Chances for a German student

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello everybody,</p>

<p>I live in Germany and I think about applying for graduate studies in the US next year. Maybe you guys can tell me something about my chances, as I have absolutely no feeling how they will consider my profile. </p>

<p>High School as valedictorian 1st of 82
GPA 1.0 (best possible result in Germany, 4/4 in the US)
Winner of the Highschool Physics Award
Highschool literatur Award
Winner of a national software award </p>

<p>Undergraduate studies
Industrial Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany)
GPA of Vordiploma 1.3 (I guess it's about 3.8 or 3.9)
rank: best 3-5% in a pretty competitive program of study</p>

<p>TOEFL ibT: 109
GRE: Q 800, V 360, AW 4.5 (one week of preparation)</p>

<p>recommendations will be very good</p>

<p>extracurricular:
I am state vice president of a political youth organization</p>

<p>I'm interested in a engineering programs in Operations Research at the following universities:
MIT
Cornell
Caltech
Georgia Tech
Stanford
North Carolina - Chapel Hill</p>

<p>What do you think? Do I have chances?</p>

<p>My GRE result in the verbal section is very low and I think my analytical section is also affected by the fact, that English is not my native language.
Should I retake the GRE or can I compensate the low verbal section with a strong TOEFL?
I worry about risking my 800 in the quantitative section.</p>

<p>How important is a GRE math subject test?
Is it generally harder for an international applicant to get in?</p>

<p>greetings from Germany!</p>

<p>chris</p>

2

<p>I think you have good chances if you have research or industry experience, although you didn't mention any in your profile. One question I have is whether you received a 3-year degree - some schools will not accept this, and require five years of study (up to a master) on the European system. But you have probably already looked into that.</p>

<p>It is generally harder for an international applicant to get in. I'm not sure if a strong TOEFL can completely compensate for a low verbal score, but it does help your case. If you think you could improve your verbal score with more intense studying, you should retake. I think that grad schools assume that you studied for a while (>1 week) and that the scores reflect your maximum potential. Don't worry too much about getting a slightly lower score on the quant section on your retake, because you've proven that you know all the material with your first quant score. (They'll see both.)</p>

<p>If you feel that you could do very well (>85%) on a subject test with enough studying, you should do it. Even though there's no engineering subject test anymore, showing that you're very good at something (math, for example) through the subject test would make you stand out. Since you are an international applicant and have tougher competition than domestic students, I would recommend it.</p>