<p>Now wait a minute…my company funds my graduate education and pays my full salary, only stipulation is classes are taken on my own time. So I work for them 40 hours a week and then do 20 hours a week for college and that’s not bad.</p>
<p>I have to say that is as sweet of a deal as I’ve heard of.</p>
<p>cyclone10,</p>
<p>One of my coworker’s daughter was applying for PhDs in biophysics. She got 3.9 from Berkeley and she didn’t get into every program she applied to. At the end, she was deciding between Cornell and UCSD.</p>
<p>boneh3ad,</p>
<p>I was referring to top PhD programs in general and I was in chemE. My friend was doing chemistry/chemE at CalTech. I am not aware of any top-PhD program in College Station (Texas A&M?). But if the field is outside of the mainstream ones like chemE/chemistry, I suppose it could very well happen with a 3.3 GPA. It’s mainly a function of demand anyway.</p>
<p>The following is actual admission stats for just the MS&E MS program at Stanford, which is a one-year program with no thesis required. [Department</a> of Management Science and Engineering - Admissions](<a href=“Management Science and Engineering”>Management Science and Engineering)
Even at the MS level, the average GPA is already 3.7. PhDs would have higher average. 3.3 is probably the very end of the tip of the distribution curve. They should be treated as exceptions and viewed as luck more than anything.</p>
<p>Ah, pretentiousness at its best. What do you consider to be a “top” Ph.D. program? If your definition means you are only referring to MIT, Stanford, CalTech and Berkeley or something, then sure, I am not in a top program, but that is rather short sighted.</p>
<p>I guess technically Texas A&M isn’t ranked in the top 10 in my field, aerospace engineering (ranked 11 after all), but in my specific area of expertise, we are one of only two universities worldwide that possesses the capability to do research. I am well below the average GPA of people taken on by my advisor (who tends to be much more selective than the university as a whole), but obviously something in my repertoire of academic qualifications made up for my 3.3 GPA. My point is and has always been this: there is far more to an application than GPA, regardless of where USNWR ranks the program. If you have the right additional credentials, you can get into MIT with a lower GPA too, you just have to have some wicked publications and/or recommendations.</p>
<p>For example, in your Stanford example, my GPA is lower than the average but my GRE is higher and I had research experience to boot. GPA is not the whole story.</p>
<p>sam what’s this about management science? irrelevant. now if u would like to visit their ME homepage you’ll see the statement on selection criteria has a different tone than yours. If you would like, browse any top school’s statement on selection criteria
(engineering) and they will complement my response to your poor assumptions. </p>
<p>all this, i have a friend, you have a friend, is conflicting, as should be expected; and one of those schools admissions pages warned of this because of the diverse reasons why people get accepted into their research programs (engineering).</p>
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</p>
<p>I knew someone here that was paid her full salary at a large aerospace company in order to attend full time to get her MS.</p>
<p>(Incidentally, after two quarters or so a professor offered her a PhD-track position in their lab and she wound up taking that, leaving her job.)</p>
<p>I bet her company just LOVED that, haha.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Using USNWR or another magazine for the general population to decide a top PhD program doesn’t make sense. It’s entirely subfield and research specific. A ‘top program’ in one specialty is not a top program in another.</p>
<p>bigtrees, </p>
<p>do you probably have to work for the company for a while before they’ll do that?
Does it need to be a big company?
Can it be an M.S.? </p>
<p>I haven’t heard of too many people getting that sort of deal, though surely there are instances, my mom is always telling me it’s the way to go…I mean, Im having a hard time believing an employer will pick up a 30k tuition, I myself wouldn’t do it and it’s for me…a lot of the companies would probably demand you go somewhere inexpensive and for M.Eng?? I’m still thinking TA or RA is my most realistic prospects for getting rid of that tuition expense.</p>
<p>oh and my ‘quote message’ feature doesn’t work : (</p>
<p>I did EXACTLY what BigTrees mentioned for my M.S. Engineering at University of Wisconsin. I already had 9 years experience so it wasn’t like the courses were hard. I mean if you have 9 years experience as a Software Engineer and was a Math major (like me) as an undergrad…what is a graduate course in Software Engineering, a graduate Statistics course and a graduate Linear Algebra course that used that same darn book you used as an undergrad?..That is 3 A’s.</p>
<p>So I have just knocked out 30% of your grad program and my employer pays you directly. You bet I got admitted…with my sub-3.0 undergrad GPA.</p>
<p>Cyclone10,</p>
<p>Until last year, my company didn’t require us to stay. Today they require two years after completing the last class.</p>
<p>Big companies tend to have bigger budgets for training than smaller companies. Mine pays $15k a year in graduate education. They let you go to the big name schools (Stanford, University of Washington, Yale, etc), but they are trimming the list in the next couple years.</p>
<p>I am going for my M.S. I haven’t figured out how to do a part time PhD while working full time. If I can figure that out, I might go for a PhD.</p>
<p>cyclone, all of those questions depend on the employer. I know some have requirements on which school you attend, how long you need to have worked there, how long you need to work there afterwards, how much they’ll cover, and if there’s any stipulations on how well you have to do (need a B- or better in every course, etc).</p>
<p>I saw one company on my college’s recruitment website which offered to send you to get an MBA in Korea, pay for it and give you a 1K USD/month stipend before you worked for the company at all. But then you had to work for the company for 4 years afterwards.</p>
<p>That sounds like a bum deal. I’d rather work for a company full time (which according to salary surveys equals about a 5k monthly stipend) and do a MBA program in the evening rather than doing it prior to starting at the company.</p>
