So is it reasonable to conclude that the “brand” and “prestige” of the university I go to is not going have any significant effect on grad Admissions for top schools (like Stanford and MIT) as long as I conduct research with well known professors at either university?
Yes, but…
The more prestige’s schools tend to have the most well know professors and do the most undergraduate research.
Here is a sampling of current EECS graduate students at MIT:
Why not look at their grad students on their website and see where they weren’t to undergrad? And/or meet with some when you visit.
The single most important factor to get into one of the best graduate programs, assuming you have good courses/grades/test scores, is the letter of recommendation. Nothing beats a great recommendation from a well-known professor in the field, other than having published well regarded papers as a lead author on your own.
@jym626 I looked at all the EECS grad students on the website @Gator88NE posted. None of them went to UC Berkeley or GaTech for BS or MS.
where did they go?
Stanford, MIT, Some international universities, and some universities I haven’t heard of.
Such as…??
Looks like several were from Canada and others went to schools in NY, Texas, etc. So, point is, dont fret so much about the minutiae between Cal and GT. Make the best of whichever you choose.
Yes. NYU, Texas A&M, UT Dallas, IIT, Peking etc
Soooo… deep breaths. As you can see, there are lots of routes to top grad programs.
I don’t think the website you referred to provides a complete list of the MIT EECS graduate students. As you can see, the caption says, “Meet some EECS graduate students”. Notice it says, some. Which means, not all.
I could not provide an accurate number, but in the class of 2016, I think there’s about more than 30 Berkeley grads enrolled in the EECS Department at MIT.
MIT EECS has 244 folks enrolled in it’s master’s program and 668 in it’s PH.D program.
http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/7776/screen/27?school_name=Massachusetts+Institute+of+Technology
A LOT of schools feed into MIT’s graduate programs.
I have to politely disagree with you on this, coolGuy2000.
Attaining prestige in the academic world doesn’t happen overnight. While in the process of attaining it, many things must have happened and many links, collaborations and friendships may have formed.
You mentioned well-known professors.
The problem is, many, if not most, of the most notable, well-respected professors in EECS can be found at those three schools: MIT, Stanford and Berkeley. Those same people almost know each other. Some of them collaborate on some (privately-funded/sponsored) researches. They often meet in conferences, and they occasionally consult with each other to clarify findings, etcetera. If you’ve noticed, time and again, they’ve also given almost identical ratings or grades when they’re asked to assess their peers. With this in mind, I think it would make more sense if those profs would pay more attention on the recommendations given by peers they personally know and respect, or heard about. You’d be surprised some of those recommendations are done through phone calls, which is very informal. And, some letters of recommendations contained only two or three sentences.
But then, well-known professors at UC Berkeley such as Pieter Abbeel don’t really handout research assistantships to young undergraduate students (freshman and sophomores): https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pabbeel/?_ga=2.168359458.2075658529.1519521381-1158488250.1517721879
And I am sure that the spots which are present for juniors and seniors are very competitive.
It’s just that I think it might be easier to get research assistantships with well-known professors (Charles Isbell: https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~isbell/) at GaTech early in my undergrad career.
“The problem is, many, if not most, of the most notable, well-respected professors in EECS can be found at those three schools: MIT, Stanford and Berkeley. Those same people almost know each other.”
lol, that’s kind of what I’ve been trying to say, but it hasn’t been well received.
“It’s just that I think it might be easier to get research assistantships with well-known professors at GaTech early in my undergrad career.”
It doesn’t have to be a well-known professor from Berkeley, that’s how good the EECS program is. GT is good, it’s not Berkeley.
LOL, Why 12 pages to answer a question.
@coolGuy2000
Gtech is Top 10 for CS and if you do well it will get you where you want to be in the field, HOWEVER it’s not BERKELEY, especially if you take into account Undergrad and Grad programs.
Agree with #176 and #175. Different league.
I think engineering, in general, and EECS, in particular, in itself is cutthroat wherever you’ll go. Berkeley’s engineering may be more demanding than most engineering schools, but I think it’s the price, if not the penalty, for being regarded as one of the top engineering schools in the world.
I can’t speak for GTech, but for Berkeley, I think gone are the days when terror profs reign the university and individual efforts, especially in the college of engineering, are encouraged. Many works in EECS would be almost impossible to do alone. You’d need your classmates (their participation, collaboration and help) to survive, learn succeed or get A’s in EECS. The atmosphere in the college of engineering, and I think in Berkeley, as a whole, is friendly and highly collaborative. Collaborations even go beyond every department and the college. COE students also collaborate with students, faculty and advisers from the college of chemistry, school of information, college of natural resources, public health, letters & science and Haas. Berkeley students these days breath collaboration, teamwork and friendship – something quite different from the past.
I think that’s because the subjects you take during your first year first semester at Cal are mainly fundamental subjects and prerequisites to your major subjects. (Here’s a sample program plan for EECS students. https://berkeley.app.box.com/v/ugrad-sample-eecs-math1a )
Oftentimes, it is during the course of your major subjects (or after passing the fundamental subjects) that you’d know where your interest lies. It is advisable that only when you know your interest (in the field) is the ideal time to join in research, and there are many research being conducted in EECS that you can join in. It is true some popular faculty attracts more student-researchers than others, so they couldn’t accommodate everyone. But that is also true at all schools. By and large, getting into research at Berkeley isn’t as hard as some people put out to be. It probably was in the past. But it no longer is an issue in Berkeley today.
If cost wouldn’t be an issue for you and you think you fit in well in Berkeley’s environment, I would still think going to Berkeley would be the better choice. That is not to say Georgia Tech would be a bad choice. No, not at all, specially knowing GTech would be an amazing choice as well. But having a Berkeley EECS name on your resume would distinguish you out-rightly, and it’s something that you will carry for the rest of your life.
If that matters to you, going to Berkeley would be the ideal choice. If not, Georgia Tech would be fine.
Aside from it being a more powerful name worldwide (more prestigious) and having wider and stronger network, I think Berkeley offers more opportunities if you want to become an entrepreneur, too.
At Berkeley, there is now a strong (and growing) culture of entrepreneurship and many students are obsessed with becoming the founders of the next most successful startups or unicorn. So much so that Berkeley is now the leading school in the world that produces the most successful startups, beating Stanford, in terms of number.
https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/2017-universities-report
People in the college of engineering, chemistry, public health or letters & science are pairing up with students from Haas and launch their ideas to make them available in the market. Venture capitalists are coming. The alumni are now helping. This entrepreneurial ecosystem that is now pervading throughout the Berkeley campus was nonexistent a few years ago. A decade or so ago, it probably was considered taboo as commercialization was considered an opposition to progressive thinking and intellectualism. Now, Berkeley has M.E.T. which according to this article (
http://www.businessinsider.com/uc-berkeley-met-for-future-tech-leaders-2017-4 ) is a program more competitive than Stanford.
Neither UCB nor GT engineering has the potentially-cutthroat-competition-to-be-admitted-to-your-major system like some other schools such as Purdue, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin (for staying in your major), Ohio State, Penn State, etc… Even at those schools, the competition for grades for most majors is unlikely to be as fierce as for pre-meds.