Acceptance into Top 20 EECS or ECE PhD. Programs

[sugiri]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to thegradecafe.com. I am a junior in ECE from a university ranked among USNews top 100 National Universities. I am planning to go to Graduate School in ECE after I finish my B.S. next year, and I am hoping to go to one of top 20 ECE/EECS PhD. programs.

I started researching about the Graduate School application process and my target PhD. programs starting the fall semester this year. But most of the information I got from the web are pretty confusing and vague for me. I finally got to this site tonight, and I saw a lot of people reporting the acceptance into the programs I am aiming for. So I believe somebody on this site would be able to answer my questions.

Here are some more information about me. My concentration in ECE is Communication Systems and Computer Engineering. I also minor in Computer Science, concentrating on Computer Systems and Architecture. My cumulative GPA until now is 3.78-ish. I am aiming to pull this above 3.8 before applying to Graduate Programs next year. My major GPA is 3.72-ish. I got B's in some basic level ECE classes, but I have been doing all As in the advanced classes. I will also have pulled this up by 3.79 by the time I apply to Graduate Programs. My minor GPA is 4.0 currently. As research experience, I am currently working at a Data Mining Research group at my college for a required project credit for my B.S. degree. In addition, I will work at a one of Computer Engineering research labs at my college for coming summer. I will do my Senior Capstone Project at the same lab in my senior year. I will hopefully get a publication from my summer research. As work experience, I have experience as assistant system administrator in previous summer. I am also the undergraduate ECE TA since the previous fall. I have not started attempting GREs yet, but I will start trying out the practice tests after this semester. I am pretty confident about my writing and math, but I am afraid about the notorious GRE verbal.

This is pretty much all about me. I would like to know about my chances of getting into the top 20 ECE programs. I would like to know which programs would be too far-fetched and which programs are reachable given my circumstances.

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Regards,

A Desperate Student

[inactive_since_inf]

IMHO, you are on your way to building a really strong application :wink:

[mo7aisen]

you are on the right track. research experience is extremely valuable and will be weighted high when applying. if you make it for some publications, this will be the perfect application. it's not too hard to get admitted to *some* schools in top 20 but specific schools tend to be tough (top 5). I got into top 20 (CS) with a modest profile (GPA and GRE) but with SO MANY publications (20-some papers).

btw, my undergraduate GPA was 3.3 (top 20%; i presume), graduate GPA was 4.0/4.0 (top1). Both degrees are from less known schools outside of the States. I have been working for a well-known research institute for a while. Except of being lucky to experience so many *quality* publications, nothing is special in my profile. I've low GRE scores indeed.

Good Luck

[sugiri]

Thank you very much everyone for your time to sincerely reply my questions. I really appreciate it.

Here are some updates from me. After posting my questions on here, I tried to narrow down the list by the concentration area. I talked to some Professors in both Communication Systems and Computer Engineering areas of ECE at my college. According to the nature of doctoral research as I heard from each of them, I became pretty much convinced to myself that I would like to work on Computer Engineering/Science area for my PhD. degree especially on Computer Architecture and Embedded Systems.

So I used USNews rankings to find out about great graduate programs in Computer Engineering. After some thorough search, I came up with following list of schools.

1. University of California - Berkeley

2. CMU

3. Stanford

4. Georgia Tech

5. Cornell University

6. University of Maryland - College Park

7. University of Southern California

8. University of California - San Diego

9. University of California - Los Angeles

10. Princeton University

These universities have great graduate computer engineering programs, and have research groups dedicated to my area of research interest. So I am pretty sure that I will be applying to PhD. programs next fall. I am also open to suggestions of any other great PhD. programs in computer engineering area.

For now, I would like to ask the same question I asked in my first post: which programs would be too far-fetched given my situation. I read a lot of news about admissions to some of the PhD. programs on my list in 2009 EE Graduate admission thread on this site too. I am really excited to read those news, and feel happy for those who got into their dream programs. I would be really honored if anyone getting into the programs on my list could share their experience of the application process as well as thoughts and comments about my chances. Of course, comments and thoughts of any other ladies and gentleman will be greatly appreciated too.

Thank you very much.

Best Regards,

Sugiri

[space_invaders]

Definitely need to get some backups there... If you're aiming for top 20, definitely pick and choose at least 2 backup schools from the top 50, that would would feel comfortable going. The things I considered when choosing my backups was: city, overall school strength (will it offset their lower reputation in ECE?), and individual stars within the faculty. Don't take anything for granted though... I did that, and got rejected from what I would have thought as "safe" schools. This year and the next are not the most ideal times to be applying for grad school (or jobs, for that matter).

