<p>Mollie, thank you for the useful information. I understand emailing the professor with a purpose and some substance is critical for recruitment. I was wondering if you have any other suggestions for an undergrad to improve chances for admission to MIT for graduate school? I am not so much interested in the prestige of the school (although I will admit, it is a large incentive) as I am learning (/working) from some of the leaders in their fields. I also am intrigued by the endless possibilities this particular institution has to offer; i.e. exploiting one’s potential is encouraged. I have never been a genius, and I don’t claim to be, but I am curious as to what I can do and how far I can be pushed. Maybe MIT is not the place for me? From what I’ve heard, I feel this is not the case. You seem quite knowledgeable, as well as most on this forum, so maybe you could inform me some? Thanks once again!</p>
<p>Also, does anybody know how the cell/tissue engineering at MIT is? (For graduate students) i.e. facilities, professors, possibilities, etc. </p>
I think the best advice I can give is to talk with professors at your school, and see what advice and connections they have that can help you in the graduate school application process. They will also probably be able to give you a fairly accurate assessment of your competitiveness for various programs in your field.</p>
<p>Ultimately, getting into MIT isn’t any different from getting into any other top program in a given field. The more you can clarify your research interests and identify faculty members with whom you’d be interested in doing your graduate work, and the more you can succinctly specify and justify those choices within your application, the better off you will be. It goes without saying that, all things being equal, you’re better off with a better GPA in more challenging, relevant classes and a better GRE score. And, of course, having a strong research background with independent work and excellent professor recommendations are necessary.</p>
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I don’t, really – I know most about my departments (biology and brain and cognitive sciences) and my husband’s department (aerospace engineering).</p>
<p>I just read “cognitive sciences” and directly became interested. I’m half-obsessed with anything related to the brain - would you mind giving a small definition/introduction to such a department and what kind of effect/impression it had on you? [I’m going to look it up, of course, but I’m hoping for some personal experience.] :)</p>
<p>Well, I was pretty solidly on the “brain” side, but I can talk about the department as a whole. </p>
<p>So the BCS department at MIT studies the brain and the mind – there are researchers who study neuroscience from the molecular and cellular side, those who study systems of neurons, those who study the cognitive and psychological aspects of the brain, and researchers who use some combination of the above approaches. The undergraduate curriculum is very flexible, and undergrads can choose to focus on one or more of those approaches in their degrees. </p>
<p>The department was very small when I was there (there were 30 of us who graduated in my year), but more undergrads have been choosing to major in BCS as neuroscience has become more popular everywhere. Classes are still mostly small lecture courses with a participation and discussion component, and most are joint grad/undergrad classes. BCS is a popular double major because of its flexibility (upper-level courses are not required in a set sequence, required courses are fairly light, and much choice is afforded in terms of classes to take), and is most commonly doubled with biology, chemistry, or EECS.</p>
<p>I really enjoyed my four years in the department, and I’m glad I chose to major in BCS as an undergrad rather than following the conventional wisdom and waiting to specialize until graduate school. (I’m now a neurobiology PhD student.)</p>
<p>That’s pretty amazing. I’m now looking into EECS, BCS, and Bioengineering. Hoping to double major in 2 of those, possibly triple major if BCS and bioengineering have mostly similar courses (hoping they do, I’ll check soon.)
The educational side of MIT keeps looking better and better each day. The distance from home, however, isn’t helping. Hoping to get accepted next year, seeing as no local college could possibly allow me as much flexibility in the 3 fields that I’m interested in. Well, I’m also interested in Business, but I’ll leave that for later on in life.</p>
<p>I have just one more question, which kind of relates to me, so I’ll give you a little background on my personality: I’m generally a curious person, very interested in knowledge, specifically: the brain, electronics & physics, (even the relation between progressing the latter based on the former), and biology (mostly neurology and bionics). That explains my interest in the 3 majors I stated above.
However, I also have a bit of a creative side that relates a lot to advertising, publishing, writing, book layouts, website designs, software designs, electronics designs, even music and movies.
