<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am currently a mechE grad student at CMU.</p>
<p>I am planning to apply for a phd (F2013) at places like top schools like MIT, Stan, UCB, Caltech.</p>
<p>My profile is:
gre: 800q,580v
coursework gpa at the time of apping: ~3.7
pubs: a 2nd/3rd author journal paper at the time of apping... (i know it doesn't count much though.. :(..)</p>
<p>What are my chances to get into these schools?</p>
<p>Does it require to have research papers to get into phd programs at these schools?</p>
<p>I am not sure if my adviser can give me a good reco as he might want me to stay here though i am not interested in pursuing that area of research anymore. Does it have a negative impact if I get a reco from some other cmu prof and from undergrad profs instead of my adviser?</p>
<p>Also, are the gpa and gre sufficient? (coz these schools require the best credentials to get in perhaps)</p>
<p>I applied to these places (diff. departments in some of them) when I was in undergrad and got rejected from all of them. Does it affect my application now inspite of my masters degree from cmu?</p>
<p>Any comments would be helpful...</p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Unless your advisor is a real jerk, he’s not going to give you a mediocre rec to increase the chances of you staying. It’s unethical.</p>
<p>Not getting a rec from your advisor would be a gigantic red flag to a PhD program. Don’t do it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The GRE is fine. The GPA may be ok, but might be on the low side. However, all they care about is GPA in technical classes, so if your B’s are in humanities classes your chances of admission are higher. CMU is a great school, but I’m not sure how good the mech E dept. is or what impact that’ll have. Admission to engineering grad school is more based on grades than more lab-based disciplines like chem or bio, though publishing certainly will help.</p>
<p>I never applied to grad school in engineering but I went to MIT and the PhD grad students tended to have 3.9+ GPA (although one mentioned that you didn’t need a 3.9 to get in.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice…</p>
<p>btw, I have only a 3.5 AWA, so do I need to re-take the GRE?</p>
<p>It is possible to get into those top 4 schools with a 3.7 from say a top 10 school (I did ), but it takes an incredible amount of specialization for a particular prof to want you, and a lot of awards and stuff (e.g. first of class masters, 1st author pubs, etc)</p>
<p>Remember they have enough 3.9’s from top 20 schools to fill all these programs, ask yourself why they should take you over one of them, and then make yourself that applicant. Hint: it’s all about proving yourself as an excellent researcher.</p>
<p>You should have a very solid chance at getting into a top 10 school besides these four, these four are a tier above everything else in terms of admissions rates and competitiveness.</p>