<p>I want to apply to UCSD, UCB, Purdue, PennState, UWisconsin and UMichigan for a masters or phD in Chemical Engineering/Material Science and Engineering and/or NanoEngineering. </p>
<p>GPA: 3.3
Research Experience: Working a in a lab on Quantum Dots and Nanotechnology applications.
GRE: Didn't take yet but Try to get 700 in Quant. </p>
<p>Honestly, gpa is bad first two years but it got a lot better. If I get good letters of recommendation, Do I have a chance? :/</p>
<p>I think you’ll be able to get in…the bigger question is getting funding.</p>
<p>Why not try Stanford if you want to go to a top university? Doesn’t hurt to apply.</p>
<p>Almost no way he’d get into Stanford for starters. He has a fair shot at those he mentioned, though Berkeley is a stretch.</p>
<p>You really need closer to, say, 780 on the GRE quant to be competitive, though. 700 is low for an engineer.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t dismiss your chances at Stanford and Berkeley, M.Eng is a very different story than M.S. which is very different from funded non-funded which is different from direct Ph.D…each one is more competitive</p>
<p>If it’s M.S. funded or Ph.d you want your chances are not good ‘unless’ you have something that makes up for the 3.3 gpa in other areas… like if your GPA the last two years is a 3.8 then your in good shape, or if you have a perfect GRE and lots of research experience and bloody good recs, or if you get one of those fellowships or something, or if you did your undergrad at Harvard…</p>
<p>But again, if your willing to shell out 40k in tuition for a fancy degree there are options available to you. But funding requires you make up for that GPA in other areas of selection criteria. Just my two cents</p>
<p>I wouldn’t dismiss the chance, but I am not going to sugar-coat it either. With a 3.3 GPA in undergrad, even if his grades were better at the end, it is nearly impossible to get into Stanford and Berkeley, et al. You need to have good recommendations, a near-perfect GRE and probably even be published already in order to make up for the low GPA. You have to have something like that to prove that you worth more than the 3.3 suggests to them and that you have a high probability of success.</p>
<p>Why do I say this? I had a 3.3 GPA in undergrad and applied to Berkeley. I had an 800Q 550V 5.5AW on the GRE and had 3 semesters of research under my belt with great recommendations (including one from a professor who is VERY well known in his field), but I still didn’t get in. Had I already been published, maybe I would have.</p>
<p>That isn’t to say that he has no shot at all. It is, to a certain extent, a crapshoot at times, and if you get a professor with connections at that school that can get you in, that will help, but it will be highly unlikely with that GPA.</p>
<p>That said, I got into several M.S. and Ph.D. programs at “Top 10” and “Top 15” schools just fine with those stats, so he isn’t screwed, he just would not have an easy time with Stanford/Berkeley/MIT/CalTech/etc. I would say Purdue, Penn State, UCSD and Wisconsin are all pretty likely for him, Michigan is possible but will be a little tougher (they have higher admission standards than, say, Purdue despite relatively equal academics) and UCB is a stretch.</p>
<p>There are two ways to get into a grad program at a university. The first is the traditional route: apply, get accepted, apply for funding, take clasess. The second is the non-traditional route of take classes, apply, get accepted, take more classes. </p>
<p>If you do well at your classes you take prior to admission, you can prove to the school that you will suceed in their program and improve your chances of getting in. However, people that want funding through research don’t usually go this route.</p>
<p>I think his GPA and predicted GRE scores will be good enough to get in the second route but questionable on the first route.</p>
<p>boneh3ad was it Ph.D or M.S. you applied for at berkeley/stanford?</p>
<p>bigtrees, yeah I was just talking to a family friend in califronia saying her daughter was doing the later route you mentioned at Berkeley. I actually thought about it and it wouldn’t be so bad if you worked in cali for a while and got instate tuition…</p>
<p>“The second is the non-traditional route of take classes, apply, get accepted, take more classes.”</p>
<p>Thanks. </p>
<p>I keep telling folks that route can get you into many grad schools…and if you follow it up with a nice “promise to pay” purchase order from your employer, that helps even more.</p>
<p>Hell, I’ll go one step further. Use the 6 to 9 credits allowed to transfer graduate credits also.</p>
<p>I applied to both M.S. and Ph.D. programs when I applied depending on of there was an option to put down “M.S. with intent to continue on to Ph.D.” or not. I don’t recall which one I did at Berkeley to be honest.</p>
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<p>I know it’s utterly irrelevant - but I like to throw it out there for all the ibanking Umich engineers… Purdue actually has a lower acceptance rate at the graduate level than UMich.</p>
<p>i dont know about the materials science, but for mechanical eng, i think on the berkeley website it said only about 10% of the applicants get accepted. So i’d imagine it’s hard to get admitted even for the MS non-thesis option</p>
<p>‘If you do well at your classes you take prior to admission, you can prove to the school that you will suceed in their program and improve your chances of getting in. However, people that want funding through research don’t usually go this route.’</p>
<p>what route do those who want funding through research usually take then?</p>