<p>ccmadforever:</p>
<p>He is applying to </p>
<p>Yale
Stanford
Johns Hopkins
U Florida
U Miami
Emory
U Texas Houston (MD Anderson)
U Texas Dallas Med
Baylor
U Kentucky</p>
<p>I'll be applying to Mechanical/Aerospace PhD programs:</p>
<p>Ga Tech
Stanford
Michigan
Cal Tech
Berkeley
Princeton</p>
<p>I probably won't get in anywhere though</p>
<p>List (as of now) is:</p>
<p>MIT
Stanford
Brown
Caltech
Northwestern
UCSB
Berkeley</p>
<p>Safety: stay at JHU</p>
<p>All except Brown, Caltech, and JHU would be Mat Sci.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm applying for PhD programs in materials science for Fall, 2007.</p>
<p>Top Choices (the only places I'd be real excited to go to):
-Caltech
-MIT
-Stanford
-Harvard</p>
<p>I hope I don't have to go here, but I'd be a fool to only apply to four schools:
-Berkeley
-Columbia
-Michigan
-Northwestern
-Princeton</p>
<p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You want to get a Phd in materials science and you'd be excited to go to Harvard, but you hope you don't have to go to Berkeley? Interesting.</p>
<p>PhD EE (I finally finalized my list)</p>
<p>Stanford
Berkeley
MIT
Michigan
Cornell
UCSD
UCSB</p>
<p>Yeah, it's true. Harvard has some amazingly relevent research in their applied physics program. I also like how it's a relatively small department. Berkeley, though much larger than Harvard, has only a few professors I could see myself working with. Even among those few, none are nearly as appealing as those at Harvard. Berkeley is also just a bit too large for my taste.</p>
<p>you guys are lucky. theres no such thing as a safety school for clinical psych phd programs. my "safety" accepts 8% of applicants.
i'm applying to 12 programs. my stats are higher than the averages at nearly every single school, but when the program only accepts 5 out of 300+ applicants, nothing is a safety!</p>
<p>huskem- I feel your pain. Some of the schools I'm applying to accept classes of 8 or 10 people, and only have one or two tuition scholarships to give. My field (design) is so subjective, that it's hard to know how my portfolio will go over with any school, so I'm applying to a good number to keep up my chances of getting a good deal somewhere.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yeah, it's true. Harvard has some amazingly relevent research in their applied physics program. I also like how it's a relatively small department. Berkeley, though much larger than Harvard, has only a few professors I could see myself working with. Even among those few, none are nearly as appealing as those at Harvard. Berkeley is also just a bit too large for my taste.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can't comment on the relevance of your research as I obviously don't know what it is, except to say that research interests change all the time. You don't always get to do the research that you want to do. Just because you want to work with a given prof doesn't mean that he wants to work with you, or has funds for you. Profs also leave all the time - this is particularly true for assistant/associate profs fighting for tenure. You may choose a particular school hoping to work with Professor X, and then find out later that he didn't get tenure and so is leaving the school. Besides, many PhD students change their research interests as they read the literature and find out what's out there. Out of all of the doctoral students at Harvard and MIT that I know, only a minority of them are still researching what they actually intended to research when they walked in. </p>
<p>You also talk about how you don't like Berkeley's size. By that, I take it to mean the size of the department. Then let me say that the MIT materials science department is absolutely HUGE - with more profs than Berkeley has. Yet interestingly MIT's department size doesn't seem to deter you.</p>
<p>PhD in political science:</p>
<p>Reach:
Stanford
Yale</p>
<p>Good fit:
UCSD
UCLA</p>
<p>Okay:
UCSB
Ohio
Rice</p>
<p>I actually meant the size of the entire school. Also, I am only applying to schools with at least three professors I could see myself working with. Harvard has three "Wow, I would love to work for this guy" professors, while Berkeley has maybe five "Working for him might be interesting, I suppose" professors. Of course, this is all just based on some webpages, and those Harvard guys could turn out to be crappy advisors...who knows. From what I know at this point, Harvard has awesome research, Berkeley has decent research (to me). Harvard's student population is more appealing to me. Harvard's location is a bit more appealing to me. </p>
<p>Anyways, that list was written with very limited knowledge. I may visit Harvard and find that it sucks and Berkeley is a better fit. I really don't know. I've been having fun ranking the schools I'm applying to each month and seeing how my preferences change. I can't wait to see how it all turns out. It's quite an exciting process...</p>
<p>
[quote]
I actually meant the size of the entire school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I thought you might have meant that, and actually wrote something about it, but decided to delete it. But now that that is the issue, I would point out that while Berkeley clearly has far more undergrads than Harvard does, that is rather irrelevant, as you as a grad student won't interact much with undergrads. You won't live with them, you probably won't socialize with them, you will take few (if any) classes with them, and so forth. What should concern you more is the number of graduate students there are, and the fact is, Harvard actually has more graduate students than Berkeley does. So, from a graduate student perspective, it is actually Harvard that may actually "feel" like a bigger school than Berkeley will. </p>
