<p>Can someone give me a rough outline for when one should start preparing to apply for graduate programs in engineering? MS & Ph.D. programs. When to take the GREs (which ones?) when to start studying for them, what GPAs to have, a good website with resources (CC kind of has become less helpful after I got into college) when to apply, when to start searching etc etc.</p>
<p>I'm a sophmore BME major.</p>
<p>A 3.0+ GPA is in general a requirement for grad school. Most engineering schools that I know of only require the GRE general test, which is offered practically daily. There are testing centers all across the country where you can take it on computers (I don't believe there's a paper version). I hear that 6 to 8 weeks is good enough preparation for GRE's.</p>
<p>How much weight does the GRE have in grad school acceptance?</p>
<p>There are a whole bunch of different philosophies that you can take when applying to grad school, especially the when to apply question. You can go right out of school and risk not getting funding and having to pay for it, or you can go get a job that will hopefully subsidize most or all of it. In general, if you are going for a PhD it is probably better to start right away becauase PhD programs are typically fully funded and the length of time required to obtain one. If your goal is only a MS then it may be better to go get a job first and have them pay for it.</p>
<p>Like mentioned above, a 3.0+ will usually be enough for your mediocore schools, whereas a 3.5-3.7+ is needed for the upper-end schools. </p>
<p>In terms of the application itself, it is probably a good idea to start figuring out what you want to be doing in your junior year. One aspect of the application is the statement of purpose which typically requires some thought. While you may not need to start writing it your junior year, it is good to start thinking about why you are applying to grad school, what you hope to achieve out of it, and what you ultimately want to do (all of which are included in your personal statement). Letters of recommendation (usually 3) are also needed, I'd say it's a good idea to open discussion about this with the recommenders during the summer before your senior year. And GREs are usually taken during the summer before or fall of your senior year. But you can take them whenever, your scores are good for 5 years. A note on that, the format of the GRE is changing in the fall of 2007 I believe, so look into that and see which test is better suited to you.</p>
<p>Finally, there is a bit of debate as to the order of importance of certain aspects of your application. In general the most important things your transcript, letters of recommendation, and statement of purposes. GREs aren't overly important, I've been told that they can't really make your application, but they can break it. As long as they are "in the range" of acceptable scores you should be ok.</p>
<p>The average scores on the Quantitative Section of the GRE General Test for the top 10 graduate engineering programs according to latest US News & World Report Best Grad Schools guide were:</p>
<p>MIT - 775
Stanford - 778
Cal Berkeley - 773
Caltech - 790
Illinois Urbana - 773
Michigan Ann Arbor - 770
Georgia Tech - 760
Carnegie Mellon - 772
Cornell - 760
Purdue - 751</p>
<p>I would say then that your score should be within the ranges above for your application to have a credible chance of success. Having said that, provided
that the applicant's score is within the acceptable range, the actual score itself has little or no impact at all in admission decisions (not least because most "acceptable" candidates tend to get very similar scores anyway). Instead, good letters of recommendation and evidence of research potential(as shown e.g. by peer-reviewed publications and undergraduate/master's projects) are the main factors top Grad Schools take into account when deciding whether to admit a student or not. Undergraduate curriculum (actual classes taken) and GPA are also important factors to assess the applicant's level of preparation for advanced studies. Good letters of recommendation, however, should go beyond the conventional "did well in class" statement, which is for the most part redundant information that is already in the applicant's undergraduate transcript. Finally, most Grad Schools pay a lot of attention to the applicant's personal statement of research interests since it helps them to assess whether the applicant's interests are a good match for the research areas that actually exist in the department. </p>
<p>You might want to post also to the Graduate School Forum for other views which may not coincide with mine.</p>
<p>If you're an engineering major, there is no reason you can't get an 800 on the quantitative section. It only tests up to and including middle school math really. No calculus. No trigonometry. No hard stuff. As long as you're careful, you shouldn't really worry about this part at all.</p>
<p>ken285 same about the SAT I (old ones) and I got a 750 after a painful amount of studying -- quiet a bit away from that 800, true it's only 2 questions but I after all that work I could never get those 2 questions right. It seemed like a glass cieling almost. </p>
