Engineering Graduate School Visits?

[hubert33]

I'm in to chemical engineering Ph.D. programs and starting my visits at the end of this month. Does anyone have advice for things I should be looking for when I visit these schools? I'm particularly wondering about meetings with faculty. What is generally discussed at these meetings? Would I mostly just talk about their research?

Thanks for any help!

[quadsbaby]

I'm in to chemical engineering Ph.D. programs and starting my visits at the end of this month. Does anyone have advice for things I should be looking for when I visit these schools? I'm particularly wondering about meetings with faculty. What is generally discussed at these meetings? Would I mostly just talk about their research?

Thanks for any help!

When you talk to profs, it will mostly be about research (yours, theirs, and how they fit together) but you can also ask about other things too. I like to ask profs about their hobbies.

Make sure to talk to lots of grad students, and to see where the grad students live and what they do for fun. Check out the campus amenities and the labs. Have fun!

[handson123]

 Does anyone know if Stanford EE has official newly admitted grad student visit day? 

[quadsbaby]

 Does anyone know if Stanford EE has official newly admitted grad student visit day? 

Yes, they do. It's March 12 this year.

[handson123]

 thanks! I wonder why don't they mention that in the admit email they sent me today..do you have a url where i can obtain for info? maybe I am not invited

[quadsbaby]

 thanks! I wonder why don't they mention that in the admit email they sent me today..do you have a url where i can obtain for info? maybe I am not invited

It was in the admit email I received. I would email the department and ask them for information on visit day. For all I know they might have more than one.

[Slorg]

Interesting... it wasn't in my email either. I guess it's an exclusive visit day!

[quadsbaby]

Interesting... it wasn't in my email either. I guess it's an exclusive visit day!

That seems very unlikely. I'm going to paste my accept email below (heavily redacted, though) so you guys can compare. I would suggest you email the department and ask; odds are they are going to send you visit day information but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

February 14, 2010

Stanford ID number: [redacted]

Dear [redacted]:

Congratulations! On behalf of the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Graduate Admissions Committee, we are very pleased to inform you that you have been admitted to study toward the MS/PhD degrees beginning autumn quarter of 2010-2011.

As one of our top applicants, we are also pleased to offer you financial support for your studies. We are awarding you a Stanford Graduate Fellowship (SGF) in Engineering and the Sciences, the highest award offered by Stanford University and our department. The fellowship provides funding for three full years of study (including summers), and provides tuition at the full-time registration level (8-10 units) plus a quarterly stipend. The total value of the multiple-year award exceeds $200,000. Your support, including stipend and tuition, in subsequent years will be provided by your research advisor, typically as a Research Assistantship, assuming satisfactory academic progress.

Please note that to accept our offer of admission you must respond by following the instructions outlined on page 37 of Stanford’s Guide for New Graduate Students (http://registrar.stanford.edu/pdf/gradstuguide.pdf) no later than April 15, 2010. Your Stanford University student identification number is at the top of this letter. Offers of admission are contingent on the verification of the fulfillment of admission requirements by Stanford's central Office of Graduate Admissions, Office of the University Registrar.

After responding to the admission offer, the Department of Electrical Engineering requests that you fill out and return the enclosed Financial Aid Response form. This form denotes official acceptance of your fellowship and must be received by the department by April 15, 2010. Stanford University is a signatory to the Council of Graduate Schools resolution regarding financial support. For more information, please see the following URL: http://www.cgsnet.org/.

Because your interests seem to match those of Professor [redacted], he will serve as your initial academic advisor. Please contact him by email or phone with any questions as to research programs, academic issues, or financial support. You will choose your research advisor through mutual agreement with a faculty member who may or may not be the same as your initial academic advisor.

Please accept our congratulations on your admission and Stanford Graduate Fellowship. We are happy to answer questions about this award, our graduate programs, our faculty, or Stanford in general; you may contact the EE Admissions office by phone (650-723-4114) or email (admissions@ee.stanford.edu).

Below, please find more detailed information about your award, as well as information about our department's Visit Day, which will take place on Friday, March 12, 2010.

We look forward to welcoming you to Stanford in the fall!

Sincerely,

Mark Horowitz

Chair, Department of Electrical Engineering

Stanford University

Howard Zebker

Associate Chair, Admissions, Department of Electrical Engineering

Stanford University

Debby Bryan

Director of Student and Academic Services, Department of Electrical Engineering

Stanford University

*****************************************************************************

The Stanford Graduate Fellowship

The Stanford Graduate Fellowship Program in Science and Engineering annually awards approximately 100 three-year fellowships providing tuition support and stipend to outstanding students pursuing a doctoral degree in the sciences and engineering at Stanford. Stanford Graduate Fellowship awards may be used to support study in any research area for which the Fellow is qualified. Moreover, the fellowship allows flexibility in the distribution of funding and can be tailored to the academic interests of the individual Fellow and his/her degree program (within the general academic and financial constraints). As a simple example, if your academic interests would be well served by a research or teaching assistantship at some point during your second or third year, you may defer one or more quarters of SGF funding into your fourth or even fifth year of study here.

