Mechanical Engineering Fall 2012 Results

[impulse_nerve]

Hello fellow MechEs!

I'm tired of not seeing any of us witha dedicated thread.

I figure this could be explicitly to say if and when we hear back from institutions, good and bad.

I received an acceptance from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute earlier this month. Rather suprising since it's so early, I had expected all results to come in around early March or something.

Anyway, maybe you guys have also heard from other places?

I'm also applied to

columbia university

cornell university

university of michigan

university of maryland

johns hopkins university

princeton university

university of pennsylvania

Good luck everyone!

[CanuckBoy]

Hello!

A thread for mech eng!

It's still pretty early at this point but we should see gradual waves of early replies in the next few weeks.

I applied to:

MIT

Stanford

Purdue

USC

Toronto - 3 professors contacted me, 2 interviews, verbal acceptances

Georgia Tech - Got an email from them:

We are in receipt of your application to the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. You have a very strong file and great credentials. Thank you for your interest in Georgia Tech!

You have not been offered admission, but at the present time your file has been made available for viewing by the faculty of the Woodruff School via an internal web site. If a faculty member views your file and expresses an interest in working with you, we will notify you and continue to process your application. This evaluation will continue until July 1, 2012 and we will advise you of our decision at the latest by that date.

In the meanwhile, if you receive another admission and financial aid offer and need to make an earlier decision, please inform us and we will try to expedite the consideration of your application.

I'm not sure if most/all reject applicants receive this. I looked this up online, apparently there are mixed interpretations on what this means. From first glance I thought it was just telling me that they have received my application; however, now I interpret it as a nice rejection with a TINY glimmer of hope.

Anyways, good luck to all!

Edited January 22, 2012 by CanuckBoy

[10sor]

School: top 5 US engineering

Major: mechanical eng

Minor: biology

Overall GPA: 3.9

Type: domestic male

GRE: 800Q, 620V, 4.5AW

Research Experience:

1.5 years at school

2 summers at national lab

starting another project this semester at school

Honors/Awards:

quite a few, but mostly school level

Pubs:

1st author in respected peer-reviewed journal, upcoming conference, provisional patent

Undergrad TA:

2 mechanical eng classes for 3 semesters

Applied to:

Berkeley

Caltech (bioE)

Carnegie Mellon

Georgia Tech (bioE)

MIT

Michigan (bmed)

Stanford

Not invited to Caltech interview, so rejection?

No word yet from any other schools, so getting a bit anxious...

Best of luck to all!

Edited January 22, 2012 by 10sor

[boilermaker]

hi everyone,

really nice to see a dedicated thread for us.

i have applied to the phd prog at purdue mech for fall 2012. I have already received a masters in ME from purdue back in 2008 so i am now trying to get back in for my phd.

My credentials are no way as stellar as some of yours are but are presented as under, nevertheless:

01 provisional patent application filed for a device designed, fabricated and implemented while at purdue during my masters. Mentioned as the inventor

01 second author paper recently published in an IEEE journal.

GRE 158 V, 162Q, 4.5, TOEFL 117,

Professional Engineer Australia

Professional Engineer Pakistan

06 years expereince in the oil and gas industry.

I am planning (if i get back in) to work with my former advisor again. He intends to support my application although about funding I have no idea.

My current application status is HOlding for Review since Dec 27 and the graduate office told me that the application review process will start on Jan 09th and it would take a couple of weeks. I am not sure what is happening right now but itll be three weeks by coming Monday.

My only saving grace till now has been that i havent seen a single ME admit for Fall 12 till now on the gradcafe results page. Do any of you have any info. please do share.

Good Luck !!!

[CanuckBoy]

From the results section. Purdue won't send anything out until mid Feb so it'll be another 2 weeks at least. My status still says documents pending but Vicki said my application is complete.

You probably know their admission process better than I do. I heard if a prof wants you, you're in?

[boilermaker]

actually i didnt do any applications for my masters, since i got the fulbright fellowship to attend purdue so they (the fulbright commission) did all the paper work, they just sent me a couple of acceptances from the universities where i got in and i made the choice of Purdue. So my guess is as good as yours. Although i would say this that one of the most helpful people who i found to be is the grad office secretary Julayne Moser.

lets hope we hear something good in feb. btw congrats on the toronto admit.

from what ive seen at purdue if the committee likes your profile they'll offer you an admission right away and asign a temporary advisor to you, if they are ok with your profile it is made avaialble to the rest of the faculty who if they take a liking to you they'll ask the grad office to make you an offer. All Phd students are requiered to have funding from a prof available very rare cases can pay for them selves, while masters students may have to fund themselves for atleast one semester before they find funding as TA or RA with a prof.

But yes, if a prof recommends you your chances do increase....

[CanuckBoy]

I just emailed Julayne about my pending status and asked for some update, will keep you posted.