So, given my passion for both fields, would you say that in any of the 3 majors I stated above, there’s a fine mix of both (creativity in EECS/neurology and such)? (Seems like there should be for sure, but I’ve never experienced the studies at MIT/in practical application firsthand so I had to ask.) It’s difficult to choose between creativity/knowledge when I really love both, so I’m searching for something where I wouldn’t have to give one up at the expense of the other.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your help, you’ve been immensely helpful! :D</p>
<p>And formulating a question for a professor is a pretty tough thing in some ways if the professor isn’t the type to offer paths and information. You may find the professor answers your question tersely and then there’s nothing left to discuss. Or you may find your question is vague, and the professor asks you … “Huh, expand?” Be well armed when emailing or chatting with a professor, so they feel good about spending some time on you :)</p>
<p>Thanks once again for the useful information. I am only entering my junior year as an undergrad, but am trying to get ahead of the game and do what I can for now. </p>
<p>Also, does anyone have any useful information about the Biological Engineering graduate program? </p>
<p>In terms of PhD Engineering, are there any statistics out there regarding acceptance rates, retention etc.? What sort of factors do they take into consideration?</p>
<p>I believe there are some published statistics for the engineering programs available with the paid version of the US News rankings. Some of MIT’s specific engineering MS/PhD programs are more competitive than others, but, generally speaking, acceptance rates are low for most programs. </p>
<p>Graduate programs in engineering are looking for strong students (with great GPAs and GRE scores) with stellar recommendations from their undergraduate professors, a previous history of excellent design work from undergraduate research or internships, and a well-articulated, focused set of research interests.</p>
<p>I’ve got a question to pose to the general community if anyone has any thoughts. I’m a rising senior and I’d like to go to grad school; my faculty think I can get into MIT/Stanford/etc but I’m not too sure. My qualifications are:</p>
<p>I’m an undergrad with 3.75 GPA, three years research experience at the labs at school, an internship with the Department of the Army’s Night Vision labs. I have my name as a second author on a paper and patent, and hopefully another patent/paper before graduation. I took the GRE and got a 770 Q, 540 V, and 4 AW. I’m going to graduate with a bachelors in MechE and a second in Physics. I don’t know if this is good/bad/irrelevant, but I’m also 17 (I throw that in because it was a bad thing for my sister when she applied to med school, so I don’t know if it’s pertinent).</p>
<p>My professors want me to retake the GRE - I’m wondering if it’s worth the risk that I’ll do worse. Could I get into the bigger schools with the qualifications? Should I retake the GRE?</p>
<p>Thank you so much. I’m really confused about all this and I’m looking for any sort advice from someone who may know.</p>
<p>If your professors think you can get in, they are probably right. They know what they are looking for in graduate school applicants, and they know how past students from your program have done in graduate school applications.</p>
<p>I think it’s up to you – it’s certainly true that an 800 on the quantitative section is not unusual for a competitive applicant to top engineering programs, but I really doubt a 770 would raise a red flag. The GRE is certainly not the most important component of your application.</p>
<p>Note that faculty will usually tell you - you <em>can</em> get in, but of course there’s always a little luck, unless they’re writing really ridiculously glowing letters, are professors at a well-known school (with credibility both in name and in terms of making useful recommendations for great students).</p>
<p>They’ll usually make a great estimate, which should only be wrong by a small margin of error.</p>
<p>Also, I doubt that for top grad schools, the difference between near perfect and perfect GRE scores really comes into play, when you have a solid GPA and lots of research experience. Top programs are notorious in many fields for caring most about lettres of recommendation and things like that.</p>
Hmm, I’ve heard that a lot, especially about MIT - that GRE is not as important in grad admissions as the SAT in undergrad. But then I’ve heard many people say that the SAT and GRE are equals except one’s for grad and one for undergrad. Is MIT just different in the way that it’s less important for them than for other schools?</p>
<p>Nope, the GRE isn’t that important for any top science/engineering graduate program, provided you did fairly well. The GRE math is very easy – about 10% of test-takers get a perfect score on the math section – and it doesn’t do a very good job of differentiating between applicants at the top end. </p>
<p>Moreover, graduate programs are looking for future scholars in a particular field, and for people who will successfully finish the program, and neither of those things is well-predicted by GRE score. Professors on the admissions committee will rely much more heavily on an applicant’s letters of recommendation and previous research experience than they will on a specific GRE score.</p>
<p>But the GRE and the SAT are very similar in content and format, except that the GRE math section is easier and the verbal section is a bit harder.</p>
<p>I’m in high school, so I really shouldn’t bother with asking this, but the GRE math section isn’t easy to make stupid mistakes on like the SAT, is it?</p>
<p>@Villager, I don’t think anyone is saying that. </p>
<p>Certainly there are some brilliant students who enroll in Tier 3 schools on full-ride scholarships or attend for other reasons; There are always some faculty members at such schools who received doctorates from top-tier schools. In my field, we inform graduate students in our mentoring program that most of the jobs available are not in Tier 1 schools. It’s therefore possible to find good mentoring in a lower-tier school, although generally the resources are not as extensive. </p>
<p>It is possible for an outstanding candidate from a Tier 3 school to gain admission to MIT; easier in some programs than in others. The website gradschoolshopperdotcom (spelled out here so it’s legible) provides information on admission rates to 3 grad programs at MIT. According to the data at this site, in 2009 the graduate physics dept. admitted around 17 percent of applicants, whereas graduate nuclear engineering admitted a much higher percentage. It’s competitive for everyone.</p>
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