Grad School after Cal

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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And other than business degrees, most of these other sciencey programs (ChemE, Civ E, EE, CS, ME) have the higher gpa requirements.

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<p>Well, actually, among those, I strongly suspect that CivE does not have a particularly high GPa requirement. In fact, I would argue that business eng degrees do not require significantly lower GPA's than the average - simply because a lot of engineers are beginning to realize that those business-type degrees actually make more money than standard engineering degrees do, hence raising the competition for those business-y degrees (and therefore lowering the competition for those standard degrees). </p>

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The point is that the 3.0 minimum isn't very likely to get a student into either, and that a 3.5 or higher is necessary for a good shot for the very top schools.

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<p>That I can agree with. But it gets back to what I've asked before - why do you necessarily need to go to one of the very top grad schools?</p>

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<p>Because the OP was wondering about attending grad school at Cal.</p>

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<p>Which is why I asked in my first post here - why does he even need to go to Cal for graduate school?</p>

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<p>Haha, I don't. Merely going for the hypothetical. :P</p>

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What I will say is this. If all you want is an engineering master's degree (as opposed to a doctorate), and if you don't really care what kind of master's degree it is, it really isn't that hard to get into one of the top schools like MIT or Stanford. I'm not saying it's easy, but I don't think it's as hard as you seem to think it is.

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Sakky, are you sure about this?</p>

<p>It seems that no more than 5-8 students get admitted to Stanford (MS, Ph.D., whatever), and 1-3 to MIT from Berkeley EECS on a yearly basis. See for yourself [url=<a href="http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Programs/ugrad/honors/s04grads.htm%5Dhere%5B/url"&gt;http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Programs/ugrad/honors/s04grads.htm]here[/url&lt;/a&gt;] (and this is one of the better years). I was TA'ed by a Stanford M.S. program admit, and he had a 3.9+ GPA, two years of research experience, etc.</p>

<p>If it were that easy, I'm sure we'd be hearing about more admits.</p>

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It seems that no more than 5-8 students get admitted to Stanford (MS, Ph.D., whatever), and 1-3 to MIT from Berkeley EECS on a yearly basis. See for yourself here (and this is one of the better years). I was TA'ed by a Stanford M.S. program admit, and he had a 3.9+ GPA, two years of research experience, etc.

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<p>Well, first off, that particular link you cited is a pretty small microcosm of even just the Berkeley EECS students as a whole, not to mention all of the other disciplines of engineering.</p>

<p>Secondly, your list doesn't include those people who * later * choose to get their master's degrees from MIT or Stanford. Plenty of people work for a few years and then decide to go back to school, including to Stanford or MIT. Heck, some people decide to go to Stanford or MIT * during * their time at work. For example, Stanford has agreements with many Silicon Valley companies where employees can work on completing their master's degrees (through a modified form of distance learning). The Massachusetts office of General Electric has an arrangement where employees can earn their master's degrees at MIT. Many other employers do the same (for example, the MIT Systems Design and Management program is basically a systems engineering master's program that is available through distance learning). Heck, there are some people who are get their master's engineering degrees at MIT or Stanford * after * getting graduate degrees at other schools, although usually they're coming from other fields, i.e. the sciences or math . For example, I know one girl who had a PhD in physics from Harvard, and still later on decided to get her master's in EE from MIT.</p>

<p>But the point is simply this. When you're counting ALL of the engineering disciplines, all of the non-honors students, and all of the people who first got jobs and then later went to graduate school, I think you will find a substantial number of people from Berkeley (and elsewhere) who go to MIT or Stanford for their master's. </p>

<p>Think of it this way. Let me raise two points. #1, MIT and Stanford both have quite large engineering graduate programs. MIT has about 2600 graduate engineering students, and Stanford has 3200, and a lot of these students are master's-degree only students. Where exactly do you think all these people are coming from? MIT and Stanford both have relatively small undergraduate programs such that they clearly cannot come close to filling their graduate ranks with just their own former undergrads. MIT has only about 4000 undergrads, and Stanford has about 6000, and plenty of them are not engineers and hence wouldn't be interested in going to engineering graduate school anyway (except in those rare cases like that Harvard girl above). Hence, the rest of those graduate engineering students have to come from * somewhere *, and the fact is, Berkeley is in fact a very good engineering school (provided you can survive it). </p>

<p>Point #2 is that both MIT and Stanford has engineering programs that, frankly, aren't that hard to get into, relatively speaking. For example, I don't think it's that hard to get into the Stanford Management Science & Engineering (MS&E) master's degree program. I don't think it's that hard to get into the MIT Engineering Systems Division (ESD) master's program. </p>

