ETH Zurich [ETHZ] 2021: Admissions and ESOP/ETH-D Decisions

[ManuApp]

Sure. Swiss applicant, studied medicine at University of Zurich and got my master's degree in Oct 2020. Now applying for admission to the MSc in statistics. Ok grades, ok GRE, no publications. Not the most conventional background and therefore also not to optimistic about my chances?.

 

 

[MariaRe]

16 hours ago, ivera1 said:

Yes I think so. My department are doing interviews this week and the following week the selection committee is reviewing the ESOP applications. All scholarship decisions for all programmes are communicated by mid to end of March, so interviews will probably be done before the end of February, at the absolute latest.

Are somewhere interviews scheduled by department? Or how have you learned about that? 

[ivera1]

2 minutes ago, MariaRe said:

Are somewhere interviews scheduled by department? Or how have you learned about that? 

I was told in my interview that the selection committee will be evaluating the D-HEST applications next week. Reading through the forum in the previous years it seems that interviews were run during different weeks for the different departments.

[ivera1]

7 minutes ago, frozonecom said:

Does it make sense to interview ESOP applicants without knowing if they will be admitted to the program?

I've read in previous ETH threads that this has been the process ever since: prospective students are interviewed first for the scholarship before they get the admission letter. I can't quite wrap my head around this kind of process. ?

I just don't know either ? 

[ivera1]

11 minutes ago, frozonecom said:

Does it make sense to interview ESOP applicants without knowing if they will be admitted to the program?

I've read in previous ETH threads that this has been the process ever since: prospective students are interviewed first for the scholarship before they get the admission letter. I can't quite wrap my head around this kind of process. ?

I found out anyway that I should know about admission by the end of February, so it's not too long a wait at least.

[Zeus Hawk]

Does anyone know the difference between the ESOP and ETH-D Scholarship, other than the fact that ESOP is offered by the department and ETH-D is offered by the department ? What's the difference in the selection criteria?

[latte1238]

23 hours ago, ivera1 said:

Interview update...

Due to the fact I have an international Bachelor degree and I am missing some of the important prerequisites for D-HEST (Math, and enough physics), I found out that I have very slim chance of ESOP or ETH-D. Apparently Bachelor course content is favoured quite heavily by the selection committee no matter how excellent a student you are, as virtually all ESOP recipients in D-HEST come from the ETH Bachelor stream. I have heard similar things for BME. 

I was extremely confident with my pre-proposal and asked if it weighs much on the scholarship selection, and no not really (for international D-HEST applicants anyway), it largely depends on what courses you have taken in the Bachelor and if they are very closely aligned with those of the ETH Bachelor equivalent.

To put things in perspective I am ranked in the top 7% of my Bachelor programme, was a research assistant at ETH for a semester during my Bachelor, strong LORs and LOM, strong pre-proposal (and in line with the research groups work), no publications.

I worked incredibly hard on my ESOP application so I am quite disappointed, but at least I was given a shot with the interview ?‍♀️ Not even sure if I still have a chance with admission in general. ? 

Hope you guys have better chance with the other programmes, hopefully they are not as stringent 

All the best for your application! Thank you so much for sharing your experience, it does help a lot for the ones waiting I am sure that with your profile you will most probably be accepted to the program! And again, the decision was not made yet about the scholarship so all the best of luck!!! ❤️ 

[ArabicaMaria]

2 hours ago, ivera1 said:

I found out anyway that I should know about admission by the end of February, so it's not too long a wait at least.

By the way! Do you mind sharing to us the interview questions that you got?

[ivera1]

33 minutes ago, ArabicaMaria said:

By the way! Do you mind sharing to us the interview questions that you got?

Sure, they were pretty standard interview questions like why did you choose ETH, why this programme, where do you see yourself working in the future, and then just a quick chat about the preproposal  

[Lina-H]

On 1/27/2021 at 7:26 PM, ivera1 said:

Sure, they were pretty standard interview questions like why did you choose ETH, why this programme, where do you see yourself working in the future, and then just a quick chat about the preproposal  

i hope what happened won't discourage you and I expect you will be accepted into the program regardless! thank you so much for sharing your experience in detail ❤️

[Zeus Hawk]

                    The screenshot is from the from the German version of the RSC study regulations (translated to English). It states that the tutor confirms the students who will be admitted to the program. How many students can each tutor select ? Also, does each tutor recommend one student for the ESOP scholarship ?

[latte1238]

Do you guys think there is one interview for ESOP and ETH-D or only for ESOP and candidates may be granted an ETH-D without an interview? I was reading previous posts on this topic and it seemed that people were given the partial stipend scholarship without an interview. Also the ETH-D winners are not announced to the public (as far as I could google search haha). Any ideas on this?

[MariaRe]

Whyyyy does it work like that... From year to year billions of questions, a couple of guesses and literally no answers ?

 

(I know, I know they're pretty busy, no pressure) 

[ivera1]

On 1/31/2021 at 9:46 AM, latte1238 said:

Do you guys think there is one interview for ESOP and ETH-D or only for ESOP and candidates may be granted an ETH-D without an interview? I was reading previous posts on this topic and it seemed that people were given the partial stipend scholarship without an interview. Also the ETH-D winners are not announced to the public (as far as I could google search haha). Any ideas on this?