My experience this year has been that I heard back positively only from the schools I had a good feeling about my potential advisor. So what does this mean? I looked at how active the profs were, how many students they had (very hard to tell, lots of googling here), and what grants they've been getting lately (that will ultimately define your work with your advisor).

Whatever you do, don't apply to a school just to have applied... you'll be almost guaranteed to not get in. Determine your priorities, and then sift through the schools to pick and choose <10 schools (anything more, and you'll be preparing applications 40 hrs a week for a month -- my two cents).

I hope that helps!

[sugiri]

Thank you space_invaders for your opinion and suggestion. That really helped me a lot there.

As for my list, I admit that the list sounds unrealistic. They are everybody's dream so the competition will surely be keen. But honestly, I do not know about what is actually going on with the admissions processes at those schools. I tried to find the information about admission criteria about those schools online for my own reality check. But everything I found was not really helpful. For example, Cornell University ECE states that the minimum requirement would be GPA of 3.5 or above, etc. But I am pretty sure that most students in the application poll will have much higher GPA than that. Worse, UCLA (I think) ECE states that the students should have B+ or higher average to be considered for the admission, which is really easy to get no matter how I see it. I cannot find any reliable and accurate information online at all. When I tried asking to the schools' admissions offices, they just reply with vague answers that are usually the recitation of what is on their school websites.

That is why I am sincerely asking the students on this site who have already been admitted into the schools on my list or who have gone through the application process to these schools recently. I would love to hear about what you think, and what you would like to suggest if you are OK to share your experiences and thoughts concerning the process. I really appreciate if more students would reply to my thread.

To get back to space_invader, I really appreciate your thoughts and suggestion. I will definitely look for three or more programs in between top 20 and top 50 list for backup. Your criteria for choosing programs also give me a new, good perspective to think, too. But here is one thing I would like to really know about. I am sure there would be a star faculty in a respective area even if the university itself is not everybody's dream. But how can I determine who is the star faculty in my intended area? I have done some research on this matter, and found out the fact that if a faculty have developed a even a small research group or a center, they usually have a considerable number of publications on reputable journals and conferences. Besides, most of them have some forms of industrial grants, NSF fellowships or university fellowships. But the problem for me is there are a lot of such faculty. So I would be very much happy how did you look for a faculty being a star in a field.

For actual application, I intended no more than ten programs from the start. But still, the programs I really like among the list, i.e., I will be happy if I get into them, are CMU, University of Maryland -- College Park, University of Southern California, University of California -- San Diego and university of California Los Angeles. I have looked into the doctoral research at these universities, and they have groups or faculty I really want to work with. space_invader, or any other lady or gentleman, if you could comment on the possibility on these programs, I would love to hear about them.

Again, thank you very much everyone !

Best Regards,

Sugiri

[vannik]

I'm an EE in electromagnetics and I came from a top 50 school undergrad GPA of 3.7. When I app'd to grad school I had a job starting about $20,000 over the national average so I didn't study for GRE's or anything. I got a 750 and the verbal is embarassing. Lets just say below 500. In any event, having a strong work record seemed to be very important for me. I worked full time for 2 years during undergrad (My undergrad is #1 in the country for co-op/internships). The work experience there is what I think got me into some really good programs. For my field Georgia Tech and Ohio State are pretty big names and I got accepted with an RA to both, as well as various offers elsewhere. I didn't apply to anywhere in California or MiT.

Long story short, if I were you I'd try to see if there's something that would make you more appealing as an incoming researcher. I learned how to use some 3D computational electromagnetics tools at my job that a lot of undergraduates have little to no experience. I for sure explained in detail what I did with these tools at my job to give me an edge over kids who might have better GPAs but could have less impact in initial research. If you can coorelate your summer work this year with something that relates to a specific school or research group it could help.

Also, it's good to apply to lower tier schools to use them as barganing chips. I told one school that I had an RA at a higher ranked school and got offered a fellowship. It was only for a year but it's great for the CV. Especially with this economic climate, it's a lot more competive to get into a school now than a 2007. Way more applications coming in.

Hope this helps a little bit.

[twocosmicfish]

I'm an EE in electromagnetics and I came from a top 50 school undergrad GPA of 3.7. When I app'd to grad school I had a job starting about $20,000 over the national average so I didn't study for GRE's or anything. I got a 750 and the verbal is embarassing. Lets just say below 500. In any event, having a strong work record seemed to be very important for me. I worked full time for 2 years during undergrad (My undergrad is #1 in the country for co-op/internships). The work experience there is what I think got me into some really good programs. For my field Georgia Tech and Ohio State are pretty big names and I got accepted with an RA to both, as well as various offers elsewhere. I didn't apply to anywhere in California or MiT.

