Electrical/Computer Engineering admission results?

[amine]

How do you guys manage to have an interview with profs, I sent a ton of emails to professors but the majority of them just ignored me

However the few replies that I got were kind of positive.

[josefine]

same here, but not even with profs, with the grad admission office. they ignored me and i did go through with the application process with those universities. the prof called me :? , but i did not get a positive vibe from him

[josefine]

i did not apply to any fellowships/scholarships :shock: probably this will hurt my application. :cry:

[amine]

I did not apply also to any scholarship or fellowship; I'm hoping to get a RA.

I think that I was too optimistic. And now on a second thought I think that I was aiming too high when I chose my universities. I mean that all these Ivy League universities are looking for the perfect applicant. And this is certainly NOT me. :?

[LProof]

Well, my undergrad university has a system setup where the professors look over an application and then the ones who are interested in working with a student put their names on a list, you get sent a form e-mail with contact info, and then you arrange an interview. I love the way they organize things here. The other prof who interviewed me (over the phone) contacted me after reading my application. I have no idea how the other schools work with this, though. I got a bit too busy to research the professors & contact them myself, and I'm regretting that now.

[durlov]

who just posted an MIT EE result with a question for the comment? left notification empty? i'm guessing it wasn't one of us, but whoever it was, hopefully he/she'll find their way to this post and tell more about that result. personally, i'm discounting that result entry as bogus - at least for the time being.

[durlov]

wow and another acceptance just now - dated Feb 13th but added just now. whoever just added today's result for MIT EE Phd, if you're reading this post, please tell more how you got the acceptance. any insights for the rest of us?

[amine]

Looks like someone received an acceptance in PhD EE in MIT in the 13th

Scary isn't it :shock:

I just hope that this is not a silly joke done by someone.

[amine]

It seems that the one who entered the second MIT result is the same guy who entered the result for Cornell since the word PhD is repeated twice for both of these results.

For the first MIT result I am sure that it’s one of us.

[josefine]

one of us, as in one of us posting here?

:shock:

not me, but certainly he/she must be celebrating

[amine]

The result where there is the question "Did any one get in?" was probably introduced by one of us but I think that it does not mean that he really received an acceptance but it was just a way for him to ask the question "Did any one get in?".

However the second result the one in 13th seems more realistic and scary.

[LifeGoesOn]

I was just googling around... do you want to see how a new graduate at CS@MIT (and Stanford, and Princeton) looks like?

http://dahua.spaces.live.com/

http://personal.ie.cuhk.edu.hk/~dhlin4/

"When the new century reached, I began my study in University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). It is the first time I need to leave my hometown Foshan for a long term. In this famous university gathering talented youth, I found that it is more difficult than expected to obtain outstanding grades. However, the challenge did not stop my steps towards excellence. After a year's persistent efforts, I managed to one of the best students in the department, and acquired the respect from both the professors and the peers."

I though that science was about modesty..

> GRE ( Verbal 540, Quantitative 800, Analytical Writing 6.0

D'oh. My GRE scores were 630/800/4.0 -- I hope that 4.0 does not count so much for Caltech and CMU.

[cantab]

Quite an impressive research and publication record, which matters the most, I believe.

[LifeGoesOn]

If I may ask, how many publications do you have?

I have 4 (first author at intl. conf) + some group publications, however the topic is somewhat different from the research interests of the profs at MIT and at Caltech.

Moreover, I don't have fellowships (actually, in my country there are very few, and you can only get those after a MS, and I'm still finishing).

Plus, I think I screwed up my SoP.

I guess that next year I will have a profile very similar to the chinese guy, who got a MS last year.

Now I have to decide whether to get other offers I got here in Europe, or try again next year after some other research.

[amine]

I have 1 IEEE journal paper and 3 IEEE int conf papers, I have also several papers under review (all as first author). I am also in the middle of my MS.

The problem of my profile lies more in my academics which are not very impressive :cry: especially for my bachelor degree.

Also my analytical GRE is 3.5 (verbal:560 and Q:800) so this can screw me, but I heard that Big universities don't care about GRE.

Add to that the fact that I am an international applicant :roll: . and you will see that my chances are reduced to 1% :? :cry:

[LifeGoesOn]

Amine, I think that you have a very strong academic profile, so one of the top 10 schools will surely offer you something.

