Seeking advice at a fork of a road

[Totakeke]

So I'd like to listen to some advice of what anyone might have of my situation before I really make a decision of what path I should pursue. It basically pertains to whether I should just seek avenues elsewhere other than research or continue on building with what little I have after failing to obtain any admits during my last admission try.

I just finished my bachelor's degree with a 4.57/5.0 GPA in Materials Engineering in a university in Singapore with the biggest Materials department in the country. I tried applying for PhD in 8 universities in US last year and not only I didn't get admitted into any, I was rejected pretty early in the decision stage. I have done a little less than three years of undergraduate research across two fields with mostly the same research group and professor, however I don't have any papers published because my Professor doesn't tend to do that easily and I personally didn't push for it either. I have a GRE score of 1360 (790Q) taken last year. I also participated in an exchange program to Iowa State University for a semester during my third year and got a 4.0/4.0 semester GPA for core courses if that changes anything.

So right now I'm not really sure what I should do. Normally it's simple to just say to try again, but with my rejects coming so quickly last time, I don't believe I have sufficient credentials to get admits that I want. I do have to admit that my applications was not the best prepared with my decision to do so coming in the only last two or three months, but I feel that my undergraduate university and/or department is just not so recognized in terms of PhD applications. Case in point, other students in the same department who had better or similar results to mine barely edged out in applications with most of them getting only one admit out of all of the universities they applied for. One that I know well, had better academic results, did more research than me, had a 1500 GRE score, and had two or three papers published still had zero admits out of nine last admission cycle. Furthermore, I might have made some missteps in only doing most of my research under one particular professor during my undergraduate study. While I still think that my professor is good to perform research under and learn from, I don't think she spends much effort in providing support for her students in their PhD applications. Of course, this complicates my admissions too since I barely have any strong references from professors that really knows my work.

Naturally, I would ask myself what I could improve on if I were to try again this year, and the only significant thing is the statement of purpose which I'm not sure is significant enough to warrant a retry. My last statement of purpose was pretty pedestrian I would say, but this time I could add in my experiences while working on my thesis which was still ongoing last year. Basically I had a thesis project that had a lot of complications and measurements that produced remarkable, but unexplainable results that had never been reported before. I think my professor and my mentors pretty much gave up hope in the beginning on the project with such confounding measurements. But since I couldn't really change my project and thought it was still worth working on, I labored on and resisted any calls to just write it off with some hand-waving explanations. In about two months or so, I finally came out with a plausible theory that could explain the results, but to my dismay, all my work seems to been for naught as no one could really help in proving (and disproving) it. The ones that were doubtful (it certainly comes with the profession and I don't blame them for it at all) couldn't point out why I was wrong, and the ones that were somewhat supportive couldn't help me either with the lack of equipment and expertise. Needless to say, I was pretty depressed for a while with that and my admit failures. It was only during my thesis presentation where my examiner agreed that my university was simply lacking the skills and resources to perform such research work. While I felt somewhat relieved to finally have someone telling me it's hardly my fault, it doesn't really help me on my chances on my future admits either. Nevertheless, that experience pretty much cemented my decision to not pursue a PhD degree in my undergraduate university even though I had offers for it.

So I'm in a situation that I have little to show to get the admits that I want, yet I'm convinced that it's not worth it to simply enter any university to undergo a PhD degree because the degree alone would be hardly worth the time and effort. There's no research assistant positions that I can apply for at the department so working further on the same research without a PhD is pretty much not an option, plus I'm not sure going back to the same research group I've been working for around three years now is a good idea.

Now I'm at a fork and I'm unsure what to do, and I certainly lack advice from people who has gone through similar problems before. From what I can see, I can...

a. Find a job in another field and complete the bond, put off PhD for now, but risk getting even harder to come back this way in the future.

b. Find a job in another research field whatever it takes, to prop up the credentials and qualifications to retry in the future.

c. Just try for admits again this year, there's nothing to lose aside from some time and money, but I'm not sure the things I have are sufficient.

I can't really make up my mind now. But I heard people giving advice before, saying that if you can picture yourself doing something else other than PhD, than you shouldn't apply for it... is that the advice I should just follow? I'd appreciate any opinions on this.

Either way, thanks for reading this far.

[Nibor6000]

Were you able to get feedback on your application from any of the schools that rejected you? This might really help you to strengthen your application.

I'm not in your field, so I don't know all of the intricacies of the application process as it applies to engineering, but your stats seem very strong, and you write incredibly well. You don't state which schools you applied to. Make sure you have a couple of "reach" schools, a couple of solid schools, and a couple of back-up schools, if this is something you really want to do. Perhaps your thesis work and the lack of resources can be "spun" in your statement of purpose - you are looking for a school with the resources, both in terms of faculty expertise and equipment resources, to help you continue your research?'

Another thing that might help you is to find some faculty members you would like to work with and send them a brief email inquiring about possible openings in their lab groups next year. This can help to open some doors. If you've got a faculty member rooting for you during the admissions process, this can really help.

Good luck to you.