A Fellow who enrolls in the University’s health care plan will be eligible for a University subsidy to offset the total cost of the insurance.

This fellowship represents financial aid and as such, there are no specific work requirements to receive these funds. Your sole obligation is to make satisfactory progress toward the completion of your degree. If you are offered and accept a research assistantship appointment, the salary that you earn in exchange for work performed will be separate from the support provided by this fellowship; you may either supplement or defer the fellowship support within the guidelines of the SGF program. If you have any questions about the distinction between your fellowship (which does not constitute employment) and research or teaching assistantships (forms of supplementary work which do constitute student employment) please feel free to discuss them with EE's admissions staff.

This fellowship may be combined with non-Stanford awards. If you receive one of the major nationally competitive fellowships, such as the National Science Foundation, Stanford may allow you to hold both titles and use the awards consecutively. You may, for instance, use the National Science Foundation Fellowship for the first three years and the Stanford Graduate Fellowship for an additional two. The total duration of funding will be five years. Please inform the EE Admissions office immediately should you receive an external award so that we can determine the appropriate terms of a dual fellowship.

The first degree in your program of study is the Master of Science. As your intent is to continue for a PhD degree, you will be required to complete the requirements for formal candidacy by the second year of study, as described in the Electrical Engineering Graduate Handbook (http://www-ee.stanford.edu/gradhandbook/).

Please feel free to contact the EE Admissions office by phone (650-723-4114) or email (admissions@ee.stanford.edu) should you have any questions about this award.

*****************************************************************************

Visit Day 2010 - Stanford Electrical Engineering

Congratulations on your admission to Stanford University's Electrical Engineering Department! We would like to invite you to attend our Visit Day, which will be held on Friday, March 12, 2010. The events of the day will be held at [redacted] on Stanford's campus. Check-in and breakfast will be at [redacted], and the day will conclude at [redacted]. An e-mail containing a detailed schedule, campus map, and other logistical information, will be sent to you in the coming week.

The day will include the following events:

[redacted]

Please send us an email at admissions@ee.stanford.edu to RSVP for Visit Day by March 1, 2010.

If you plan to attend and would like to meet with a faculty member, please send us their name(s) as soon as possible and we will do our best to coordinate the meeting for you. If you have not already done so, you can check the faculty's web pages, which are located online at http://www-ee.stanford.edu/faculty.php to see which faculty you would be interested in meeting.

All meetings will be held [redacted], unless otherwise stated. We will do our best to arrange your meeting(s); however, if a faculty member is not available, please let us know if you will be here on another day or if you are willing to speak to them via email and/or phone, and we will do our best to make the connection.

Should you have any questions, please send us an email or call us at 650-723-4114.

[thinktank1985]

I have a visitation to Umich, but they havent yet set up the schedule so I was wondering:

do you schedule interviews with professors on your own, or does the department schedule specific time slots with professors?

[quadsbaby]

I have a visitation to Umich, but they havent yet set up the schedule so I was wondering:

do you schedule interviews with professors on your own, or does the department schedule specific time slots with professors?

Depends on the school / department. It should say something about it in the visit day schedule, if you're not sure feel free to ask.

[cheekymonkey]

I have a visitation to Umich, but they havent yet set up the schedule so I was wondering:

do you schedule interviews with professors on your own, or does the department schedule specific time slots with professors?

When I went, they asked in an email beforehand whom I wanted to meet. Then they set up the schedule for me, with some additional people added in. They should email you a schedule a few days before you go.

[Slorg]

Here's the letter I got. It has no mention of visit day.

I also emailed them five days ago asking if there was a visit day. I still haven't received a response.

Congratulations! On behalf of the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Graduate Admissions Committee, we are very pleased to inform you that you have been admitted to study toward the M.S./Ph.D. degrees beginning Autumn quarter of 2010-2011.

We are currently in the process of assigning fellowship funds to entering students. We plan to notify you regarding financial assistance as soon as funds become available, usually by the end of March and no later than April 15. Whether or not we are able to provide fellowship support, we strongly encourage you to get involved in a research program and search for a research advisor when you arrive on campus. Your research advisor will generally provide your support (often in the form of a research assistantship) for your Ph.D. studies. You also may wish to seek a teaching assistantship appointment, which typically provides students with tuition coverage and a monthly salary, requiring 20 hours of work per week. Information about becoming a teaching assistant in the EE department can be found online at: http://www-ee.stanford.edu/ta/.

The first degree in your program of study is the Master of Science. As your intent is to continue for a Ph.D. degree, you will be required to complete the requirements for formal candidacy by the second year of study, as described in the Electrical Engineering Graduate Handbook (http://www.ee.stanford.edu/gradhandbook/). We strongly encourage you to get involved in a research program and search for a research advisor, who generally will provide your support (which may include a research assistantship, another fellowship, or an internship) for the remainder of your studies. Having a research advisor is one of our requirements for advancement to Ph.D. candidacy.

