<p>Hello there.
My names Ritchie and im currently a student at Reading university (UK) studying cybernetics and control engineering (undergraduate). I am about to start my second year and want to continue my studies abroad once i have achieved my undergratuate degree.
I am really keen to study computer science and electronic engineering or a similar PHD at MIT and have so many questions on apply which i just cant get from the MIT website. I'm hoping you guys can help.
I would like to know:
what is my situation on applying as an international student? are there any special requirements?
how much does it cost for internetional students to study? and what is the situation on sponsorship or grants (which would obviously be very helpful)
what are the entry requirements for PHD level study?
Im sure ill think of more later but my mind is blank at the moment.
In your honest opinions, what are my chances of gaining entry?
I still have another 2 years till i get my masters degree, but i like to investigate early.
If you can think of anything else that i should know in my situation please let me know.</p>
<p>no one able to help?
I tried emailing MIT but havnt received a reply yet. Is there any links that anyone knows about or anyone i can talk to?
Thanks</p>
<p>Most of the discussion on this board is in pursuit of undergraduate admissions. There are some participants who are familiar with MIT graduate admissions, but they do not read/post frequently; the most knowledgeable of the regular posters has just returned from her honeymoon and may chime in before too long. </p>
<p>If you haven't already read the MIT Graduate Admissions website, of course you should start there. (There is a minimalist International Students page there, which mostly says to check the requirements of your department of interest.) Graduate admissions are done through the individual departments, so you should check the pages for the department(s) where you are interested in studying. The EECS Department Graduate Program page, for instance, is [url=<a href="http://www.eecs.mit.edu/grad/index.html%5Dhere%5B/url">www.eecs.mit.edu/grad/index.html]here[/url</a>], and includes a FAQ with answers to questions about financial aid, TOEFL requirements, etc.</p>
<p>great! Thank you very much for your reply mootmon =]
I did read on a thread that Mollie and Matt had just got married so ill wait and hope that they stumble upon this post when they are back.
Thank you for your help
Ritchie</p>
<p>I have to admit I know a lot more about biology PhD admissions at MIT than EECS admissions.</p>
<p>The department's website states that all admitted students will be considered for assistantships through the department. I assume that many or most PhD students are funded through the department or through their advisors -- it's very rare to pay for a PhD program in the US, particularly in science and engineering. My engineering PhD friends are earning stipends around $20,000 per year (and have their tuition and fees paid, of course).</p>
<p>The EECS graduate program at MIT is very competitive. They have spots for about 100 students, so they admit 150-175 students each year from a pool of more than 2000 applicants. It's a great program, obviously, but it's wise to consider other programs in addition to MIT's.</p>
<p>Somewhere on the internet, there is a transcript of a talk given by a professor at (I believe) Carnegie Mellon. The talk gives some helpful hints on applying to graduate school in EECS; I found it when I was applying to graduate schools two years ago. I cannot for the life of me find the right keywords to search right now to find it -- maybe someone else will have better luck?</p>
<p>Hello Mollie
Thank you very much for you reply and congratulations on the marriage =]
That PDF file helped a lot and was very hopeful. Am i right in assuming the same info in that transcript also applies to international students applying?
When applying to Graduate school in the states what kind of qualifications do they look for? And how soon before starting do we apply?
I've read around a lot that its not grades that matters as much (obviously they count) but more about personal statements and (as written in the transcript) previous research experience.
My education is a lot different to the states. I dont have these SATs or SAT2's I've read about, i have GCSE's and a diploma in electronics.
But i assume they look more at the degree than previous education.
What Level Degree do they look for?
2:1 and higher? or first degree's?
sorry for all the questions, but i don't know where to find the answers.</p>
<p>Students apply for graduate school during the fall before they would like to start -- if you would like to start in fall 2008, for example, you would apply this year. Applications are generally available in mid-September and due in December or January.</p>
<p>I'm not familiar enough with British degrees to say which levels would be adequate. Typically students in top graduate programs have very good grades, so obviously it's best to do as well as you can.</p>
<p>It is often, but not always, more difficult to get into a US graduate program as an international student than as an American. This is usually due to limited funding for an extremely talented international pool of applicants -- much of the funding in the US for graduate students comes from the government, and the government often stipulates that the funding must be used for American students only. This is something that varies from field to field and program to program, though.</p>
<p>Graduate schools are looking for indicators of excellence in future research. Toward this end, they use grades, courses taken, letters of recommendation, personal statements, awards, previous research experience, and sometimes interviews. Many programs use test scores such as the GRE general test and GRE subject tests, although MIT's EECS PhD program in particular does not look at those scores.</p>
<p>SATs and SAT IIs don't matter for grad-level admissions, don't worry about that. Neither does anything pre-college unless it's a corporate internship/job in your field of choice, or significant research experience in your field of choice. You should take the General GRE, and possibly the GRE Computer Science Subject Test (some programs want it, others don't), for US schools in general.</p>
<p>I do know a little bit about British degrees, as I was once considering applying to grad school in Britain. I still never got consistent figures on the US equivalents to 2:1 and 2:2, but I'm pretty sure your grades are good enough to be considered if you've got at least a 2:1.</p>
<p>As others have said, if you got into MIT as a PhD student you'd likely be fully funded, with a stipend. Not all US schools give funding to international students, though, so you should check with individual schools.</p>
<p>Other US schools that I'd suggest you look at (I don't know off the top of my head whether these will fund you, or whether they have strengths in your particular subfields, I just know they're good CS/engineering schools), are CMU (definitely), Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Purdue, Cornell, Georgia Tech, U of Florida, U of Texas, and U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This is not a complete list, just the schools that I could think of at the moment.</p>