jacket24 Posted November 18, 2013 Posted November 18, 2013 After taking a couple of years to get a MS degree from my undergrad institution and strengthen my resume, I am applying for a PhD in Environmental Engineering and certain that I am not the only one here. Who else is applying for civil or environmental this time around? Interested in who your competition is? Want to give/receive advice on previous or current applications specific to our field? Feel compelled to vent your application anxiety? Let this be the venue.
haynay Posted December 10, 2013 Posted December 10, 2013 Made an account since it seemed pretty lonely in here! I'm applying for a PhD in Environmental Engineering as well, Environmental Microbiology focus. Stats: UGrad GPA: 3.79 Grad GPA: 3.74 Applying to 9 or 10 schools, and applied for an NSF GRFP (fingers crossed!!) I'd love to hear where everyone else (just NYluie?) is applying/stats.
jacket24 Posted December 15, 2013 Author Posted December 15, 2013 Thanks for chiming in haynay, where are you applying?
jacket24 Posted January 29, 2014 Author Posted January 29, 2014 If anyone else here is applying to the University of Washington in Seattle, I expect that we'll hear back from them in the next 2-3 weeks based on an email conversation that I had with a POI there. Any leads on other programs or info about visit dates, etc. would be great if anyone has heard anything. I, for one, am glad that the seemingly endless month of January is almost over and hope that the decisions start rolling in soon. The silence has been deafening.
phdcandidate022014 Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 My assessment of past years' data on Gradcafe suggests that many of the Civil/Environmental departments do not start notifying until around late February. Of course that has to be taken with a grain of salt, and every year may be different, but that is what I am expecting. UG: 3.5 (top 10 civil/environmental at the time I was there) Master: 3.5 (top 10 civil/environmental at the time I was there) 10+ peer-reviewed pubs, 10+ presentations GRE: 169Q/166V/5.5AW Very strong LOR Waiting: Stanford, UC-Berkeley, Yale, U Florida, CMU, MIT, Cornell, UIUC, UT-Austin Accepted: Chicago (Molecular) Rejected:
jacket24 Posted January 31, 2014 Author Posted January 31, 2014 Forgot to post my stats... UG: 3.2 (top 5 CEE program...started off slow, good upward trend in grades though) MS: 3.5 (top 5 CEE program) Research: 1 paper published, 1 in preparation, 3 presentations, 3 years research experience GRE: 164Q/159V/4.0AQ My assessment of past years' data on Gradcafe suggests that many of the Civil/Environmental departments do not start notifying until around late February. Of course that has to be taken with a grain of salt, and every year may be different, but that is what I am expecting. UG: 3.5 (top 10 civil/environmental at the time I was there) Master: 3.5 (top 10 civil/environmental at the time I was there) 10+ peer-reviewed pubs, 10+ presentations GRE: 169Q/166V/5.5AW Very strong LOR Your publication history is impressive, phdcandidate022014. What is your focus area? The first time around, I got a decision from Cornell in the first week of February, while acceptances for Yale and UW have been reported mostly in the 2nd-3rd weeks of Feb. in the last few years so I'm hoping that trend continues. Some of the larger programs (Stanford, Michigan, UIUC, etc.) do seem to take a bit longer to sift through applications though.
phdcandidate022014 Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Thanks! I really like to write, which has been helpful. Focus area is sustainable pavements and infrastructure. Has anyone posted any consolidated assessment of admission stats for the named schools? It seems that there is usually a dearth of info for engineering schools. Specifically number of applicants, number admitted, number attending per class.
HockeyNerd Posted January 31, 2014 Posted January 31, 2014 Peters ons has some pretty good information. Most of the larger programs have 600-800 applicants each year with 15-30% acceptance rates and it seems like 40-60% enrolling
Cdcousin12345 Posted February 3, 2014 Posted February 3, 2014 If anyone else here is applying to the University of Washington in Seattle, I expect that we'll hear back from them in the next 2-3 weeks based on an email conversation that I had with a POI there. Any leads on other programs or info about visit dates, etc. would be great if anyone has heard anything. I, for one, am glad that the seemingly endless month of January is almost over and hope that the decisions start rolling in soon. The silence has been deafening. I, too, applied to UW-Seattle. Though it is for a M.S. in Structural Engineering. Hopefully we will hear back soon, and good luck.
