<p>After working in non-engineering capacity, I want to go back to get a MS degree. What are the major factors that these schools look for in a successful applicant?</p>
<ul>
<li>I graduated from a top 10 engineering UG with 3.9+ GPA.</li>
<li>I haven't taken the GRE, but score 7XX on GMAT, and 15XX/1600 on (old) SAT. I expect 790-800 on GRE Math, 680+ on GRE Verbal.</li>
<li>I have been out of school for 4 years, so I do not think my professor remember that well. I'm currently going to a top 10 MBA program, would MBA prof recommendation count?</li>
</ul>
<p>What engineering field? Your numerical stats are higher than those of typical admits (less so for EE and CS, which are more competitive). If this is for a terminal MS, check if the department at MIT/Stanford/UCB has such a program. If it doesn’t (i.e. everyone is admitted with the expectation of going on to PhD), then don’t mention that you intend to leave after an MS because that’s a ticket to rejection. While such programs don’t explicitly bar terminal MS students, they’re really only interested in admitting those that are going to be performing research for the university for years.</p>
<p>The weight of an MBA prof letter will depend on whether you’ll be applying for terminal MS or not. PhD-track admissions value letters of recommendation from professors you’ve done research with above everything else by a large margin. You would not be competitive for them without at least one such letter. Terminal MS admissions are more amenable to non-engineering, non-professor, and non-research letters. Academic assessments are more valuable than character assessments, so limit letters from industry as much as possible unless you worked in R&D.</p>
<p>I did mechanical engineering for undergraduate, but would like to explore with controls/mechatronics for graduate school. </p>
<p>I understand that my stats will not keep me out, but what things will get me in? What other things do these programs look at? How important is stats compared to the other factors?</p>
<p>I may be interested in PhD. Should I be straight forward with it in the personal statement or should I hint about it?</p>
<p>It’s specific to CS, but it’s widely regarded as one of the best grad school applications advice for elite programs (in CS, CMU matches MIT/Stanford/Berkeley).</p>
<p>MIT/Berkeley/Stanford are saturated by high stats applications so I would guess it goes something like this: Letters >= Research Experience > GPA >>> GRE (nearly irrelevant; mostly used to cross off internationals that do horrible in the verbal/writing sections).</p>
<p>Grad school advice articles tend to be dismissive of GPA, often stating something like everything above 3.5/3.6 is treated equally, but the fact is that the average GPAs for PhD-track admissions is high at these 3 schools and that speaks for itself. I do think a 3.9 vs. 3.7 matters to some degree. But in the end, letters from professors that have supervised your research are far and away what will make you truly competitive. Remember that it’s professors, not professional admissions committees that make admissions decisions at the graduate level. They trust the word of other (American) professors more than any other component of the application.</p>
<p>If I had to assign some sort of weighting to PhD-track admissions, I would say: letters 50%, research experience 30%, GPA 15%, and 5% for GRE/TA experience/non-research work experience/everything else. This assumes no single component of the application is far below standards and it’s only for applicants who finish their B.S. at U.S. universities. For applicants with an M.S., publications are expected. For internationals (with a B.S. or M.S.), it’s all rather screwy for a variety of reasons (in particular, the quality of their institution may be unknown and so it’s hard to contextualize the letters or GPA).</p>
<p>In PhD-track admissions, the more unsure about the PhD you are in your personal statement, the worse off you’ll be. They’ll specifically look for your reasons for pursuing a PhD in your statement (typically a student covers this by stating that they love teaching or that they tried research and loved it). Displaying doubt (i.e. merely hinting that you may want to do a PhD or not mentioning your intentions/reasons at all) is usually a bad, bad idea. It’s your call how you want to balance that vs. being honest. Or just simplify things by going for terminal MS programs (I don’t know about ME, but in EE only Stanford has that; MIT/Berkeley have only PhD-track admissions). You could always apply for the PhD later.</p>
<p>A lot has to do with how much money the professor has or doesn’t. </p>
<p>DS didn’t get into your mentioned schools primarily 1)No money at school 2)Prof interests did not match student’s 3)student’s goal is different from prof’s. DS came from CMU with top stats and LORs.</p>
<p>You can have top notch stats but if money or goals are different, I’d guess you’d be declined.</p>
<p>1) Many of these programs will not accept terminal MS applicants, or else will use their MS programs as a way to sift “second-tier” PhD applicants.</p>
<p>2) I expect all of these programs are looking for researchers even in their masters students, which means your lack of research experience will hurt you, as will your MBA - it suggests a desire to burnish credentials rather than be technologically innovative.</p>
<p>3) None of these programs are cheap, and few are likely to fund a masters candidate. Have you considered how to pay for your degree?</p>
<p>All that aside, you need good letters and preferably some solid research experience to get into those schools. If you do not have them, I suspect you will be out of luck - Stanford perhaps being the exception, as they seem to take in more masters students than most. It is late in the game, but you may want to see if there are any labs in your current school or nearby that will take a free lab assistant - be upfront, explain that you are trying to get some research experience for grad school, and they may take you. You will get experience, some exposure in the field, and hopefully one or two letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>You should be aware that for Stanford mechanical you MUST complete an MS before going on to a PhD (you cannot go BS => PhD). If you apply to the PhD program your application will be switched to the MS pool (but your intentions for a PhD will be noted) The PhD applications are almost entirely internal for MS students who would like to continue on and have secured funding from a faculty member or outside source (NSF, NDSEG, etc). </p>
<p>Stanford’s MS program is considerably easier to get into than MIT or Berkeley. Stanford’s program is only course-based, whereas the other two require a thesis (I know MIT does, have to double check on Berkeley).</p>
<p>That being said, if you get in you will most likely have to pay your way through (for an MS). Stanford accepts a ton of people but fund very few. People often say that Stanford’s uses its MS program as a “cash cow.”</p>
<p>Overall, I think you have a decent shot at getting into Stanford. I got in and your stats are a little higher than mine, but I applied out of undergrad with a lot of research exp and great recs.</p>
<p>^ I’ve noticed that I hear more people getting into Stanford than Berkeley or MIT.Actually, I haven’t heard of anyone from my school getting into MIT or Berkeley so I think your “cash cow” statement makes sense.</p>
<p>Stanford’s MS programs are generally easier to get in than MIT or CAL. </p>
<p>MIT and CAL have very low intake annually, and their admission rate are generally low. You have to be good in every aspect of application to have a shot at MIT and CAL, even for MS programs.</p>
<p>First of all, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are the world’s 3 best engineering schools (MIT > Berkeley/Stanford). These institutions have the most outstanding departments in all engineering fields, ranging from nuclear to electrical. Getting into any of them is certainly a considerable achievement as these schools can open the path to success (Look at where Berkeley, MIT, and Stanford graduates get hired by visiting their career centers).</p>
<p>However, like all college admission processes, there is no single golden formula to get into these universities. Nevertheless, assuming that you do get into any of these schools, it may be beneficial to have prior programming experience in high-level programming softwares such as Python, C++, JAVA etc. This becomes a major component in your engineering career as computer science is now indispensable.</p>
<p>But what if its valence in your resume model is negative to begin with?</p>
<p>resume<em>hat = gamma1</em>othervar - gamma2_Stanford + u, where Stanford is a binary variable ~ {1, if attend; 0, otherwise, and gammai is marginal effect of components of resume.</p>