<p>I am an undergraduate computer engineering student at Grand Valley State University in my senior year. I have a 3.91 GPA and am at or near the top in every one of my engineering-related courses. I just recently took the GRE and scored an 800-Q / 490-V. I have not yet received my analytical score, but I am confident that I did well (5 or 6).</p>
<p>I was wondering if anyone could tell me what sort of chance I have at getting into a great school's electrical engineering graduate program. I am currently looking at schools such as Stanford, Berkeley and Michigan.</p>
<p>Also, if I do get in, I am going to need a lot of financial help. Is it fair to expect to get a large chunk of financial assistance after being accepted? I know that GVSU is not very well-known; is this going to hurt my chances? How about my poor GRE-Verbal score?</p>
<p>Any information or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>A 3.91 is a good GPA, however Grand Valley State is not known for being an academic powerhouse. Your low verbal score certainly won't help you with the very top programs like Stanford and Berkeley. </p>
<p>To give you an idea: Minnesota has a top 20 electrical engineering program (whereas Stanford, Berkeley, and Michigan have top ~5 programs):</p>
<p>Average Q: 784.0<br>
Average V: 552.5
Average A: 4.5
29% of admitted students had a verbal score less than 500.
Acceptance rate: 49%</p>
<p>You can guarantee that Berkeley, Stanford, and Michigan have higher averages and a much lower acceptance rate. Obviously, 71% of all students admitted to Minnesota's program had a verbal score > 500, so that may seem discouraging, but I'd still shoot for it. Who knows? Your GPA is very high and you have the important 800Q. I'd say your chances are slim at the top 5, but you have a shot at some of the lower ranked schools, for sure!</p>
<p>Devo, if you're accepted into a PhD program, they won't only pay all your tuition, they'll give you a stipend on top of that. This is true in the vast majority of engineering PhD programs, so don't worry about anything financial.<br>
An extremely important aspect of your resume will be research experience. If you don't have any, you really don't stand a chance at any of the top schools. Hopefully you have some good research under your belt.</p>
<p>Agreed -- it's difficult to say anything without knowing your research experience. GPA and GRE scores are very nice, and bad ones can be a death knell for an application, but nobody gets into a top graduate program based on those numbers alone.</p>
<p>Also, for the OP -- have you identified professors at each school whose research interests mesh well with your own? That's quite important for admissions -- if you want to do X and everybody in the department is doing Y, that's going to be very bad for you.</p>
<p>u better take the second time GRE test if you want to be admitted to the top EE graduate school.</p>
<p>Two of my friends who were admitted to Caltech and Stanford EE graduate school scored 1510(710V, 800Q) and 1600 (800V, 800Q). Their GPA are near 4 also..</p>
<p>they are international students (I think for US citizens,it's easier). both of them were awarded scholarship for their graduate study..</p>
<p>EE graduate school is quite competative. i think 1400 G (600+800) is a min requirement for financial aid</p>
<p>Research experience is another problem that I face. I was hoping that it wasn't going to be a factor for admissions into graduate school, since being from West Michigan and GVSU, I virtually have no chance of gaining research experience.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your help! I really appreciate it (even though it all seems to be bad news). :)</p>
<p>I didn't mean to make an exuse for me not having research experience.</p>
<p>I guess I really don't know where I could go to do research and when I would find enough time to make it worth while. At GVSU, we are required to co-op full-time at an engineering-related company for 3 semesters, so my off-school semesters are pretty well booked. Furthermore, there's a catch that tags along with this requirement. We have to stay at the same company for all three co-ops, whether we want to go elsewhere or not, so I can't just up and leave my employer to do research elsewhere.</p>
<p>I accepted an offer from probably the most respected Electrical Engineering based company in all of West Michigan (there's not much) thinking at the time (middle of my sophomore year) that I hit the jackpot. I didn't realize then that graduate schools look for students with research experience. I understand that it makes logical sense, but I guess I really didn't know there was a whole lot of researching opportunities available to undergraduate students. Well, I'm now working my third co-op, and I don't have any research opportunities available for me with my current employer, but I have to finish out my co-op requirement to graduate.</p>
<p>Obviously, I wish now that I would have made my way into a research company for my co-op, but I just wasn't aware of then what I'm aware of now.</p>