In order to accept our offer of admission, you must respond as described on page 37 of Stanford’s Guide for New Graduate Students (http://registrar.stanford.edu/pdf/gradstuguide.pdf) no later than April 20, 2010. Your Stanford University student identification number is at the top of this letter. Offers of admission are contingent on the verification of the fulfillment of admission requirements by Stanford's central Office of Graduate Admissions, Office of the University Registrar.

The Electrical Engineering Graduate Admissions Committee and Faculty join me in commending you on your outstanding achievement.

We look forward to seeing you in the Fall!

Sincerely,

Edited March 2, 2010 by Slorg

[quadsbaby]

Here's the letter I got. It has no mention of visit day.

I also emailed them five days ago asking if there was a visit day. I still haven't received a response.

Weird. Maybe it IS somewhat exclusive (that sounds kind of strange to me though). I hope they get back to you guys and clear this up soon!

[handson123]

Weird. Maybe it IS somewhat exclusive (that sounds kind of strange to me though). I hope they get back to you guys and clear this up soon!

lol..we are second-class admits lol...anyway do you guys know anything about financial assistance from Stanford for those admitted in the 25-27 Feb period. Are they really working on that or are they just waiting for those admitted during 15-19 Feb to decline their fellowships and give those to us. Will most of those admitted during 25-27 Feb receive some sort of financial assistance or only some will....I can't imagine that they admit us to Ms/PhD without giving financial aid and don't invite us to Visit Day also...how disappointed...

[frustnidcel]

lol..we are second-class admits lol...anyway do you guys know anything about financial assistance from Stanford for those admitted in the 25-27 Feb period. Are they really working on that or are they just waiting for those admitted during 15-19 Feb to decline their fellowships and give those to us. Will most of those admitted during 25-27 Feb receive some sort of financial assistance or only some will....I can't imagine that they admit us to Ms/PhD without giving financial aid and don't invite us to Visit Day also...how disappointed...

I heard that some schools set visit days for domestic students only. For those that did / did not receive an invitation to their visit day, is this true?

[<3Brains]

Stanford EE is offering travel reimbursement for coming to visit day, so maybe they only had enough money to invite a subset of admitted students?

[Slorg]

Stanford finally (!) got back to me about visit day. Apparently those of us among the 'second-class' admits are welcome to come on March 12, but there is no travel subsidy.

Curiously and perhaps coincidentally, Stanford only responded to my emails once I started asking "Can I come to the visit day on March 12?" instead of "Is there a visit day?" Heh.

Edited March 3, 2010 by Slorg

[quadsbaby]

Stanford finally (!) got back to me about visit day. Apparently those of us among the 'second-class' admits are welcome to come on March 12, but there is no travel subsidy.

Curiously and perhaps coincidentally, Stanford only responded to my emails once I started asking "Can I come to the visit day on March 12?" instead of "Is there a visit day?" Heh.

lol well their travel subsidy for us "first class admits" is only like $150 so you should come anyway

[handson123]

I've already booked my flight to arrive in the evening of the 12th ( visiting UC Berkeley!) so I can't attend Stanford Visit Day anyway...also they don't bother to invite...Berkeley seems to care about its students more....Seems like Quadsbaby will be attending MIT?

[quadsbaby]

I've already booked my flight to arrive in the evening of the 12th ( visiting UC Berkeley!) so I can't attend Stanford Visit Day anyway...also they don't bother to invite...Berkeley seems to care about its students more....Seems like Quadsbaby will be attending MIT?

Most likely I will attend Stanford... we will see.

[thinktank1985]

Just came from a visitation to Maryland. I had a few intense conversations and great discussions with a few professors. I think I did make a few mistakes during my interviews: I sort of told a professor directly that I would join his lab if accepted (I really liked his research though). Now it seems to me, I sounded a bit too desperate, but his work is definitely much better than the professors at much higher ranked universities that I have offers from. So while he told me that he would be recommending me for a fellowship, I might have just ruined my chances by the last comments. But it was a good experience on how to deal with interviews with professors in future visitations

[plasmatics]

lol well their travel subsidy for us "first class admits" is only like $150 so you should come anyway

I'm in an intermediate group - I got a departmental fellowship, which is for the first 3 quarters only, valued at "over $49,000". Since the tuition is 39k I think that means the stipend is less than $10k - ie I would need to take a loan to pay my rent. But on the upside, I get a $350 travel reimbursement for Visit Day -- go figure!

[quadsbaby]

I'm in an intermediate group - I got a departmental fellowship, which is for the first 3 quarters only, valued at "over $49,000". Since the tuition is 39k I think that means the stipend is less than $10k - ie I would need to take a loan to pay my rent. But on the upside, I get a $350 travel reimbursement for Visit Day -- go figure!

Yeah, I forgot to mention that I think they give you less travel reimbursement if you're in California (like I am). This of course makes sense.

And no, the stipend is not going to be $10k. It should be around 28-32k per year. (I'm assuming you're in EE, don't know for other departments).

Edited March 8, 2010 by quadsbaby