Are My choices too optimistic or too pessimistic

[History98]

Hi,

 

I have been thinking hard about what schools I intend on applying for an EE PhD at starting 2015, but the main problem I am having trouble with is gauging how (un)competitive my application is in relation to the schools I want to go to, so I would like opinions from people in this forum.I really don't want to end up with 9 rejections.

 

About Me:

 

-MEng Electronics from a relatively good UK school (Southampton): I predict I will have an accumulated average of around 72% - 73% by the time I apply, which I think should correspond to a GPA of around 3.7 - 3.8.

 

-Research Experience: None

 

-GRE: I haven't taken this yet but looking at the test I think I could score about 160 - 166 in the Quant section.

 

Schools:

 

*UC Berkeley

*Cornell

*UCLA

*Michigan

*Rensseleer Polytechnique Institute

*WashU

*Northwestern

*Duke

*Dartmouth 

 

Are these choices too optimistic, I know UC Berkeley and Cornell are probably reaches.Assume that I will get good references from my referees.

 

Any input appreciated.

[Bruin4Ever]

I would suggest throwing in UCSD as it's really strong EE school, and especially a top circuits school.

 

"Competitive Institutions: We compete for students with peer institutions that have STRONG circuits research groups such as UCLA, UCB, UT-Austin, UW, Columbia, and Georgia-Tech (among others)"

 

http://hsic.ucsd.edu/Admissions.html

 

For your top choices, I would try to include some of these schools as they are recognized as the best EE and circuits schools. Cornell is great, but each school has different strong points. If you are interested in getting into a top school, I would apply to up to 6, then chose 2-3 schools with higher acceptance rates (something like University of Arizona -  a school that is well recognized for strong research, but won't be as hard to get into as the schools mentioned above). The key to the back-up schools is picking ones that are still strong in their field, but not impossible to get into. On the other hand, Duke and Dartmouth are not strong EE schools, but will still be difficult to get into (hence I would suggest rethinking them).

Edited June 15, 2014 by Bruin4Ever

[History98]

I would suggest throwing in UCSD as it's really strong EE school, and especially a top circuits school.

 

"Competitive Institutions: We compete for students with peer institutions that have STRONG circuits research groups such as UCLA, UCB, UT-Austin, UW, Columbia, and Georgia-Tech (among others)"

 

http://hsic.ucsd.edu/Admissions.html

 

For your top choices, I would try to include some of these schools as they are recognised as the best EE and circuits schools. Cornell is great, but each school has different strong points. If you are interested in getting into a top school, I would apply to up to 6, then chose 2-3 schools with higher acceptance rates (something like University of Arizona -  a school that is well recognised for strong research, but won't be as hard to get into as the schools mentioned above). The key to the back-up schools is picking ones that are still strong in their field, but not impossible to get into. On the other hand, Duke and Dartmouth are not strong EE schools, but will still be difficult to get into (hence I would suggest rethinking them).

 

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it, where do you get acceptance rate information from? Do you go to each university and search for the information or is there a place I can go to get all that information in one place?

[Xavinoid]

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it, where do you get acceptance rate information from? Do you go to each university and search for the information or is there a place I can go to get all that information in one place?

It is very well known that the best RFIC, MMIC, mixed signal, and analog schools are:

 

UCLA, UCSD, Berkeley

Stanford

Michigan

 

then:

Caltech

Georgia Tech

U Washington

Columbia

UT Austin

 

The way I know this is from attending Michigan's program. The way you will know this is by talking to people like me

 

The top 3 (UCLA, UCSD, Berkeley) will be just as hard to get into as the rest honestly, all of these are very competative schools. You can get an idea of relative acceptance rates from that UCSD link posted above (wish I saw this when I applied), I think UCSD might have a lower acceptance rate because of the fact they only accept the students they want to keep for sure (Mich does this, but I'm not so sure about Stanford and the others).  It is true that places like Cornell will be hard to get into for circuits, but only because they don't have a large circuit program This is all assuming you plan to apply to RFIC, MMIC, mixed signal, and analog.

 

Edit: Found another professor's page after clicking on the one above that may help give you a good idea of the applications process for top schools: http://web.eng.ucsd.edu/ece/groups/electromagnetics/Admissions.html this is a very good reference for what top schools look for in terms of gpa, gre, application in general. This professor is really well known and his listed gre scores are definitely in your reach. It seems he emphasizes language and writing skills in addition to engineering. I would ignore the top 25 schools thing, this is definitely the least important aspect - if your application is good, its good regardless of your school.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Xavinoid