<p>In fact, I would say that it is possible that it may actually be * easier * to get into Stanford or MIT for your master's engineering degree than to get into Berkeley for a master's engineering degree, again, as long as you don't care which program you're talking about. After all, Berkeley doesn't really have the relatively easier 'business-style' engineering programs that MIT or Stanford have. It is almost certainly easier to get into MIT or Stanford for a master's degree than it is to get into MIT or Stanford for undergrad, again, as long as you don't care which master's degree you're talking about. That is why many graduate students at MIT actually feel that they are * less * qualified and knowledgeable compared to MIT undergrads, the exception of course being those MIT grad students who had themselves been undergrads at MIT. I've heard the same sentiments expressed in regards to Stanford. A lot of grad students at both schools basically had no chance of getting in as undergrads.</p>

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<p>I have a question about those who work a few years and then head back to school. How do they deal with letters of recommendation? Do they get them from professors before finishing college, from their employers, or from their old professors when they finally decide to apply, whenever that is?</p>

<p>Also, with regards to Point #2, are those programs "inferior" in some way to the regular master's degree programs (for example, just a plain M.S. in computer science or whatever), thus leaving fewer prospective students wanting to apply to them? If those programs combine an engineering degree with business-related training, shouldn't they be very popular?</p>

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I have a question about those who work a few years and then head back to school. How do they deal with letters of recommendation? Do they get them from professors before finishing college, from their employers, or from their old professors when they finally decide to apply, whenever that is?

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<p>Usually employers. Like I said, a lot of these degrees are "business-ish" engineering degrees, which generally means that they are quite accepting of professional (as opposed to academic) references.</p>

<p>Also, a lot of working engineers also take courses on the side as part of their continuing education and professional development. So right there is an opportunity for you to get an academic rec if you need one. Again, Stanford offers many graduate engineering courses in a distance-learning format to many companies who partner with them. Some of these courses are part of formal degree programs. But others are not - they are just available to anybody provided that they work for one of these partner companies (Sun Microsystems, for example, was one of these partners, at least as of a few years ago). You won't be able to get a formal Stanford degree through such a process, but anybody in the company can sign up (i.e. no admissions process) and then perhaps transfer those credits to some other school who will take them, or just list them on your resume as part of your professional development. But you can also use them as an opportunity to get a bonafide Stanford academic rec. Some people use it for that reason. Another option would be to obviously take night courses at a community college as a way to elicit rec's. </p>

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Also, with regards to Point #2, are those programs "inferior" in some way to the regular master's degree programs (for example, just a plain M.S. in computer science or whatever), thus leaving fewer prospective students wanting to apply to them? If those programs combine an engineering degree with business-related training, shouldn't they be very popular?

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<p>First off, whether you consider it to be 'inferior' or not is very much in the eye of the beholder. Like I showed above, the Stanford MS&E master's grads actually make more starting salary than many of the other Stanford engineering MS students, and the MIT ESD students make substantially make than many other MIT master's students. Granted, you have to keep in mind the rather large caveat that many of those MS&E and ESD students will have substantial prior work experience compared to the other master's students, and that's probably a major contributing factor to their higher salaries. But the point is, I don't know that you can say that one is necessarily 'inferior' to the other - they just happen to serve different groups of people. </p>

<p>As far as who applies to them and how popular these programs are, let me say this. Speaking strictly, in regards to MIT ESD, while you don't strictly "need" work experience to get in, I think it is quite difficult to get in if you don't have any work experience, simply because most of the other successful applicants will have work experience. I suspect the same is true of Stanford MS&E. In many ways, these programs are something like MBA programs. And like MBA programs, you are going to be judged on a different set of criteria - where you can have excellent grades and test scores, and still not get in, whereas somebody with relatively weak grades/scores, but has strong work experience, will get in. </p>

<p><a href="http://esd.mit.edu/academic/sm_phd_faqs.html#median_age%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://esd.mit.edu/academic/sm_phd_faqs.html#median_age&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As far as whether they should be very popular, I would say that there are a lot of engineers out there who simply don't * want * to know anything about business and would rather stay purely technical, and so clearly these programs would not be interesting to them at all.</p>

<p>But I should reinforce the point that never did I say or mean to imply that these programs are "easy" to get into, from an aggregate level. Rather, what I meant was that they rely on a different set of metrics. For example, you can probably get a 3.2-3.4, and still have a shot at getting an engineering master's degree from MIT (i.e. from ESD or SDM or one of these other business-type engineering degrees), as long as you are able to present a record of strong work experience. I agree with merper68 that going below a 3.0 does present a serious problem. But my point is, you don't need grades that are * that * high as long as you can combine it with proper experience.</p>