<p>Hello everyone. Recently I have been thinking about going to graduate school for either a mechanical or aerospace engineering masters degree, so I have been doing a lot of school research, finding out which schools fit me and etc. Then I came across to talk to a friend who's getting his Ph.D and he told me that in order to get into top 20 engineering schools, you basically need to have perfect score in almost everything, such as a really good GPA (~3.7 and up), really high or nearly perfect score on GREs, and have done plenty research on the area of your interests. I was just curious if this is true since I sometimes find that the average GREs score at top 10 school are comparable to maybe a school that's ranked in 40s or 50s.
Also, if I have never done any research in college with a mediocre GPA (~3.4) from a public university, would it really be a safe approach for me not to apply more than 2 top 20 schools?</p>
<p>I guess what I am trying to say is I really want to get into a high-ranked school (who doesn't? and I know about finding a interest match is more important than anything else, but my interest is kind of broad that almost all schools have something similar) but I am not sure where my chances stand.</p>
<p>This post would be better in the “Graduate School” forum. </p>
<p>The most selective graduate schools have lots of very strong applicants with high GPAs, high GRE scores, significant research experience and strong letters of reference. Even so, the odds of getting accepted are small simply because of the large numbers of applicants and only a few will pass the first cut.</p>
<p>Of course you should apply to a reach school or two but don’t make that kind of school your only chance. You need to ask your faculty mentors for suggestions on which schools might have a higher probability of admission for you and focus on several of those as well.</p>
<p>Your friend is exaggerating. There is a lot more to an application than just the stats. If you want to go to some of the ultra-selective places like MIT or Caltech, then yes your stats need to be stellar on all fronts.</p>
<p>However, that only applies to the few schools near the top. After that there is considerable variability in who is and isn’t admitted to a given program, and different parts of your application can definitely make up for shortcomings in other parts. No matter where you go, you are going to want to have a GRE math score that is getting pretty close to perfect, and some graduate schools (if not most) care about the writing score a bit, too, given that you will ostensibly be writing papers with the department’s name attached.</p>
<p>GRE isn’t the end all for admissions, though, and you won’t get admitted anywhere based solely on GRE scores (though I have heard of people being denied because of them). Other than that, GPA, research experience and professor recommendations are the other major factors (and the strength of your undergraduate program will get factored in to a varying degree with these). My best advice is try to make sure they are all respectable, but if you can, absolutely try to get some research experience. Not only does it check off the research experience box, but it also typically leads to much better reference letters.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I got into a couple top 10 programs with an overall GPA of something like 3.3 as an undergraduate, but I had research experience and (likely) good reference letters to make up for that. It’s worked out so far.</p>
<p>From my experience, being admitted to a Top-20 graduate engineering depends on several factors:</p>
<ul>
<li>Do you want a paid graduate research position OR are you (or employer) paying for it?</li>
<li>Quantity/Quality of prior work experience you have before applying</li>
<li>Full-time M.S. or part-time non-thesis M.Eng or M.S.</li>
<li>Academic credentials</li>
<li>The school’s policies with full vs. provisional admission</li>
</ul>
<p>I was admitted to University of Wisconsin (so-called Top-20 graduate engineering school) and yours truly:
Had a sub-3.0 GPA as an undergrad
Was not an engineering major (Math/CS major)
Did not take a GRE</p>
<p>But…I also had:
4) 8 years software engineering experience
5) Tuition-reimbursement checks from my employer
6) Applied to the part-time/online non-thesis M.S. program
7) Was willing to take 3 graduate courses (which I aced) as a non-degree graduate student to gain full admission</p>
<p>In other words. It depends on the school. Now, I don’t know if the Top-10 or even Top-5 schools will allow this although in recent years, long-time top engineering schools like Cornell now has a online Systems Engineering graduate program and Georgia Tech now has a “Professional Master of Systems Engineering” degree.</p>
<p>A lot of schools view their part-time graduate engineering programs as cash cows, and lower their standards a bit to accept students whose employers are paying full freight. I was very surprised to learn how easy it was to get into Stanford’s engineering graduate programs.</p>
<p>Who you know can also help. A few years ago I was taking an evening computational math class at Stanford, just for interest. The person teaching the class was in charge of the computational math program. During one of the breaks we were killing time yapping about nothing in particular, and she suggested I apply to their computational math graduate program. I jokingly said I wasn’t smart enough to get into Stanford, at which point she said that since it was her program, it was her decision and that I’d be admitted.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I should have specified that I am looking to get a fellowship/RA/TA position. I am also going to be a full-time student. And job experience wise, I have only had one internship.
I am not talking about the very top schools like MIT and Caltech, but schools like Purdue or U Maryland or U Minnesota. I know they are competitive and I still want to give it a shot.
Does applying 10~12 grad schools seem to be too many? (with some reach schools, mid-range and safety ones)</p>
<p>A professor suggested that I apply for 1 - 2 ‘safety’, 3 - 5 ‘match’, and 1 - 3 ‘reach’ programs, overall 7 - 9 would be good (for PhD programs). You can apply to more if you want to. I applied to six total and so far have gotten into two, rejected by 1, and haven’t heard from the others yet. It can go either way depending on where there’s an opening with funding available. Thus, don’t just apply to one or two places because you can’t be sure of getting into the top 20… but if you apply to somewhere between 6 - 10 schools including a safety or two, you should be set to continue to graduate school the following fall. </p>