Got accepted to a few decent masters programs

[superpaddy]

I was a little disappointed with myself around a year ago when I had to start applying to grad schools. However, its not worth losing your head because you always have choices. Here is what the objective part of my application looked like-

Application for the Masters program in Electrical Engineering

1) GPA: 6.79/10 (from a not very well known Indian university)

2) GRE: Q:170/170 V:158/170 AWA:3.5/6

3) IELTS: 8.5/9

4) Research experience: 3 months at a very well respected national lab, one year at an okayish lab (but really cool work), and another 3 months at another decent lab.

5) Publications: Zilch. Nada. Nothing

6) Projects: Over 10 good, unique projects (all small scale)

7) Extracurriculars: Two good hackathon wins. One okayish hackathon win. One national level debate win. State finalist for one good presentation event. One year of work experience at a tech startup. IEEE student branch president for a semester. 

 

My SoP originally was a regular one which stated what kind of research I want to be involved in, why I think I am good at it, why the school is a good fit for me and why I screwed up my undergrad GPA. Right about then, I developed a compression algorithm and I thought it would be fun to include some compressed data along with a link to a website (which I was hosting) where a reader could decompress it. I used the updated SoP in my applications to MIT, CalTech and University of California Santa Cruz.

 

So here are my admits/rejects-

I'll go with the rejects first-

1. MIT

2. CalTech

3. Northeastern University

4. Boston University

5. University at Buffalo, SUNY (Got rejected for EE, but was given an option to take robotics, data science or AI).

 

Admits-

1. University of California Santa Cruz

2. University of Essex (in the UK). This was for a PhD program. I was told that my research at one of the labs was what got me selected.

3. University of Maryland Baltimore County

4. University of Texas Arlington

5. New Jersey Institute of Technology

6. UMass Dartmouth

 

I finally decided to go with UMBC because their program fascinates me. UC Santa Cruz has a fantastic program too. However, I felt that UMBC was a far better fit for me. Having already screwed my undergrad because I disliked the university I went to, I did not want to do the same for my masters.

Fit >>>> Rank or Reputation

So I guess the point is that I did not really waste any time during my undergrad. I worked on what I loved and my work was always relevant to electrical engineering. I acknowledged that my GPA was pretty bad. And I like to think that my decent standardised test scores helped me quite a bit.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.