Long story short, if I were you I'd try to see if there's something that would make you more appealing as an incoming researcher. I learned how to use some 3D computational electromagnetics tools at my job that a lot of undergraduates have little to no experience. I for sure explained in detail what I did with these tools at my job to give me an edge over kids who might have better GPAs but could have less impact in initial research. If you can coorelate your summer work this year with something that relates to a specific school or research group it could help.

Also, it's good to apply to lower tier schools to use them as barganing chips. I told one school that I had an RA at a higher ranked school and got offered a fellowship. It was only for a year but it's great for the CV. Especially with this economic climate, it's a lot more competive to get into a school now than a 2007. Way more applications coming in.

Hope this helps a little bit.

Vannik,

I am also interested in CEM - where are you going this fall?

[sugiri]

Hello vannik,

Thank you for your reply. Your reply gave me what a thought about what I need to do. I know which field I am going to for grad school, so I can start acquiring skills I need for grad research over upcoming summer.

I sincerely wish you have fruitful graduate research career.

Best Regards,

Sugiri

[TKassis]

The following is a list of the top ten US universities in Computer Engineering according to the latest US News and World Report rankings:

1- Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2- Stanford University

3- University of California--Berkeley

4- Carnegie Mellon University

5- University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign

6- University of Michigan--Ann Arbor

7- California Institute of Technology

8- Georgia Institute of Technology

9- University of Texas--Austin (Cockrell)

10- Cornell University

and this is for Electronic/Electrical Engineering

1- Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2- Stanford University

3- University of California--Berkeley

4- University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign

5- California Institute of Technology

6- Georgia Institute of Technology

7- University of Michigan--Ann Arbor

8- Carnegie Mellon University

9- Cornell University

10- Princeton University

Not really sure about the accuracy of the methodology used, but it does take into account things like faculty publications, employer preference...

[TKassis]

Sugiri,

With universities there is no program that is far-fetched. As long as you have reasonable grades (which you do) you can apply to any program you like. Remember there are many factors that influence a university's decision. For example if you are from a country that is underrepresented in the university it will be very easy for you to get an acceptance. Other factors that play a role are your gender, undergraduate university... so apply to any program you like, but make sure you also apply to some 'safe universities' so that you make sure you get into at least one university.

[sugiri]

Hello twocosmicfish and TKassis,

Thank you for your replies. Both of you are going to great schools. Congratulations on that.

Since you are all set in getting to your graduate school, could I ask both of you about your stats? How much GPA and GREs + research experience you guys had to be able to get into such great schools?

Thank you very much in advance.

Best Regards,

Sugiri

[twocosmicfish]

Hello twocosmicfish and TKassis,

Thank you for your replies. Both of you are going to great schools. Congratulations on that.

Since you are all set in getting to your graduate school, could I ask both of you about your stats? How much GPA and GREs + research experience you guys had to be able to get into such great schools?

Thank you very much in advance.

Best Regards,

Sugiri

My info is on the third page of the 2009 Applicant Profiles thread.

[TKassis]

I don't have a GPA as my undergraduate university was in the UK and they don't use the GPA system. My GRE scores were 760 Q, 530 V (English is my second language) and 4.5 A. I don't have much research experience, but I'm doing an M.S. not PhD so they don't really expect much research history.

[sugiri]

Thank you very much for sharing twocosmicfish and TKassis.

From reading your records, I cannot help but I have to say, "You both are awesome!"

May you both have great times in Champaign and Atlanta.

Best Regards,

Sugiri

[TKassis]

I wouldn't really say my records are awesome (not even close) but if you insist I'll accept the compliment

Wish you all the best with your applications.

[sugiri]

Hello Everyone,

I have got something else recently so I would like to share, and ask some questions.

I got the summer research fellowship at my college, and will be working on reconfigurable architectures all summer. Part of the research will go into my senior design project. My senior design project will sponsored by the well-known company in academia (every ECE scholar has to use the simulation software product from this company at least once in his/her career). Hopefully, I will get a publication or two out of these projects.

My question is: what are the technical skills and software/hardware development techniques that graduate research in ECE/EECS about computer architecture/reconfigurable computing usually demand? Since I am sure this is the field I will be working for my graduate career, I think it is a great opportunity for me to learn some useful skills in this field.

Thank you very much in advance.

Best Regards,

Sugiri

[Nagarjun Bhat]

I want to pursue my masters in applied electromagnetics. I hear the number of applicants in this field is not very high owing to the difficulty. Is that true?
How are the job prospects?
I got a score of 324/340 (q:166 & V:158). I have 2 publications in cryptography, 4 internships and 3 more research papers and corresponndingly 2 projects in radars, RF pursuing. Which schools should I preferably apply for?

Edited November 19, 2013 by Nagarjun Bhat