Myself, I only applied to the top 3 (for my field). And to say the truth, one month ago I did consider CMU as a "safety school" :-).

At the moment I have the very depressing sensation that no school will accept me.

The other alternative that I have is an excellent place here in Europe, so I did not apply to second-tier schools, or to the top-schools that are not so attractive (es: GeorgiaTech -- great school, but who will survive 5 years in Atlanta???).

In the end, MIT and Caltech did have a higher "expected value" from my point of view, but the *variance* is very big in life.

Now I'm forcing myself to think of the plus side of a PhD here in Europe:

+) 1h plane from/to home for 30 euro

+) 2x the money and 0.5x the stress

+) much more freedom in choosing research topics

But there are many minuses:

-) not so curriculum-building as a MIT PhD

-) much less networking

...

[amine]

LifeGoesOn have you applied to ETHZ, I think in Europe, in terms of research, it's among the best (at least im my field). And I know a young professor who received his PhD there and now he is an assistant professor in Berkeley.

For the other universities in Europe, I don't have a big idea, I think KTH is very good also.

I am more used to the Frech system, In France they have very strong engineering schools like X (polytechnique)... and they are also very strong in theoretical stuff like ENS ulm. But for PhD I do not think that they have excellent universities.

[LifeGoesOn]

amine, I'll respond privately.

[cantab]

Guys, what do u think are my chances at MIT? (assuming that MIT is yet to give out the EE decisions)

Profile: Applied for PhD in Nanotechnology

BEng (Hons.) - EE - University of Leeds, UK - First Class (85%) - Class Rank 2/129

MPhil - Micro and Nanotechnology - University of Cambridge (Ongoing)

IEEE Best Honors Project Prize, Rinicom Ltd Prize, Professor Carter Scholarship, ICLP Research Fellowship, Vedacom Ltd Prize, Dean's List, Undergraduate summer research assistantship

1 summer research project; 1 industry internship; Did honors project with Pace Micro Technology, UK; Currently doing MPhil project at Cambridge Nanoscience Centre [Collaborative project with Philips Research (Netherlands), IMEC (Belgium), EPFL (Switzerland) and European Aeronautic and Defense Company (Germany)]; 4-month teaching experience

1 Institute of Physics Journal paper (4th Author), 1 IEEE Conference paper in Germany (4th Author) , 1 technical paper at Pace Micro Technology

5 recommendation letters. All should be strong. Recommenders did their PhD from Cambridge, UC Berkeley, ETH Zurich and Leeds.

Other universities applied to are Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech, Harvard and Cambridge. Yet to here.......

[LifeGoesOn]

cantab, [DISCLAIMER]

You have a good curriculum, but how come no publications?

Is it normal in your field?

In my field, 4th author does not really count anything, but could be different in nanotechnology; for example, I guess there are large teams involved in every research.

Isn't a MPhil the equivalent of an american PhD or a european MS+PhD?

[cantab]

MPhil in Cambridge is a 11-month masters program, which I started in October 2006. The papers were published during my undergrad years (2004 and 2005). As an undergraduate in UK, it is almost impossible to be the first author (or even 2nd) of a paper, especially when you are working within a very strong research group of Cambridge.

Lifegoeson, which field you are in?

[LifeGoesOn]

Control/robotics.

It happens that Bachelor's thesis and Master's thesis become publications.

Typically each "thesist" works alone on a topic.

Then, the paper is as follows:

X, Y, Z "My thesis", in Proceedings of the IEEE ...

where:

X: Bs/MS student (wrote the code)

Y: PhD student supervising X (wrote the paper)

Z: professor, which is vaguely aware of Y's presence in the lab, and once met X.

[durlov]

Is anybody here NOT already done/doing MS? Is anybody applying with only a bachelors degress so far?

[cantab]

LifeGoesOn, you are right. But in my case, I did my honors project with a company and the task was to design and improve a product for them. I can't publish a paper on my honors project, due to the signed bond (i.e. have to maintain the confidentiality) with the company. However, later I won the IEEE Best Project prize for my honors project.

[durlov]

sheesh! anxiety's taking a toll on typing... i meant bachelor's degree.