New member, question about MIT Intl. Graduate Admissions

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>Hi everyone, my name is Rainier, I'm from Dominican Republic and I'm currently a student in Telematics and Telecommunications Engineering. (Basically, Telematics = Telecommunications + Information Technology).
Due to some personal reasons, I wasn't able to apply to MIT for my Bachelor's degree and I'm doing my best in my current college to apply as a Graduate Student (To get a Masters). I have some questions about graduate admissions in the EECS department, in the Area of Communications and Signal Processing. </p>

<p>1) I read that you actually can only apply to the Doctorate Degree (and you'd get your Masters along the way), so if my goal is a Masters, there's no use mentioning that right? I mean, I should directly apply for the Doctorate Degree.</p>

<p>2) Are Graduate Admissions the same as Undergrad admissions in which you have EA and RA? If so, it's always better to apply for the EA right?</p>

<p>3) I wanted to ask if you have any idea of why the EECS department doesn't take in consideration the GRE. </p>

<p>4) Is there an interview process for the Graduate Admissions? If there isn't, can they make special cases in which for example I directly go to MIT? I'm asking because I heard that aptitude is more or less 50% about getting into MIT (the other 50% would go to academics).</p>

<p>5) What kind of research do they like the most? I mean, I can do some research in Biomedical Engineering and get it published into(probably the most popular) newspaper in the country. Is that ''okay'' with them or they want a totally different kind of research?</p>

<p>6) What do you think about my academics/extra curricular report? (I'll write it as if I finished my Bachelor)</p>

<p>-Bachelor in Telematics and Telecommunications Engineering (GPA above 3.4)
-Technician in Electronics
-Certified CCNA</p>

<p>-High School Diploma in Spanish Literature and Sciences (Medal of Honor)
-Diploma in English (Honors Certificate)</p>

<p>-2 Publications:
*1) In the ''Listin Diario'' (the most influential newspaper in the country). ''The Importance of Engineering''. About how the different fields of engineering make our current lives the way they are.
*2) In the Dominican School of Medicine Magazine, about the applications of Biomedical and Biological Engineering (Both careers are not offered as a subject of study in my country).</p>

<p>-I play the Piano (8 years) and the Violin (3 years), I'm currently in a band.
Have worked every summer in my countries' Institute of Dermatology and Surgery (volunteer work).</p>

<p>-I also learned myself how to use the programs Photoshop and Illustrator to the point I was getting paid by doing illustrations. (Should I put that in the application? [It would be in a more attractive way of course]).</p>

<p>-In a more personal side (I don't know if this matters MIT, please tell me if so), I was raised by a single mother (my father died when I was 4 by a Heart Attack). My dream in life is not getting into MIT, but inventing/discovering something that would help humanity in any way, that's why I think getting into MIT is the most suitable goal.</p>

<p>Also (and for many this is going to sound incredibly pathetic) congratulations getting into MIT, I honestly admire you all...Being from a country in which ignorance and laziness seem to be practiced by most, I really want to evolve into something better. (The bad kind of ignorance, not the one every human is born with). I know I'm talking about my own country in a despotic way, but making it somehow better is one of my many goals.
From my point of view you can only advance/evolve if you get a higher knowledge of the area you want to specialize, and since I'm studying Engineering I think the place where I could get the higher amount of knowledge is MIT. ( I know it sounds as a big clich</p>

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<p>

Correct. There’s no official master’s-only program in the MIT EECS department, but you can apply for the PhD program and leave after you’ve completed your master’s.</p>

<p>

No, graduate admissions are very different from undergraduate admissions and are handled by each academic department, not by a professional admissions office. There is only one due date for each department.</p>

<p>

I would imagine it’s because the GRE doesn’t provide them any useful information about applicants that they can’t find anywhere else. Because so many people get perfect scores on the GRE quantitative section, especially people who are interested in science and engineering fields, I suspect the vast majority of applicants to MIT EECS would have a GRE quantitative score of 770-800. Having such a narrow band of scores wouldn’t help MIT decide who was qualified and who wasn’t.</p>

<p>

There are not typically interviews for engineering PhD admissions. And it wouldn’t be fair to interview some applicants and not others.</p>

<p>

Anything you do that’s related to engineering design is fine. In this case, research refers to original work that you’ve done into designing a product or process, not to summarizing the results of the work of others.</p>

<p>

Extracurricular activities are not considered for graduate admissions – on most applications, there’s not even a space to write them.</p>

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<p>Thanks for answering.</p>

<p>-About question number 6…
Wow I didn’t know that, so I should avoid saying anything extracurricular even in the Biographical Section? (By the way, that doesn’t include the extra classes I took right? For example, I became a Technician and a CCNA while doing college).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Also, what’s supposed to be a ‘‘transcript’’? A copy of your online application?</p>

<p>Finally, if it isn’t too much to ask, can someone give an example of the Research MIT wants? Is it something as dramatic as discovering the Cure of Cancer xD?</p>

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<p>Mentioning extra academic work is fine, but activities not related to the subject you plan to study won’t be taken into account.</p>

<p>A transcript is an official copy of your grades sent from your school. So they’re asking you to report your grades yourself, as well as to have an official copy of your grade report sent from the school you’ve been attending.</p>

<p>My husband is an aerospace engineer, so his undergraduate research was aerospace-related, but it might be helpful as an example of engineering research. He had two research positions. In the first, he worked in a lab here at MIT to investigate cooperative control between multiple unmanned aerial vehicles. He wrote programs in MATLAB to control the planes, and he took them out to fly. The goal was to have a small fleet of planes that could be controlled together. In the second project, he worked at Draper Laboratories to design a very small helicopter that would have some defense applications.</p>

<p>There’s no need to have cured cancer, but you want to show that you’re capable of doing good design work and that you are experienced in the kind of research you’ll need to do to finish your master’s.</p>

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<p>Thanks a lot molliebatmit. I really appreciate it.</p>