International Student -- Seeking Help

[rightsolution128]

This forum has been tremendously helpful and I asked help earlier and got truly helpful views to set my career path. This time again, I am looking for help from you guys.

I did my B.Sc in Electrical Engineering with major in Power Systems. Unfortunately, I underperformed in my B.Sc and came out with very average CGPA of 3.11. However, in my last year of engineering(with all Power Systems courses), my GPA was 3.3. I would like to add that I had small entrepreneurial venture in my second year of engineering to support myself financially and working 6-hour a day with undergrad coursework was definitely brutal.

I am doing a job in Oil & Gas company and will be having a solid 1 year project site experience in UAE. SO I am hopeful that this will be helpful in overshadowing my bad GPA a bit.

Other than my undergard(probably which matters the most for admit in graduate programs), my school and high school grades are pretty stellar(rank 3 and rank 5 among 20000 students respectively)

GRE and TOEFL I have to give as of yet and will probably be giving within a month or so. I am working hard and will come out with good score(I hope as I scored pretty well in mock tests). Will get good LOR's as well.

Funding is a BIG issue for me and I am having $20-$25k for my Masters. Here are the universities I have finalized to apply to:

1-ASU

2-Iowa State

3-UFL

4-University Of Texas, Dallas

5-University Of Cincinnati

6- NCSU

7- University Of Wisconsin Madsion

So please do help me in making my decision. Do you people suggest to take another year off and apply in 2014 to improve my chances?

Moreover, I do have plans to do job for few years in US before heading back to my country. Hence, post-MS job prospects(in Power Systems in particular) also value a lot for me.

What you guys advise for me?

[ISEngineer]

Don't worry too much about that GPA, I saw more than one here at grad cafe with your GPA getting in in pretty decent places. You should do well on your GRE though. 25k for a masters sounds pretty tough, even in state schools. Funding is almost non existent. I was next to other schools accepted last year to the University of Washington and I know from that, that they offer Research Assistantships to Master applicants as well. I didn't attend finally so I cannot say too much about it and I have no idea if they offer anything in your field but I wanted to mentiion that funding sometimes exists :-)

[rightsolution128]

Don't worry too much about that GPA, I saw more than one here at grad cafe with your GPA getting in in pretty decent places. You should do well on your GRE though. 25k for a masters sounds pretty tough, even in state schools. Funding is almost non existent. I was next to other schools accepted last year to the University of Washington and I know from that, that they offer Research Assistantships to Master applicants as well. I didn't attend finally so I cannot say too much about it and I have no idea if they offer anything in your field but I wanted to mentiion that funding sometimes exists :-)

Thanks a lot for your info.

I have heard that University of Cincinnati offers many UGS grants amounting to almost $15k a year. Should I consider that as well?

Regarding financial aids, you are spot-on. This is the reason I came here at GradCafe to get more opinions from you guys.

More opinions are welcomed.