I'm looking at heat transfer and fluid mechanics. There are a number of professors there that are outstanding, would be thrilled to work for them. I've contacted one of the professors there last year as well. Who was your supervisor if you don't mind me asking. PM me if it is more convenient.

[boilermaker]

i am sure she is going to reply.

Actually my advisor has asked to not disclose the fact that he shall be supporting me, so in that spirit i cant tell you his name, I hope you wont mind that.

but i will tell you that i am on the nano/MEMS design side of things.

actually ill tell you that not only the areas you are looking at but the whole dept and all its areas are very strong. I really think it should get even higher rankings than it currently does. they really allow you all the freedom to work and research and give you the latest tools and facilities to play around with. its pretty awesome. )))

[AbaNader]

Hate to break anyone's bubble but I've studied at all types of schools, including top ranked ones (top 5-10) and rankings are very misleading. There is definitely a reason they are ranked that high but this whole ranking thing is way overrated and many of these schools are over-hyped. Unless you are at places like Caltech or Stanford there really isn't a major difference between any of the top 20-30 schools. The rest they feed you is all PR and advertising. Its really self-perpetuating: higher ranked schools get the better mind, and thus produce better results, and thus stay ranked high or get higher. In reality, often there hasn't been any difference in their faculty, facilities, courses, or anything else.

International students have a habit of falling for the rankings game more than anyone else, probably because usually reputation trumps everything overseas. Even if your dissertation was trash, your adviser a wash-over and you don't seem to know a thing about your field...usually a degree from Georgia Tech/UIUC/Purdue/etc.. will be enough. I am saying this because I've seen it.

You will be very blessed if your adviser knows his stuff very well, loves to do his stuff, and loves to share his stuff. Thats all that matters.

[AbaNader]

...and of course has moola!

[boilermaker]

@ AbaNader wow i am so gawd smacked thanks so much dude, the world suddenly makes sooooo much more sense now. lolzzzzz

@ CanuckBoy did julayne reply ????

[CanuckBoy]

Not yet. It's Friday, so maybe next week? Maybe I got rejected already so they don't care about me.

[CanuckBoy]

Hate to break anyone's bubble but I've studied at all types of schools, including top ranked ones (top 5-10) and rankings are very misleading. There is definitely a reason they are ranked that high but this whole ranking thing is way overrated and many of these schools are over-hyped. Unless you are at places like Caltech or Stanford there really isn't a major difference between any of the top 20-30 schools. The rest they feed you is all PR and advertising. Its really self-perpetuating: higher ranked schools get the better mind, and thus produce better results, and thus stay ranked high or get higher. In reality, often there hasn't been any difference in their faculty, facilities, courses, or anything else.

International students have a habit of falling for the rankings game more than anyone else, probably because usually reputation trumps everything overseas. Even if your dissertation was trash, your adviser a wash-over and you don't seem to know a thing about your field...usually a degree from Georgia Tech/UIUC/Purdue/etc.. will be enough. I am saying this because I've seen it.

You will be very blessed if your adviser knows his stuff very well, loves to do his stuff, and loves to share his stuff. Thats all that matters.

I agree with you to some degree. However, we need to keep in mind that a student's perception of a professor on "knowing stuff very well" varies from project to project. For example, my current professor is very well known in his traditional field, the guy who sits beside me adores my professor because his project is exactly aligned with my prof's expertise. I, on the other hand works on a project that he knows nothing about and of course my experience with him is not as positive. Does this happen at Caltech or Stanford? Of course.

A professor mentioned to me during an interview, "If you need to be told what you need to do, you don't belong in my group.", and I agree with that. Ultimately, I'm not looking for a supervisor to hold my hand but rather one that can give a "good" topic (doesn't matter so much whether the prof knows the details since it is impossible to find such a supervisor, and we all know the students end up doing the work anyways), leads a group of strong and knowledgeable students that I get along and can have meaningful discussions with (this is where the higher ranked schools come in), and of course has some funding.

I do agree that students do overemphasize rankings but what other information is easily accessible? I'm sure I can say the reverse is true of Americans with Canadian schools.

Most people I know are doing PhD because they want an academic career. Based on what I've seen, recent hires in major universities in my country are mostly graduates of American universities. I've seen too many amazing PhD graduates with amazing publication records that wouldn't even get shortlisted for interview because of where they got their terminal degree. This is unfair but it is life.

If the opportunity presents itself for me, or anyone, (too many threads about this) to attend a school in the "overrated" top 5-10 schools in hopes for a better shot finding an academic position after or a top 20-30 school? The natural reaction is to take rankings into consideration.

[AbaNader]

I agree with you to some degree. However, we need to keep in mind that a student's perception of a professor on "knowing stuff very well" varies from project to project. For example, my current professor is very well known in his traditional field, the guy who sits beside me adores my professor because his project is exactly aligned with my prof's expertise. I, on the other hand works on a project that he knows nothing about and of course my experience with him is not as positive. Does this happen at Caltech or Stanford? Of course.