haynay Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 Well it seems like the decisions are beginning. In the last week (starting Feb. 1) I've heard back from U Michigan, Columbia and Carnegie Mellon. I'm environmental engineering with a focus on environmental microbiology and drinking water. Hope everyone else is hearing good news as well! My stats: UG: 3.8 MS: 3.7 Research: 7 presentations, 4.5 years research experience, 2 pubs in the works GRE: 165Q/165V/4.5AW
jacket24 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Posted February 7, 2014 Congratulations on your success so far, haynay! Yours is the first PhD result I've seen out of UMich so hopefully this upcoming week is the big one. Please post your results on the results page as well so we can keep tabs on decision timelines (and so future generations of applicants have more data to obsess over when awaiting their own fates).
bleary7 Posted February 10, 2014 Posted February 10, 2014 My stats: Undergraduate chemistry degree from 2012 GPA: 3.61 GRE: V-162 Q-155 AW-4.0 Research: 2 years aquatic toxicology research at EPA as analytical chemist, 2 papers in review, 4 presentations, 1 year of undergraduate analytical chem/marine bio research 2 very good LOR, 1 good LOR (or maybe very?) Applying for environmental engineering masters, water track. except Yale of course, that's a PhD program Waiting: Yale, UW-Madison, U of Washington Accepted: UNC-Chapel Hill, UMass-Amherst, UC-Davis (coursework only status), U of MN (civil engineering) Rejected:
phdcandidate022014 Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 (edited) Looks like some Stanford movement recently. On the program's website, Stanford was more direct relative to other programs about saying a specific POI needs to accept you (rather than admission being by full committee). I've seen one PhD reject and one Master's acceptance in the last couple of days. Any current Stanford students with insight? Edited February 12, 2014 by phdcandidate022014
jacket24 Posted February 12, 2014 Author Posted February 12, 2014 I wasn't expecting to hear from Stanford until next month at the earliest but this has given me a (perhaps misplaced) sense of hope that we'll find out sooner. On the other hand, the majority of acceptances have been for the Masters program so I don't know what to think.
HockeyNerd Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 Berkeley contacted me to send more transcripts (I have studied abroad and sometimes it is difficult for universities to understand the grading system). When I called the admissions office to clear things up the woman told me that just were trying to get everything in line and "don't worry this is a good sign" Sounds like they may be close to making decisions (two weeks maybe)
jacket24 Posted February 12, 2014 Author Posted February 12, 2014 Johns Hopkins will be sending out notifications within a week (either this week or the beginning of next week) according to the DOGEE office. Knock on wood...
phdcandidate022014 Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 Could someone be a dove and please contact Stanford and MIT to find out their timeline? Cool, thanks!
HockeyNerd Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 Last year people were hearing from MIT the 3rd and 4th week of February with some acceptances in March as well.
HockeyNerd Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 As well UT Austin is hoping to have acceptances out in about two weeks. Reaching the final stretch!
jacket24 Posted February 12, 2014 Author Posted February 12, 2014 Stanford is "in the full swing of things and they have been reviewing applications." I called to update some of my information and hope to get some sort of confirmation about the changes I requested in the next day or 2. We may be on the verge of hearing more decisions. Hopefully the flow rate increases and becomes turbulent in the near future (fluids puns, yep).
phdcandidate022014 Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 Couple updates on Stanford. They have published their visitation date, which is March 14th. They also have an online RSVP form that you must submit before March 10th. That's not exactly leaving a lot of time for prospective students to make their arrangements, but that at least gives us an idea of the upper bound of their notification date. I'd be surprised if acceptances came after 3/1. http://cee.stanford.edu/events/visitation_day.html
phdcandidate022014 Posted February 13, 2014 Posted February 13, 2014 I've also heard that MIT Civil/Environmental expects to have accepted prospects in for a visit weekend in early April.
HockeyNerd Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Just got my first admit from Illinois. Pretty excited- especially since I was told decisions were not going to be made until March 1st
airl Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Just got my first admit from Illinois. Pretty excited- especially since I was told decisions were not going to be made until March 1st HockeyNerd, Where did you get the information about decisions starting on March 1st? I'm freaking out with this wait
Les-Souliers-Rouges Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Has anyone applied to or heard back from the University of Pittsburgh?
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