<p>Why? Well, if you like the company that you work for, you probably won’t mind a 4 year commitment after you graduate. And you get paid while you get your MBA. And you get real world work experience. And you can make progress toward your P.E. </p>
<p>What you give up is your college lifestyle.</p>
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</p>
<p>Things can chance in a company quickly. If they know you’re locked in, they can reassign you to that plant in Wyoming that everyone else threatens to quit if moved to.</p>
<p>cyclone10,</p>
<p>Save your sharp criticism to yourself. I was merely offering what I saw a “general” rule for PhD admission. 3.5 is usually the cut-off for undergrad honors program at many schools and considered the divide between great students and above average students. I also mentioned “exceptions” and “tip of the distribution”, implying it is possible, just unlikely. You were the one making assumptions about what I said and what not. Geez. </p>
<p>Management sciences (and engineering) at Stanford is in the engineering school. It used the be called Industrial Engineering & Operation Research. What’s so irrelevant about it? But if you were thinking about business school, I guess you don’t know much about Stanford.</p>
<p>Even Harvard doesn’t have a GPA/SAT cut off; it doesn’t change the fact that if one is getting 1200 on SAT, it’s extremely unlikely for him/her to get in.</p>
<p>Google “3.5 PhD” and you get the following in just the first page:
[PhD</a> Admissions Criteria - Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication - The University of Oklahoma](<a href=“http://www.ou.edu/gaylord/home/Audience/graduate_students/PhDAdmissions.html]PhD”>http://www.ou.edu/gaylord/home/Audience/graduate_students/PhDAdmissions.html)
[Google[/url</a>]
[url=<a href=“http://www.sw.uh.edu/admissions/phdrequirements.php]Ph”>http://www.sw.uh.edu/admissions/phdrequirements.php]Ph</a>. D. Admissions Requirements | University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work](<a href=“Google”>Google)
[PhD</a> Admissions - Department of Bioengineering: University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering<a href=“bioengineering”>/url</a>
[url=<a href=“http://www.mdphds.org/guide/admissions.php]MD”>MD PhD Guide: On The Road to Medical Science]MD</a> PhD Admissions Criteria](<a href=“http://www.engr.pitt.edu/bioengineering/main/admissions/phd.html]PhD”>http://www.engr.pitt.edu/bioengineering/main/admissions/phd.html)</p>
<p>Many of them aren’t even “top programs”.</p>
<p>The second page of google:
[GPA</a> and Graduate School Admission - Grade Point Average](<a href=“http://gradschool.about.com/od/admissionsadvice/a/gpa.htm]GPA”>Grade Point Average (GPA) and Graduate School Admission)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“Industrial and Systems Engineering - Wayne State University”>Industrial and Systems Engineering - Wayne State University; (even Wayne State wants 3.5)</p>
<p>Most have a soft requirement of 3.5 or whatever. Particularly for grad schools, those cutoffs are not set in stone and depend wholly on what the rest of the application looks like. My very same opinion has been corroborated by more than one faculty member at more than one major school, including several that are on admissions committees. Two of the adcom members and the Head of Graduate admissions for the University of Illinois department of Mechanical Science and Engineering specifically told me this while I was applying and discouraged about my own GPA, for example.</p>
<p>This is what I said before</p>
<p>“I agree with you, 3.5+ is usually specified for Ph.d, though top programs are flexible with that based on other factors.”</p>
<p>now add this statement </p>
<p>"The school takes a holistic reading process approach to reviewing applications. All aspects of the application, including undergraduate coursework, test scores, research experience and letters of recommendation, are considered.</p>
<p>Strengths in any of these areas may compensate for weaknesses in any other areas and while it is not necessary to possess an impeccable record in all areas, strength in each is correlated with admission."</p>
<p>Management Science, irrelevant? Yes, but I will not elaborate because it’s not related, the above statement from Princeton Engineering is…and also because you seem to have taken offense to it based on your last post…I don’t have a 3.5 which is where my response was coming from, and why I’m pointing the above out.</p>
<p>“Holistic reading process” in reality, is more about differentiating the best among a large pool of good candidates with good stats and much less (note I said less…not nothing) about letting someone with relatively weak stats to compensate. This is again like admission to top colleges. Yes, there will always be a small minority with mediocre test scores or grades that get in because they have amazing/usual ECs and essays, or hooks…etc but in most cases, the ECs/essays/recommendations…etc are meant to differentiate among all those with high test scores and grades as far as top schools are concerned. Also, “weakness” in that quote may actually refer to 3.6 compared to 4.0; it is all relative.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to **** on your parade and I hope you get in whatever top program you aim for. I was just trying to give a realistic picture so people can have a good list of not just reaches but safeties. Also, I took classes and had group projects with PhDs at Stanford; it’s not difficult for me to generalize because there really weren’t that many PhDs in any given class (MS students far outnumbered the PhDs) and as a cohort, they were definitely smarter than the MS students even many of MS got in with pretty good stats; I just don’t recall any PhD student that would seem to be getting more Bs than As in college. All the ones I know consistently did well on our exams. As an example, one time we had 4 people with 100 on an exam. The new professor taught at Michigan State before and told us he never had anyone scoring 100 on his exam, let alone 4 people at one time. At least 2 of those 4 were PhDs (didn’t know who the other 2 were); we probably had about 5 or 6 PhD candidates and 40+ MS each year.</p>
<p>That is odd that Stanford would have vastly more MS students than PhD students. Generally, while it is difficult to do, a department would ideally like to have roughly an equal number.</p>