<p>how hard is it to get into berkeley for a masters in engineering if i am at a top 5 engineering school and out of state? does out of state even matter?</p>
<p>Hard.</p>
<p>You need (in this order) good research experience, strong letters of rec., and top grades (from what I've heard, a 3.8+ will serve you well) and GRE scores.</p>
<p>Being out-of-state doesn't matter in the admissions process, but you have to pay extra tuition (which adds up to about $10-11K/year IIRC).</p>
<p>i was thinking of applying for a transfer there this year, but am not sure if i can go. if i am somehow accepted and i turn them down, will berkeley hold it against me when i apply for grad school?</p>
<p>It shouldnt really matter which school you went for your BS (or BE) degree as long as you have high stats (GPA, GRE, great ECs and internships and all).</p>
<p>But do realize it is very competitive to get into Berkeley Graduate School, especially the Engineering graduate school, which is recognized as one of the very best, arguably the world-best school for PhD in engineering!!!</p>
<p>thanks for the info, but i was actually wondering if it would look bad if i was accepted for a transfer and turned down the admission</p>
<p>I don't think so, but I guess it's possible</p>
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Being out-of-state doesn't matter in the admissions process, but you have to pay extra tuition (which adds up to about $10-11K/year IIRC).
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<p>I think Berkeley has some waiver, or pays the fee for students during the first year if they plan on beoming CA residents. Anyway, this not apply to master's students.</p>
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But do realize it is very competitive to get into Berkeley Graduate School, especially the Engineering graduate school
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<p>ALL grad programs at Berkeley are very competitive for admissions purposes and otherwise.</p>
<p>do you think i should apply for a transfer anyway?</p>
<p>It never hurts to apply (except for the application fee I suppose).</p>
<p>I do believe it doesn't matter if you apply as out of state for Berkeley's graduate programs.</p>
<p>Wouldn't transfering here make it harder to get into UCB grad programs? Intellectual incest and all? Or do you have another reason for transfering...</p>
<p>moondogg, apply if you would attend if accepted, or might attend if accepted.</p>
<p>Some programs prefer intellectual incest, CF.</p>
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Wouldn't transfering here make it harder to get into UCB grad programs? Intellectual incest and all?
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<p>I believe the Berkeley engineering programs actually "enjoy" incest. Yeah, I know, it sounds perverted, but you get my point.</p>
<p>haha thanks for all your help everyone</p>
<p>At my current University, they make it sound like its much much easier to go to grad school there since I am doing my undergrad there. They told me to just get to know professors. I figured it would be similar at Cal...which is like my dream school. Im just not quite smart enough to go there.</p>
<p>"Some programs prefer intellectual incest, CF."</p>
<p>Wow, never knew DRab. Is this something they formally acknowledge or just kind of observed (like how HLS is made up of many many H undergrads).</p>
<p>Also, which departments would you say practice this? </p>
<p>"I believe the Berkeley engineering programs actually "enjoy" incest. Yeah, I know, it sounds perverted, but you get my point."</p>
<p>That's cool though because I know Berkeley engineering is hard as ----.</p>
<p>Sakky's the man who knows this sort of thing much better than I do. I'll let him talk about it.</p>
<p>First off, we have to be careful about how we define 'incest'. In this context, I am talking about getting both a bachelor's and graduate degree within the same department. </p>
<p>For example, the Berkeley ChemE department hates incest, to the point that the department still to this day bars its own undergrads from even applying to the grad ChemE program right after graduation. They will generally only consider your application after you've graduated for a while and presumably have picked up substantial work experience. The department even explicitly states that this is the case in its FAQ:</p>
<p>"Q. My undergraduate degree is in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. I have such happy, fond memories of the department that I cannot bear the thought of pursuing graduate studies away from Cal. Can I go to Berkeley for graduate school, too? </p>
<p>A. Although nearly all of the best chemical engineers are Berkeley graduates, this department, like most other top chemical engineering departments, feels strongly that its' undergraduates are better served by pursuing graduate studies in a new and different environment. Thus, unless you have obtained a degree elsewhere or have substantial industrial experience since you graduated from Berkeley, we will not admit you to the department for graduate work."</p>
<p>However, Berkeley chemE students are free to apply to programs in other departments at Berkeley, and some do just that. In fact, I know a rather funny story about this. I know a girl who got her ChemE BS at Berkeley, and then stayed at Berkeley to get her PhD in BioE. The ironic thing was that she got assigned to a lab with and basically ended up doing her entire dissertation with a professor (Jay Keasling) who was in the ChemE department (the same prof that she did undergrad research). That's because the BioE department is an interdisciplinary department where I believe that most (probably all) faculty members hold a joint appointment with another department, and in the case of Keasling, with ChemE. So, the truth is, this girl basically got a de-facto chemical engineering PhD from Berkeley. True, on paper, her PhD was technically conferred by the BioE department, but come on, it's basically a chemE PhD. Her undergrad background is in ChemE. Her advisor, Keasling, is primarily a ChemE prof (who just happens to hold a secondary joint appointment with BioE). She spent almost all her time within the ChemE department (and in fact, ended up marrying another ChemE PhD student). Hence, I think the only reason why she went to the BioE department was to get around the ChemE 'incest rule'. Because she was not technically applying to the ChemE department from which she got her undergrad degree, she was not subject to the prohibitions of incest, despite the fact that she ended up becoming a ChemE graduate student in everything but name. </p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. I don't see anything wrong with what she did. In fact, I actually admire her pluck in finding a loophole in getting around what I believe to be a stupid rule. Furthermore, I would say that if students are going to be allowed to bypass the incest rule by just applying to another department and then just basically hang around the ChemE department anyway, then you might as well just repeal the incest rule. After all, if you're going to allow "de-facto incest", you might as well allow the real thing. </p>
<p>But anyway, back to the original question. You ask which departments practice rules against incest. So, ChemE would obviously be one. Many of the natural sciences - physics, chemistry, etc. - seem to have incest restrictions.</p>
<p>Wow, that is a really stupid rule.</p>
<p>I definitely cannot wait to get out of Berkeley as soon as I finish my undergrad. I hate this place.</p>
<p>Well, in fairness to Berkeley, it should be pointed out that Berkeley is not the only school with rules prohibiting incest. I know other schools such as MIT and Caltech have similar rules.</p>