How do I decide which universities do I fit in?

[alive1208]

Hello everyone,

I am a final year undergrad student from India, and I am applying for PhD in Chemical Engineering, Fall 2016. I don't have much of an idea on various aspects of applying for a grad school. So I have some basic doubts. 

I have a good profile so far with nice research experience during my undergrad, accompanied with a few first-authored publications in good journals. The question before me right now is how do I decide where to apply. How do we decide which university do we fit in? So far, I have found 2-3 or at some universities even 1 research group working in the field, I am interested in. Should I contact the professor through email to get an idea if he/she is interested in having me as a grad student? Should I not apply to universities where I have only 1 research group is working in that particular field but the university is really nice, like stanford, UC Berkeley. I am confused on how do i proceed now. 

Also, What do people exactly mean by "fitting in a university program"? 

I would appreciate any suggestions or views to clarify these doubts. Please feel free to put forward your views on these questions.

Thanks!

Edited August 16, 2015 by alive1208

[hippyscientist]

Hi,

Apologies for not being more specific as I am not in your field, but as an international student applying for PhDs in the US I thought I'd reply with my experiences so far. Firstly, I scoured the internet for programmes in my field (it's pretty small at the PhD level), then I narrowed it down to those schools who have at least one POI who has similar research interests to mine (even broadly). Then I found out whether I could attend in Fall 16 as I don't finish my masters until July (and don't technically graduate until December 16). From that, I then looked at the research in closer detail, looked at the faculty profiles, lab pages and grad student profiles (where I could). I looked at the overall rankings of the schools and the rankings in my field (not easy let me tell you - there's hardly any ranking for Kinesiology). Then when I'd learnt as much as I could from the website I emailed those professors who I was interested in working for with a little background about myself and my research experience, that I thought our research interests aligned and to ask for further information from them. The ones who have responded have been amazing, giving me great information, putting me in touch with grad students, skyping and all that. I've tried to not let location influence me too much, but it has to a certain extent. I didn't look at universities in Texas for example, as I know that it's not a place I would do well in for 5 years (I've spent too much time there in the past as is). 

So I would say fit first and foremost should be research, followed by whether you would see yourself happy studying there, and relocating there for 5+ years. What constitutes that reasoning is up to you - for me it was location, cost of living in the area, grad stipend, other faculty in the department, to a degree name of the school, links with my home university etc.

Hope that helps a bit!