<p>Couple this with the fact that both Harvard and MIT are located in the city of Cambridge, and Cambridge is about the same size of the city of Berkeley, along with the fact that heavy cross-sharing of resources and cross-socialization occurs between students at Harvard and MIT, especially between the graduate students, and, again, I think you will find that it is probably Harvard that will "feel" like a bigger school. For example, lots of Harvard graduate students obviously live in Harvard Square. But so do a lot of MIT graduate students. Harvard and MIT, in many ways, act as a single unified school, as they are literally only 2 subway stops away from each other, and the combined student population (undergrad + grad) at Harvard + MIT is basically the same as that at Berkeley, and the combined grad student population at Harvard + MIT obviously vastly exceeds that of Berkeley. In fact, it's more than double. </p>
<p>But anyway, I think you should also keep several other factors in mind. If you're going for a PhD, what you should want is a program that will really help you to establish yourself as an academic and researcher. For example, you should be asking questions such as are you going to be able to pick the kind of research you want, with the prof you want, are you going to be forced to waste your time on things that won't really help you advance your research (i.e. irrelevant coursework), is your program really going to help you publish in major journals and conferences, and so forth. You should ask for the placement records of the programs to see if the graduates obtain respected positions, i.e. assistant professorships at major universities, plum research positions at major government labs, etc. You should comb through the top journals in your field to see who has written the most cited articles in your particular field of interest, and where those authors happen to be. </p>
<p>Look, if you just want to go to Harvard for the prestige of the brand name, then just say so. There's no shame in that. I think most Harvard students would concede that the general brand name of the school had something to do with why they are there. I see nothing wrong with that. But at least you should be honest with yourself about what your real goals are. Frankly speaking, a lot of Harvard doctoral students are not all that serious about being dedicated academics, and are just there for the brand name.</p>
<p>Wow, Harvard's graduate program is larger than Berkeley's? I did not know that. </p>
<p>Alright, I admit there is a part of me that gets a little excited by the thought of attending Harvard because of the name and prestige associated with it. But, again, Harvard is doing awesome research that I would like to be a part of. Having the ability to take courses at MIT is also a huge plus. Yale also has huge brand name value, but I'd never even consider applying there because their research is of no interest to me. Please don't think the name is all I'm looking at. </p>
<p>Again, I have no idea if I would actually like Harvard more than Berkeley. I have no idea if I would actually like Harvard at all. The list I created was simply a best guess based off of very limited information. The points you mentioned are things I will definitely investigate once I actually know what my choices are. Until I am accepted and have visited a few schools, I can't make any sort of truly informed decision on this matter.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wow, Harvard's graduate program is larger than Berkeley's? I did not know that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>UCBerkeley has about 8000 graduate students (or perhaps 10,000, depending on how you count). Harvard has about 12-13k graduate students, again, depending on how you count. But no matter how you choose to count, Harvard has more graduate students than Berkeley does. </p>
<p><a href="http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2005-06.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2005-06.pdf</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Berkeley%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Berkeley</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_university%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_university</a>
<a href="http://www.news.harvard.edu/glance/%5B/url%5D">http://www.news.harvard.edu/glance/</a></p>
<p>Most people don't realize that Harvard is actually a quite substantially sized school. People talk about how Cornell is 'large', but in fact, Harvard actually has more students than Cornell does. The issue is that at Harvard (along with places like MIT, Yale, Stanford, Caltech, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, Georgetown, and some others), most of the students are graduate students, not undergrads, whereas at a supposedly 'large' school like Cornell, most of the students are undergrads. That is what makes the Cornell undergrad program "feel large", and for the same reason, Harvard grad school also 'feels large'. And then, like I said, when you add in the presence of MIT within the same city, coupled with the fact that the city of Cambridge really isn't all that big to begin with, and how Harvard and MIT enjoy numerous cross-school linkages, and Harvard REALLY starts to feel big as far as the graduate students are concerned. </p>
<p>Now of course, Harvard has far fewer * materials science * people than does Berkeley, so if you were looking for something small from a departmental standpoint, then Harvard could be considered smaller. But, like I said before, MIT has an even larger matsci department than Berkeley does, yet you're considering MIT. </p>