[JustChill]

First, I should echo the previous poster's comment about your writing skills. American universities love to see foreign sciences/engineering students who speak and write English well, and you certainly do. In that regard, I am sure you have an advantage over many other international applicants in the same field.

Second, my personal suggestion would be to follow option B. I think if you could find some related research work that would not only support you but provide you with added experience and boost your CV, it would certainly not hurt. That is what I would do personally, but of course I don't know all of your particular circumstances.

Best of luck to you.

[Totakeke]

Ah, the schools I applied for... included NWU, UIUC, MIT, PSU, Purdue, Cornell, Georgia Tech, UPenn. There doesn't seem to be a lot of schools strong in Materials Science and Engineering to begin with so I just took a list of top twenty schools in this field and went through their research and faculty one by one. Furthermore, I decided to only apply for departments in the same field, although my undergraduate research area seems to be very widely spread throughout different departments at different schools, because I thought I would be pigeonholing myself too much by applying to only one group per department if I went for other engineering departments.

As for the option B, my concern is that there seems to be very few opportunities in doing research here for someone with only a bachelor's degree and by going that route, I wouldn't have much choice in choosing what I'd like to research on and with what research group even if I do get an opportunity. If that's really the case, should I still do it? Should I only seek for a research work that's only within the area of what I want to do, or is the experience simply enough? The main aim of making such a decision would still be to eventually publish papers right? Or is it simply enough to accumulate experience and just have another point to put in the CV? I guess that I'm mainly concerned of wasting my efforts again after doing much research work during my undergraduate and seemingly not getting much out of it in the end. While I did learn much, I think it's sometimes better to just be realistic about the situation and that's what I'm trying to determine from all this.

Edited July 12, 2010 by Totakeke

[explorer-c]

Hey, I also graduated from a university in Singapore but I'm in CS. I have lower GPA than you, comparable GRE but way better record in research. I managed to get accepted into several top 10 schools in CS (which usually I think have lower acceptance rate than MatSci/MatEng) so I think that means research experience counts a lot more than GPA and GRE. By the time I applied, I already have a couple of papers at the top conference in my field so I think that is the major factor that boost my application. In my experience, there are a lot of great research opportunities in Singapore so ask your Professors and look around. You have excellent stats so I think once you boost your research credential, your application will be in a pretty good shape.

[Totakeke]

Hey, I also graduated from a university in Singapore but I'm in CS. I have lower GPA than you, comparable GRE but way better record in research. I managed to get accepted into several top 10 schools in CS (which usually I think have lower acceptance rate than MatSci/MatEng) so I think that means research experience counts a lot more than GPA and GRE. By the time I applied, I already have a couple of papers at the top conference in my field so I think that is the major factor that boost my application. In my experience, there are a lot of great research opportunities in Singapore so ask your Professors and look around. You have excellent stats so I think once you boost your research credential, your application will be in a pretty good shape.

I didn't really go around looking for professors who had potential to publish papers top of their field, I just took something I thought was interesting and sat down and did it. I also did independent research on my thesis which I collaborated with another research team from another polytechnic institution and handled pretty much all the results and data analysis myself. Doing all those could have been my mistake but there's nothing I can do to change those now anyway. The main issue is that my own department does not accept any research assistants and the only way I could continue research in the department is to take a PhD which I do not want to do. Aside from that, my only options left is to apply for one of the very few available research positions in the industry or to switch research fields and look around for research positions at other departments in the university.

Plus, I think what you're really saying is that the prestige of the research group and the papers published, rather than the research experience itself, is the more important aspect. After all, three out of four years doing undergraduate research is hardly something to sneeze at, I worked hard and took things seriously all the way. But of course, all those seem to be inconsequential when you have very little to show for it in the end. Nevertheless, I'm still skeptical of the actual reputation of my department alone as my friend who I have noted earlier had very excellent all around stats, but still didn't manage to get any admissions at the end. He, too, is now stuck looking for a job in the industry or have already found one.

Were you able to get feedback on your application from any of the schools that rejected you? This might really help you to strengthen your application.

I never really asked for any feedback because it seemed that I was never really being considered for any of them. Would it be still worth asking several months after the fact? I guess it wouldn't hurt to try.

[Nibor6000]

A few years of work experience is usually looked upon very favorably. I have five years of experience between my masters and what will be my Ph.D. My schools were very happy to see that.

[genwicked]

No Idea.......i am now only come here.........

[UnlikelyGrad]

Ah, the schools I applied for... included NWU, UIUC, MIT, PSU, Purdue, Cornell, Georgia Tech, UPenn. There doesn't seem to be a lot of schools strong in Materials Science and Engineering to begin with so I just took a list of top twenty schools in this field and went through their research and faculty one by one. Furthermore, I decided to only apply for departments in the same field, although my undergraduate research area seems to be very widely spread throughout different departments at different schools, because I thought I would be pigeonholing myself too much by applying to only one group per department if I went for other engineering departments.

A suggestion: if you're coming from a not-well-known university, and if you really think that's the only thing that's holding you back, try applying to master's programs at lower-ranked US universities (ranking 30-50). You're more likely to get into one of those. Then you can use that as a springboard to applying to top 20 universities for Ph.D. programs.