Power Electronics Schools: A&M v. Virginia Tech?

[formulaencore]

Hi all,

 

I've gotten admits from A&M and Virginia Tech so far, I applied for the MSEE program. I believe they're both very strong in terms of power electronics research, but A&M is ranked higher overall (like #12 for graduate EE rankings), while Virginia Tech is ranked #21 (or something close to that).

 

I wanted to aim for R&D or design after school, like Sandia or Boeing/Raytheon. However, after comparing the career fair companies between the two, the companies and National labs that visit VTech are slightly different than the ones that visit A&M (VTech has like Lincoln Labs and Oak Ridge, east coast lab stuff). I'm not sure if this is a regional thing or if I'm going to lose opportunities by attending VTech over A&M. Does anyone have any insight in regards to this?

 

The reason I'm considering VTech is because they offered me a Bradley Master's fellowship that covers all tuition/fees, and a graduate TA position with stipend (24.3k). Both are good for 2 years as long as I maintain a 3.5 grad GPA and find my thesis advisor (I applied for a thesis for all schools) by the second semester. Does this seem reasonable in terms of the requirements? I'm sorry if this comes off as a stupid question, I'm not really familiar with this.

 

One thing that kinda put me off A&M is during the graduate invitational (when they invite down their "top pick" US students for a campus/lab tour), I was having trouble asking to just volunteer in a lab. The professors don't seem to want to deal with Master's students, even if we applied for a thesis option and were accepted already. I was going to self fund A&M (and I still expect to if I choose to attend), and all the current graduate students recommended us getting on our thesis projects/advisors ASAP due to just the competitiveness of just finding one. I was seriously considering going to a nonthesis at A&M just because of how much difficulty I had at the graduate invitational just to ask for a volunteer position to help out in the lab (and hopefully contribute while getting a good idea for a thesis).

 

About myself: I did my BSEE at UT Austin, 3.6, graduated in 3 years as of last Spring, have been at Texas Instruments since. I have no research experience and did two internships at HP.

 

Cliffs: Is VTech worth the incentive due to the fellowship? They seem to want me more but I'm wondering if I'm shutting out opportunities by attending a (slightly) lower ranked school. Is the difference minimal and I'm just overthinking it?

 

If it matters, I've also been accepted by ASU and Michigan Ann Arbor so far. No way in hell I can afford either of those two though (Texas resident, and Michigan is 45k out of state just for tuition).

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

O

Edited February 21, 2016 by formulaencore