A professor mentioned to me during an interview, "If you need to be told what you need to do, you don't belong in my group.", and I agree with that. Ultimately, I'm not looking for a supervisor to hold my hand but rather one that can give a "good" topic (doesn't matter so much whether the prof knows the details since it is impossible to find such a supervisor, and we all know the students end up doing the work anyways), leads a group of strong and knowledgeable students that I get along and can have meaningful discussions with (this is where the higher ranked schools come in), and of course has some funding.

I do agree that students do overemphasize rankings but what other information is easily accessible? I'm sure I can say the reverse is true of Americans with Canadian schools.

Most people I know are doing PhD because they want an academic career. Based on what I've seen, recent hires in major universities in my country are mostly graduates of American universities. I've seen too many amazing PhD graduates with amazing publication records that wouldn't even get shortlisted for interview because of where they got their terminal degree. This is unfair but it is life.

If the opportunity presents itself for me, or anyone, (too many threads about this) to attend a school in the "overrated" top 5-10 schools in hopes for a better shot finding an academic position after or a top 20-30 school? The natural reaction is to take rankings into consideration.

What I was referring to was nitpicking at the rankings. I specifically remember a conversation I had with an international student at a "top 10" school about getting into a school that was ranked just a few places ahead of this "top 10" school in some ranking. He was advising me to leave saying "I don't know about you...but I am greedy, I will always go to the highest ranked place, even if its 1 place higher". That kind of mentality spells trouble.

One of the best schools in the world are the Ecole Normale Superieure schools in France. If you look at their faculty and the quality of their students, its just mind blowing. But because they are smaller schools, they would have trouble getting into the rankings...that is until they aggregated their scores and said they were 1 school with three campuses. Poof, suddenly they're in the top 30 rankings of best universities in the world, which IMHO is still not high enough.

Also, from working substantially under four different advisers at four different schools, personally I prefer that an adviser be very hands-on for the first year or two until the student is familiar with the topic and has some courses under his belt. You can learn and work a lot faster if your adviser cares about your personal/professional success as much as he cares about some paper being published.

Don't even get me started with the horror stories...

[CanuckBoy]

You're right, that is too much. The mentality of "I am automatically better than you just by attending a school that is ranked higher".....

Rankings have always been biased, there are certainly many great schools out there that are "undervalued". Despite these rankings, we all know who/where the top people/groups are in our fields.

[CanuckBoy]

Since we're talking about rankings, this one attempts to remove the subjectivity.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20111205195909326

[AbaNader]

Since we're talking about rankings, this one attempts to remove the subjectivity.

http://www.universit...111205195909326

That is cool with a few surprises (I knew UCSF was great with brain sciences but not that good...). I wish they had a break down by discipline, it would be alot more useful for us picking graduate schools. I found phds.org to be a great tool although their metrics are (just) a little sparse.

Question:

Is it just me, or does MIT seem overrated when it comes to Mechanical Engineering? Looking at their faculty and work, nothing really stands out. It is definitely top 10-20 but #1?

[AbaNader]

Notice in the Leiden rankings, 3 of the top 10 are from the UC system. In fact 5 out of 10 are from California. Great weather, great scholars and great research. Too bad they have perpetual earthquakes and are sitting on an overdue time bomb volcano that would eliminate the entire state in case it erupts.

I think UCSB is the most underrated school around. They have amazing research and 99.8% of incoming students have guaranteed funding.

[CanuckBoy]

MIT's thermofluids is quite strong. I have classmates there so I had a tour of the major labs in the department. I have to say I was impressed. The MEMS and design groups there are very strong as well.

I personally find the Taiwanese ranking quite useful since a lot of data is shown for your own processing. However, their website doesn't always work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_Ranking_of_Scientific_Papers_for_World_Universities#HEEACT_World_University_Rankings_.28Top_20_by_subject.29

[boilermaker]

@ canuckBoy: did you get a reply from julayne ??? my app is still holding for review, i wonder when itll go to under review, if at all it does .........

[CanuckBoy]

Not yet, hopefully soon.

[Bimmerman]

@AbaNader, UCSB is a great school, but the reason so many students have funding is they only accept those whose interests line up with a prof who has an opening. I was accepted to stanford, georgia tech, umich, cu, and berkeley, but was rejected by ucsb. Was quite amusing to find out after I'd been admitted everywhere else.

[CanuckBoy]

So my email got forwarded to Vicki and apparently she was expecting TOEFL results from me. I told her I don't need TOEFL, now my application is complete... Two months ago she said my application was complete... Great impression...

Didn't give any information on decisions.

[CanuckBoy]

They are still reviewing applications, they said there are over 1100 applicants this year.

Edited January 31, 2012 by CanuckBoy

[boilermaker]

i am sure the other departments too had that many apps but they seem to be rolling out results. ahh well lets hope they get to the decisions soon. i am planning to email them in mid feb somewhere. Lets see.