Are six schools enough for Material Science?

Graduate School
1

<p>I'm planning on applying to:
MIT
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Northwestern
Stanford
Caltech</p>

<p>I don't think there's enough of a spread in quality between these schools.
I have 3.9 GPA with 3 semesters and 2 summers research experience which is still ongoing. My GRE score was 800Q/720V/4.0AW. I'm expecting one good letter (professor with whom I did all my research) and two mediocre ones (so-and-so did well in my class).</p>

<p>Advice? Recommendations? I'm at a top 10 US university.</p>

2

<p>Six schools is enough.</p>

<p>Perhaps a safety school would be sensible, although your stats look solid.</p>

<p>Why not apply to Berkeley? (Just curious; lots of cool research goes on here.)</p>

3

<p>Don’t apply to material science. BLS reports that the industry will shrink by 48% in the next three months. Any remaining jobs will be outsourced to ethiopia. </p>

<p>I have a friend around here who can tell you more!</p>

4

<p>Looks a lot like my list when I applied from CMU. I got into about half the schools I applied to with worse stats (GPA and GRE), though I think all three of my letters were solid.</p>

<p>If you want a safety throw in UC Santa Barbara. They’re ranked really well, have some pretty nice facilities, and if you’re interested in any research they’re doing they’re pretty good at it. They let in something like 3-4 times as many people as Caltech did and, even though they’re ranked higher, the caliber of student was a bit more…uhh…diverse.</p>