Yale Interview Chem E

[gakgx6]

What kind of questions are asked? Is the interview technical in nature? Any recommendation what to avoid?

[emandar]

I just got off the phone (literally 2 hours ago) with the head of graduate admissions from Yale's EE program. We talked for about 30 minutes about my research and research interests; it was rather technical since he is an expert in a closely related field. I was extremely nervous at the beginning, but I just told him I was nervous and he laughed and said he understood and that he would talk first about why he liked my application.

Overall, I got the distinct impression that he was impressed by my application and my previous work, indicating that Yale would pay for me to go to their campus and talk with their EE faculty concerning research topics. Nothing concrete like "You will be admitted with scholarship" or anything was explicitly stated.

I would recommend to you to avoid the question about other schools to which you've applied. Since Yale is like #39 in EE graduate programs (I dunno about your field), I think they might not consider you to attend if your application is good enough to get into other, higher ranked, schools. I was honest and told him that I applied to 15 schools and rattled off all of them. I hope it doesn't hurt my chances of admittance due to yield protection.

Anyway, hope this helps.

[drunk]

Hey,

Have any idea when you will know about the decision ? Do you think that the admission decision will depend on whether you go to visit his lab or will you be notified earlier ?

[emandar]

He said that notifications will go out Feb 20th for EE and that I will be contacted after that to visit if I'm admitted.

[drunk]

Thank you very much. I am asking since I have applied and waiting to hear from them. Mind sharing ur stats (Univ, GRE scores, GPA etc.) ? How do you say likely acceptance ?

[emandar]

Sure, my stats are as follows:

UG University: State's largest land-grant institution (it was free for me to go here due to scholarships)

GRE: 790Q/580V/4.5W

GPA: 3.9/4.0; I have two degrees in 4 years in physics and mathematics

I'm also a goldwater scholar with 4 years of undergraduate research and 3 second author publications in peer-reviewed journals. Every summer I've done REU at my local university. 1 patent pending. 1 statewide business plan competition won ($10k prize)/sold the business to continue with education.

[drunk]

Thats a great profile. I am sure that you will be into a lot of other places too Let us know if they contact you again from Yale or any other place. Thanks !

[pingpong]

Did you hear back from them yet ?