I've only read up on the posts from recent years and it seems that it's the same interview for ESOP and ETH-D/MSP. The best candidates are selected for ESOP and the next best candidates for the ETH-D, which decisions are released after ESOP.

They might have awarded people without interviewing years ago but now I really doubt they would offer ETH-D, let alone ESOP, without an interview first.

I think it's important to take note of the wording of the emails they send out because it may state rejection for ESOP only (and you still have a chance of ETH-D when those results are released some days afterwards) or say rejection for both ESOP and ETH-D outright.

Hope this helps!

[Zizi468]

Should I have gotten an invitation to the ESOP interview by now, or is there still hope?

[latte1238]

20 minutes ago, Zizi468 said:

Should I have gotten an invitation to the ESOP interview by now, or is there still hope?

What program did you apply to? I believe ESOP interviews could take place any time this month so don't worry and don't lose hope!

[Zizi468]

@latte1238 I applied to the Biology MSc program. Good to hear that, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed?

[ArabicaMaria]

8 hours ago, Zizi468 said:

@latte1238 I applied to the Biology MSc program. Good to hear that, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed?

According to the Results Search here, there’s been someone who got an interview from MsC Biology already. The interview was last January 30 (is it weird that it was on a Saturday?) Anyway, I’m not so sure if they’ll have a next batch of applicants to interview but I’m thinking this won’t be the case,  so just hope for admissions.

[latte1238]

Has anyone heard anything about the Physics results? I feel that Physics and Chemistry usually take the longest time. 

[ayushd718]

On 2/2/2021 at 11:16 AM, ArabicaMaria said:

According to the Results Search here, there’s been someone who got an interview from MsC Biology already. The interview was last January 30 (is it weird that it was on a Saturday?) Anyway, I’m not so sure if they’ll have a next batch of applicants to interview but I’m thinking this won’t be the case,  so just hope for admissions.

That was me! The interview was generally what you'd expect. Questions about why I wanted to attend the program, my general educational background, then jumping right into the proposal.

Qestions about the proposal were about planning around any challenges you may foresee and making sure you properly understand the experimental setup along with any theory associated with your proposal. 

I was also informed at the end of the interview that the biology admissions committee will be meeting this week to make final decisions on admissions, then ESOP and ETH-D decisions will be made early in March. 

Best of luck to everyone who has applied! 

[ArabicaMaria]

3 hours ago, ayushd718 said:

That was me! The interview was generally what you'd expect. Questions about why I wanted to attend the program, my general educational background, then jumping right into the proposal.

Qestions about the proposal were about planning around any challenges you may foresee and making sure you properly understand the experimental setup along with any theory associated with your proposal. 

I was also informed at the end of the interview that the biology admissions committee will be meeting this week to make final decisions on admissions, then ESOP and ETH-D decisions will be made early in March. 

Best of luck to everyone who has applied! 

Congratulations and hoping for the best for you! Thanks for the information! Do you mind sharing to us your profile?

Also, anybody who applied in MTEC and got news?

[ayushd718]

6 hours ago, ArabicaMaria said:

Congratulations and hoping for the best for you! Thanks for the information! Do you mind sharing to us your profile?

Also, anybody who applied in MTEC and got news?

I don't mind at all! I did my bachelor's in Pharmaceutical Science at a small unknown college in the US. GPA was 3.7/4.0. Graduated in 2019 and I've been working as a research assistant at the same lab where I did my bachelor's thesis (this lab is affiliated with a bigger university than the college I graduated from). Got a second author preprint out on bioRxiv shortly after submitting my application, but one of my references mentioned it in their recommendation letter which was submitted later. I also listed a first author manuscript in preparation on my CV for a project that's close to completion, along with a second author poster presentation. I also participated in the iGEM competition during my undergrad and our team ended up winning a medal. 

[pebble_co]

Hey guys! Thank you all for the info and for starting this thread!

I only applied for D-ITET (EE MSc) and not ESOP or ETH-D, however I wanted to ask you guys if it was 'weird' that no admission decisions for masters are appearing on the results search page yet. 

I looked at last year's results, and it seemed that by 31st Jan already, there were admission decisions for the Statistics MSc, then a week later for ITET etc... Should we be expecting delays (due to covid)? Thanks again and I wish you all the best!!

[ManuApp]

 

2 hours ago, pebble_co said:

Hey guys! Thank you all for the info and for starting this thread!

I only applied for D-ITET (EE MSc) and not ESOP or ETH-D, however I wanted to ask you guys if it was 'weird' that no admission decisions for masters are appearing on the results search page yet. 

I looked at last year's results, and it seemed that by 31st Jan already, there were admission decisions for the Statistics MSc, then a week later for ITET etc... Should we be expecting delays (due to covid)? Thanks again and I wish you all the best!!

The first result has just been posted from the Statistics department (as expected). I personally have not geard back yet for my Statistics application but Im sure that will follow sooner or later. I do not expect any significant delays

[latte1238]

4 hours ago, ManuApp said:

 

The first result has just been posted from the Statistics department (as expected). I personally have not geard back yet for my Statistics application but Im sure that will follow sooner or later. I do not expect any significant delays

Wow that area was fast! All the best for your application  So not everyone has to wait until March to get rejected/accepted to the program? - regardless of the ESOP