<p>On that note, it would be interesting to see the correlation between the OLD SAT I Math section and peoples GRE quantative exam section. </p>
<p>Thank you all for your replies. I guess I have to start working on getting some research done and keep up my GPA. Damn there is no rest for the weary.</p>
<p>The best way to kill 2 birds with one stone is to do research for credit. Not only is it a relatively easy A, but chances of you completing work that can be subimitted for publication or presented at a conference are pretty good in that time frame. And since it is part of your curriculum it, it doesn't really add that much more of a stress to your life.</p>
<p>Just a thought to consider</p>
<p>Today's Wall Street Journal has an article that recommends you consider delaying graduate school. I heartily agree. There's a bias in CC toward academia. Actually, the real world has much more to teach you than those professors. As GB Shaw said, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."</p>
<p>Most important thing for grad school is research experience. There are many excellent undergraduate students that struggle when it comes time to do graduate research. I think doing research while an undergraduate is a great quality that graduate schools are looking for.</p>
<p>Redbeard: I don't think the decision to go or not to go into Grad School should be based solely on financial considerations. That may sound a little bit romantic/idealistic, but pursuing an advanced degree, especially a doctorate, is also a matter of "calling" more so than money. What I am trying to say is that, obviously, not everybody has the profile or indeed the desire to become a PhD, just like not everybody either wishes or has the necessary qualities to become a medical doctor, a lawyer, a pop singer, or a football player. BTW, beyond the master's level, a graduate education has more to do with you yourself making an original (and relevant) contribution to existing knowledge than actually learning from professors in conventional classes/lectures. The role assumed by professors (e.g. your thesis advisor) at that stage is more of a mentor than a teacher, merely guiding you in your otherwise largely independent research.</p>
<p>Do co-terminal degrees offer better chance of getting accepted or a much lower one? I'm specifically talking about Stanford were it seems that in your junior year you could apply for a Masters. Good idea or bad?</p>
<p>I am doing a BS/MSE in four years. From talking to my advisor, I think it will help me with graduate admissions. It proves that you can excel on the graduate level and shows that you can follow through with an original research project (assuming you do a masters thesis). It has also given me the opportunity to know the professors in my department very well, which will help with recommendations. In general, I think anything you can do to push yourself will make you a stronger candidate.</p>
<p>The downside is that it takes away time you could be doing internships and working. I know I want to go into academia, so that wasn't as much of a concern in my case.</p>
<p>bruno, I don't take issue with your priorities or goals at all. If you re-read my post, I said nothing about maximizing salary. I just mean to attack the sacred cows of graduate school and academia (sacred in the CC world, that is).</p>
<p>Engineering is applied science. You learn from successes and you learn from failure. Your 20s can be a superb time to do this. It's amazing how quickly you become the local expert on systems or projects. The point of the WSJ article is that you miss all that if you dither around in graduate school.</p>
<p>If you're an anthropologist, you contribute to all knowledge through academia. If you're an engineer, it's more likely by designing something that really works, solves people's problems, and works better than the competition. That doesn't happen in a classroom.</p>
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If you're an engineer, it's more likely by designing something that really works, solves people's problems, and works better than the competition. That doesn't happen in a classroom.
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<p>It might not happen in a classroom but it certainly can and does happen in research labs. I know of several research labs that are entirely funded my industries lack of knowledge on a subject. Academia is called in to fix many of the problems that engineers in industry can't solve. It happens, and it happens a lot. </p>
<p>Nearly every aspect of engineering has been infiltrated with politics, both industry and academia, neither is a paradigm for efficiency. You may dither a bit in academia, but you will do the same in industry. With the bureaucracy and size of many of the powerhouse engineering firms, staying nimble is a major problem. Smaller companies are a different story, I'll defer to airbarr for comments on them. But you can't praise industry as a whole for being a bastion for knowledge.</p>
<p>There really is no perfect plan, it may be better to go directly to industry for some and to stay in school for others.</p>