CalTech, Princeton PhD after Bachelors or Masters (Aerospace)

<p>I am finishing my junior year in aerospace engg and physics (Double degree), looking towards obtaining a PhD in aerospace, looking at fluids (turbulence and DNS etc). I really want to attend CalTech or Princeton but I am not sure if I should submit my application just yet. I will have a GPA of 3.54 (Worked 20 hours apart from 15-20 hrs of research) at the time of application with one Physics of Fluids publication (2nd author) and an APS DFD presentation and an undergraduate thesis. I have been a research assistant for 2.5 years now, 1.5 in turbulence but all in numerical simulation (other one was in high energy physics). I do have the option of continuing here for my masters and get it within a year with thesis. Should I apply or is my GPA too low yet? Will a better masters GPA help or will the research be enough? I am kinda desperate to get into these two schools, so want to maximize my chances. I would love if I can save a year and leave for PhD right away. The letters I will get should be strong, I have 2 proffs who want me to stay and work with them, so im hoping that is a positive sign.</p>

<p>How about stanford or cornell? PS I do not want to stay longer than 5 years in grad school due to financial responsibilities, </p>

<p>The only thing you can really do is apply and find out. A 3.54 is a pretty good GPA, and you have research and a publication. You’re a decently competitive applicant, and my guess is that if you don’t get accepted it won’t be because of your GPA.</p>

<p>The reality is that these highly selective schools may not accept you simply because they have a huge number of applicants and for some reason, you did not make the initial cut. make sure you apply to some programs that you are fairly certain to get into and which you might be interested in attending.</p>

<p>Caltechs aero fluids group is the most selective out of them all. You don’t seem like you wanna do experiments so those 2 schools are not good choices. Their computational research is very limited. Rowleys the main guy at Princeton doing CFD and he’s not exactly a big name. Princeton’s experimental group is amazing tho. I think Pullin is the only one at Caltecj in the aero dpt that does computational turbulence. He’s pretty old tho.</p>

<p>Cornell and Stanford are the best schools to go for turbulence since they have Stephen Pope (he’s not taking new students but you can get him on your committee) and Parviz Moin. Stanford is better and the biggest for turbulence, but you probably won’t get funding. </p>

<p>Yeah CalTech and Princeton both are selective, I realize that. I was just wondering what counts as the biggest plus at these schools. How about Pullin and Merion? How big are they really?</p>

<p>As for stanford, I talked to someone about it and they mentioned people usually take more than 5 years to finish there, haven’t been able to corroborate that from someone else. And that could be an issue, since I would have to go through a masters first, I would not want to stay more than 4 after that. 5 is the max I can gor grad school, unless I can find interns in the summer which obviously will be an issue in PhD.</p>

<p>You should only go for a Ph.D. if you are fully funded so then internships are usually off the table as your advisor will want you to work particularly hard in the summer. 5 years is a reasonable time in which to finish a Ph.D. from a bachelor’s degree although there are no guarantees. If you do a Masters first, especially with a thesis, then it will be hard to finish it all in 5 years though so go for the Ph.D. directly.</p>

<p>Well if you want to stay 4, then computational turbulence is probably the worst area you can go into. Do you know how long it actually takes to get something meaningful in that area? You should expect 6years in turbulence. It’s definitely a head scratcher. </p>

<p>There really aren’t that many good schools for computational turb. You’ll be very limited in schools if you’re set on that. Never heard of merion.</p>

<p>At Stanford you can expect 2 years of unfunded MS. Don’t be under the impression that just because you obtain your MS there you’ll get their PhD program with relative ease. Couldn’t be any further from the truth. There’s a few profs at Stanford in the aero dpt who only take MS students into their PhD group if they obtain a fellowship. Oh and if you wanna do turbulence you’re not gonna be in a mechanical, not aero, engr group at Cornell&stanflrd </p>

<p>I mean you’re gonna be in mech, not aero. Couldn’t edit post</p>

<p>@DoubleD Wow, thats is really insightful. Yeah I realize that most of the turbulence groups are in MechE (despise that!) About the time, you seem right on, I know some people who worked in the field for PhD and they did stay for quite a bit in school. That might be an issue I guess. As for internships, I wanted that because the money is better than stipends in school. But I guess I will have to look at other topics. Any idea about girimaji and donzis? How well regarded are they in the field? their work seems interesting especially donzis, he is an asst. proff though</p>

<p>I know Girimaji extremely well. I worked for him for a summer. Send me a Pm if you wanna talk about him. I don’t wanna reveal too much Identifying info.</p>

<p>Girimaji is quite well known by those above him from what I can tell but he is big about #s (GRe and GPA). His PhD students seem to take about 6yrs. I don’t know much about Donzis. girimaji does turbulence modeling. Donzis does turbulence simulations </p>