Should I have applied to several institutions?

[snappy]

Fellow grads & grad students,

I wish to hear your perspective on my situation:

Allow me to summarize my profile:

• B.S. in CS at UCI with a GPA of ~3.8 (expecting to graduate Spring '09)
• US Citizen
• No formal research exposure (i.e. undesirable quality)
• GRE: Verbal:420 Quantitative:770 Analytical:4.5
• 5+ years of work experience in industry.

Initially I intended to apply for the masters program at UCI, but one of my professors persuaded me to apply in the PhD program. During my senior year while taking several graduate courses, I had a genuine interest in network security & applied cryptography. Off the bat I set my sights for only two schools, UCI and UT Austin. I was accepted into UCI with full 4-year fellowship and have assumed rejection from UT Austin as they haven't sent any correspondence regarding my application.

It occured to me that I only applied to very few schools, one which seemed out of my league (UT Austin). I'm wondering had I applied to other schools would I even have a chance? I believe I had strong advocacy in UCI from both the professor that pushed my application through and also letter of recommendations from UCI professors. Had I applied to several different institutions, would I have even had a chance? My profile appears rather generic and lacks formal research exposure which appears to harm my chances.

During graduate visit day at UCI, I met with several students who seemed to have been accepted into a multitude of institutions, some very prestigious. I was thinking maybe I should have applied to different institutions (that have some specialization in network security/crypto) in order to be more academically diverse.

Appreciate anyone's thoughts or similar experiences.

[joro]

I always say that it never hurts to try unless you're really not financially able to pay for the applications. The worst that could happen is you receive a rejection letter, but at least you're not left with that lingering thought of "what if I applied, would I have been accepted". During my high school years I had a good GPA, decent SAT scores, active in school clubs, and also in after school sports. I only applied to one school because I didn't know what I wanted to do and it was the closest school near home. With my profile I could have gotten into really good schools and I'm left with that feeling of what would have happened if I did apply to other schools. This time around, I applied to a variety of schools instead of just that one school because I know I would have been accepted. I'm probably not helping or making any sense at this point, but I would say that you could either stay at UCI and pursue that PhD or you can reapply next year and see what happens.

[snappy]

I always say that it never hurts to try unless you're really not financially able to pay for the applications. The worst that could happen is you receive a rejection letter, but at least you're not left with that lingering thought of "what if I applied, would I have been accepted". During my high school years I had a good GPA, decent SAT scores, active in school clubs, and also in after school sports. I only applied to one school because I didn't know what I wanted to do and it was the closest school near home. With my profile I could have gotten into really good schools and I'm left with that feeling of what would have happened if I did apply to other schools. This time around, I applied to a variety of schools instead of just that one school because I know I would have been accepted. I'm probably not helping or making any sense at this point, but I would say that you could either stay at UCI and pursue that PhD or you can reapply next year and see what happens.

Thanks for the insight. I've enrolled into the UCI program and quite happy with the decision. Allow me to clarify though, the reasons I chose UCI & UT Austin had less to do with prestige and more to do with good faculty and research programs in the areas I'm interested in. I feel the only requirement for me to do well is myself. But I just have that lingering feeling I should've applied to other programs elsewhere since CA has a list of decent schools doing cutting edge research in network security/crypto.