what all i need to improve my profile

[civil]

hi, today i gave gre, my gre score is 1360 (800 quant and 560 verbal) .. waiting for the awa report... i dont know whether its gud or bad. I m applying for MS in civil engineering (structures preferably) and my dream university is UCB.

currently i m in 3rd year in a very gud college in india, its like among the top 10 colleges of the country and my departmental rank is 3, so as far as academics are concerned i m pretty gud at it.

I have worked on 3 live project worth million dollars each with internationally renowned companies. As such i dont have any research experience, i m working on it.

So can u guys guide me what source of projects should i do or what more i require to make my profile gud becoz i m aiming for very gud universities esp UCB.

[Seeking]

Are you at the IIT? If not, obviously you'll face competition from lots of IITians with credentials similar to yours.

Anyway, at this stage the reputation of your college doesn't matter that much as long as it's an accredited college. What matters is that you should present some research papers at conferences, perhaps publish one or two papers in international refereed journals and get some research or internship experience.

Moreover, your research area should match with that of a professor at the university where you are applying. There are two ways of ensuring this - either you decide about a research area of your choice that has potential for growth and find a professor who works in that area, or you survey what kind of research areas the UCB professors are engaged in - if you have set your heart at UCB - and develop your research area to match the research interests of one of these professors you want to work with.

Since you are coming from India, I presume that funding will also be an issue for you. Certain research areas have more funding than others and some professors have more funded projects than others at any point of time. You should also look into this - if funding is an issue for you that is.

Good luck for your US venture.

[civil]

Are you at the IIT? If not, obviously you'll face competition from lots of IITians with credentials similar to yours.

Anyway, at this stage the reputation of your college doesn't matter that much as long as it's an accredited college. What matters is that you should present some research papers at conferences, perhaps publish one or two papers in international refereed journals and get some research or internship experience.

Moreover, your research area should match with that of a professor at the university where you are applying. There are two ways of ensuring this - either you decide about a research area of your choice that has potential for growth and find a professor who works in that area, or you survey what kind of research areas the UCB professors are engaged in - if you have set your heart at UCB - and develop your research area to match the research interests of one of these professors you want to work with.

Since you are coming from India, I presume that funding will also be an issue for you. Certain research areas have more funding than others and some professors have more funded projects than others at any point of time. You should also look into this - if funding is an issue for you that is.

Good luck for your US venture.

Thanks for ur reply.

NO i m not from IITs, my college is Delhi Technological University (formaly known as Delhi College of Engineering).

One more thing i have lot of experience of working on live projects which are like one of a kind in india, so will this count.

When i talked to profs of IIT for research paper they replied that it is required if one is applying for PhD.

Well roughly what number of papers are required i mean i have like just 6 months left to apply to universities.

I also thought doing like ur way, i have made a list of 4-5 prof and their areas of research and i m studying text on that, with the hope to get something hardcore published on it.

[OH YEAH]

If you want to go to a good school in the US, work on your English. It is very important to be able to communicate effectively.

[civil]

If you want to go to a good school in the US, work on your English. It is very important to be able to communicate effectively.

i appreciate ur suggestion but for now my academic profile is more important.

[Seeking]

Delhi College of Engineering is fine. Your work experience on projects will certainly count.

Six months are not enough to produce many papers - at the most you can manage one presentation and perhaps one acknowledgment of publication, though not the actual publication. Most probably you will be competing with people who have at least 3-4 papers, if not more. You can get these papers on your CV and get some more research experience to compensate for the low numbers of papers.

The other option is to wait for a year, use this time to publish more papers, improve your language skills and apply for the Fall 2013 season. Your GRE and TOEFL/IELTS scores will still be valid even after a year and you will have better credentials next year. So, you can decide between these two options.

Rather than scatter your research on to several research areas, it's better to concentrate on one area and work towards getting an expertise in this area. So, you should decide upon one professor at UCB and write papers in his/her area of expertise. When you begin searching for more universities, try to find a professor who specialises in the same or a related area.

Of course, you can always use a second research area as a secondary interest by using it in some way in your papers in an interdisciplinary manner. That way, in case this professor is not able to accept you, you'll have a second option of an advisor.