Aero Applicants Fall 2017

[luisalasnjr]

Good to see you here @StarLord Being from UT Arlington, I can answer all your questions in detail. Just send me a PM

[hellz2dayeah]

I've been shadowing this thread for awhile but I finally decided to make an account to respond to this:

Undergrad GPA: 3.95

GRE: V-167, Q-170, W-4.5

Applied to Purdue, Illinois, UT-Austin, and CU-Boulder. Got into PhD programs in all of them except Illinois where it was a masters (which didn't really have the faculty I was interested in anyways). 

I think I'm heading to CU, but if y'all have any other questions I can help out with, feel free to send me a message. Good luck to everyone else still deciding!

[pvfm]

Congratulations @hellz2dayeah! Did you get funding from all universities?

[hellz2dayeah]

6 hours ago, pvfm said:

Congratulations @hellz2dayeah! Did you get funding from all universities?

Thank you! Yes all of them except Illinois, which I was definitely happily surprised by. We can message about the offers if you have further questions on them

[cocomomo]

@hellz2dayeah Congratulations on your admits! Is there a specific reason you didn't opt for UT Austin? I have applied for there mech MS programme. I am curious about how good there department is in terms of funding, job opportunities? 

Any insight you have would be a great!

[hellz2dayeah]

7 hours ago, cocomomo said:

@hellz2dayeah Congratulations on your admits! Is there a specific reason you didn't opt for UT Austin? I have applied for there mech MS programme. I am curious about how good there department is in terms of funding, job opportunities? 

Any insight you have would be a great!

Thank you @cocomomo! I love Austin (I went to UT for my undergrad), so in terms of the city and school, it's an awesome place to be. Why I'm not opting for UT: I just wanted to expand my horizons, have new experiences, and see a new place, I've lived in Texas all my life so I decided nows a good time as any to go to just as good of a school in CU. 

If you've never been to Austin, its a very eccentric, fun, and awesome place to be if you like a big city but also has everything you might find in the country with nature trails basically in downtown, rivers all over, and friendly people everywhere. 

For the department: the aero and mech departments actually don't overlap much here so I'm probably not the best help in terms of the details, but the few mechanical engineers I do know had no problems finding internships/jobs at NASA, GM, Union Pacific, and research labs. Also I know they recently renovated parts of their building, and definitely seem like they're always working on cool stuff in there (like multiple types of cars, drones, wind tunnels, etc.).

Thats just a quick summary, but I'd be happy to elaborate on anything if you have any other specific questions about it

[cocomomo]

Thanks for replying @hellz2dayeah. 

I am in conundrum. I have a great admit from a school but I wanted to wait for UT Austin. However, they are taking an awful amount of time to send decisions. I have checked that all the departments(ORIE, Aero, EECS, material sci etc) have had there results. This makes me question the general attitude of the Mechanical dept. towards it's students. I mean it has been more than 4 months and still they haven't send out the results. 

Do you know anything in this context about the school/ department?

[luisalasnjr]

@cocomomo I have personally never received a response from my inquiries to UT's department. I did got an admit, although it is for a non-thesis program.

I was talking to one of my professors the other day and she said this is something that she has heard from many other students. UT is a huge university, and probably they can't pay attention or take care of all their students. I agree with @hellz2dayeah that Austin in an incredible city and it was one of my top choices, but I'm getting second thoughts about the department. 

[cocomomo]

@luisalasnjr Congratulations on your admit! Thanks for the reply. I understand that UT is a huge university but I find this behavior unprofessional. Initially UT Austin was my first choice but I rather go to a school which atleast gives me time to explore the course. I mean it's already April 6 and they haven't sent out most of their decisions. I am quite happy with my school, but would have love to hear back from UT before accepting the offer as I did pay a hefty application fee. Hope my experience would serve as lesson to future applicants!

[hellz2dayeah]

39 minutes ago, cocomomo said:

Thanks for replying @hellz2dayeah. 

I am in conundrum. I have a great admit from a school but I wanted to wait for UT Austin. However, they are taking an awful amount of time to send decisions. I have checked that all the departments(ORIE, Aero, EECS, material sci etc) have had there results. This makes me question the general attitude of the Mechanical dept. towards it's students. I mean it has been more than 4 months and still they haven't send out the results. 

Do you know anything in this context about the school/ department?

@cocomomo That does seem kind of strange. The only thing I can think of is maybe the admissions office is a bit hectic if they've had to move. I haven't heard anything bad about the department from its own students so I think they treat they're students well enough. My suggestion would be to give their grad coordinator a call or email and see if that gives you a response. The aero advisors are always on top of their stuff, but maybe since Mech is a bigger program, they may be having a harder time dealing with the large number of students.  

14 minutes ago, luisalasnjr said:

@cocomomo I have personally never received a response from my inquiries to UT's department. I did got an admit, although it is for a non-thesis program.

I was talking to one of my professors the other day and she said this is something that she has heard from many other students. UT is a huge university, and probably they can't pay attention or take care of all their students. I agree with @hellz2dayeah that Austin in an incredible city and it was one of my top choices, but I'm getting second thoughts about the department. 

@luisalasnjr UT definitely is a large university, so you're correct in that each admin can't take care of each student, but I do think the Aero department does better than most departments in taking care of their students. The department has two fantastic advisors (one has even received a bunch of awards for her work) who work super hard to take care of each student and even know them all by name. So while UT is a large school, the Aero department is very close knit, and I think does a fantastic job making the department seem very personal for each student if that makes sense. Yeah UT is a large school and can seem like a big pond with many fish, but if it wasn't for CU, I could definitely see myself going here and being very happy in the department. 

[luisalasnjr]

@hellz2dayeah Thank you for the reply. It is definitively very helpful to hear from your experience, as I think you are the most appropriate person to speak on the matter. I'm glad to hear that from the aero department, as I have always admired the work done over there.  However since it's a non-thesis admission, I think I'm going to have to decline :/ If you don't mind me asking, what's your field of research? 

[hellz2dayeah]

14 minutes ago, luisalasnjr said:

@hellz2dayeah Thank you for the reply. It is definitively very helpful to hear from your experience, as I think you are the most appropriate person to speak on the matter. I'm glad to hear that from the aero department, as I have always admired the work done over there.  However since it's a non-thesis admission, I think I'm going to have to decline :/ If you don't mind me asking, what's your field of research? 

@luisalasnjr Of course, that's totally understandable and I am glad you'll be able to work on a thesis at I'm sure another great university. Not at all, its astrodynamics/orbital mechanics which is partially why I only applied to four schools, I could really only find four who had work in my area at the time of applying (though I found one or two more afterwards that I was kicking myself for not applying to). Based off your earlier post, I guess your specialization for all of the schools is Aerodynamics? I think its good that a lot more schools offer research in that area, since it was very nerve wracking having to rely only on four schools.