situation. I think CM is a really great choice for an MS because they're one of the few good schools willing to give at least some funding to their MS students. If I remember correctly, it's only a year long program and afterwords you could reapply to your top choice for the PhD. If you decide not to do the PhD, it's not like employers will scoff at a masters from Carnegie Mellon. 

 

[Nels Nelson]

1 hour ago, 1PhDplz said:

I would recommend going with Carnegie Mellon, even if that means you'll have to take out some loans, but wait until the week after April 15 to avoid the potentially awkward withdrawal situation. I think CM is a really great choice for an MS because they're one of the few good schools willing to give at least some funding to their MS students. If I remember correctly, it's only a year long program and afterwords you could reapply to your top choice for the PhD. If you decide not to do the PhD, it's not like employers will scoff at a masters from Carnegie Mellon. 

 

Yea that seems like what I am probably going to do. Minnesota has other benefits though because my family lives there and I have a baby on the way, so the family/baby part of the equation is huge. But Pittsburg would work too. CMU has given me an extra week, If I don't hear back from Minnesota by then (or get a rejection), I will enroll at CMU. I can always go to Minnesota for the PhD, and yea the CMU program is quick. Thanks.

[thanasist]

Is there anyone who has received an offer from University of Michigan for PhD in Structural Engineering?? 

 

[ABHIJET SARAF]

 

For my application for MS Environmental Engineering program in Fall 2018,
I have received admits from
1) University of Michigan An Arbor
2) University of Illinois, Urbana Champaigne
It is kindly requested of fellow applicants to advise and help me choose my future university