<p>But the point is, if you're thinking that you want to go to Harvard for a 'small' graduate experience, you may want to think again. Trust me, the Harvard graduate experience does not feel small. If you really want something small, go to Caltech. Caltech is REALLY a very small school. Let me put it to you this way. Harvard Business School alone has almost as many students just within the first-year class of the MBA program (more than 900 students just within the entering class), than there are graduate students in ALL of Caltech, in all programs and all years combined (1200 total students).</p>
<p>Harvard may have a much larger graduate student population, but a student is a student, right? The 14,000 student population difference between Berkeley and Harvard is quite significant. Pllus, anyways, I think I'd rather be among a larger group of graduate students than a mob of partying undergrads. But I really can't say anything until I've visited these schools and gotten a sense of the atmosphere. Hey, maybe I'll be rejected from all these schools, and I won't even have to worry about it then. </p>
<p>So, Sakky...I've been reading your posts for a while (well before I signed up), and I've always been curious about your background. My best guess is that you went to Caltech for undergrad, and you're either in, or you've graduated from a PhD program at MIT. Am I close? Maybe you've already revealed this secret along the way and I just haven't seen it. I'd appreciate it if you could fill me in.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Harvard may have a much larger graduate student population, but a student is a student, right? The 14,000 student population difference between Berkeley and Harvard is quite significant.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First off, like I said, there is a big difference between undergrads and grads. As a grad student, you will interact with undergrads relatively infrequently. For example, at Harvard, the undergrads live in dorms or the Houses. At Berkeley, they live in the undergrad dorms. As a graduate student at either school, unless you're one of those rare graduate student resident tutors, you will not live with the undergrads. Undergrads and grads at either school tend to have different hangouts and different interests . For example, the Northside of Berkeley is extremely popular with grad students (probably because the neighborhood is quite family-friend), but relatively unpopular with undergrads, who tend to prefer the excitement of downtown or of Telegraph. </p>
<p>But like you said, a student is a student, and I have given you many reasons for why I think that MIT ought to be included with Harvard. I think most people don't realize just how physically close these 2 schools are. They're practically right next to each other. MIT graduate students live all around Cambridge, including Harvard Square and Porter Square (near Harvard Law School). Harvard graduate students also live all around Cambridge, including Central Square and Kendall Square (both places very near MIT). </p>
<p>The point is, from a graduate student standpoint, Harvard will almost certainly "feel" larger than Berkeley will. Harvard all by itself has more grad students than Berkeley does, and then when you add in all of the MIT grad students in town, things will definitely 'feel' crowded. Berkeley and Cambridge have equivalent total city populations (both cities have populations of about 100k), but Cambridge clearly has far more total graduate students hanging around. Trust me, it will feel bigger. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Pllus, anyways, I think I'd rather be among a larger group of graduate students than a mob of partying undergrads.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ok, but I don't know how that jives with what you said before when you said you wanted a smaller school. </p>
<p>Like I said before, if you really want a small but elite grad-school experience, go to Caltech. It really doesn't get any 'smaller' than that. </p>
<p>
[quote]
So, Sakky...I've been reading your posts for a while (well before I signed up), and I've always been curious about your background. My best guess is that you went to Caltech for undergrad,
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, no, that was my brother.</p>
<p>
[quote]
or you've graduated from a PhD program at MIT. Am I close? Maybe you've already revealed this secret along the way and I just haven't seen it. I'd appreciate it if you could fill me in.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's not quite accurate, but you're not that far off.</p>
<p>I don't like publishing my biography publicly. You can ask me via PM or email if you really want to know.</p>
<p>I would like you to know that my opinion of Berkeley has completey changed since my last post. After researching the school some more and visiting the campus, I think it's an amazing fit for me. On top of this, I was accepted a few weeks ago, and they has been unbelievably kind and helpful throughout the whole process. </p>
<p>I now almost hope MIT doesn't accept me so I won't have such a painful decision to make!</p>
<p>Berkeley is very good about making you feel wanted. I think that is a really good strategy on their part. They find some of the top students and make them quick offers, which really makes you feel wanted. It sure doesn't hurt their cause.</p>
<p>Yeah, it's definitely a great strategy. I like being wanted.</p>
<p>^ it's sad that this doesn't apply to their undergrad program. i'm actually looking forward to leaving this place asap for various reasons, including some trivial, personal reasons.</p>
<p>but if i wasn't an undergrad here, i'm sure i would have had a much better experience if i came here as a grad student. there are some amazing faculty here for almost all of the grad programs. good luck!</p>