<p>I am a final year student in the dual degree programme (B.Tech + M.Tech) in Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay, India. My GPA is 8.16/10.
Areas of interest : optoelectronics, physiscs of nanostructures, compound semiconductors.
I presented one poster at the European Materials Research Society Fall 2009 conference, where I received the Best Poster Award. I have also submitted a paper to a journal (Optoelectronics Review), but its under review right now, and most probably won't get published before December.
GRE : Verbal : 680, Quantitative : 800, AWA : 4
Toefl : 111/120 (W : 25, R : 30, S : 26, L : 30)</p>
<p>Universities I have shortlisted, more or less in order of preference :</p>
<p>University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of Texas, Austin
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Wisconsin, Madison
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Southern California
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Northwestern University
Duke University
Yale University</p>
<p>Please comment on my chances of getting into the PhD programmes in ECE at these univs with financial aid. Do you think my low AWA score would be a problem ?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>grad schools don’t care much about the GRE verbal and AWA. I talked to someone who works at the ECE graduate admission office at Purdue. She said a lot of international students have issues with English. However apparently that’s a non-issue as they’re more interested in research skills. Also, I don’t believe a AWA of 4 is really that bad.</p></li>
<li><p>UMich guarantees full support for their grad students. I met a graduate student from UMich at a grad school expo and she told me this. </p></li>
<li><p>IITs are regarded very highly around the world, I would be very surprised if you didn’t get funding from any schools</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This is not true at Umich. I have several friends at Umich Electrical Engineering. I’ve talked to them a number of times. They are PhD. One went unfunded for a semester. The guy went on and on about it. I guess it was a big issue that Umich EE is grappling with at the highest levels. I’ve heard that he was told everybody goes funded into Umich, but then he got there and was not funded. I guess the point is that if anybody tells you all PhD in Engineering are funded at Umich, they absolutely should not be telling you this. To expect funding, you need a hard core agreement in writing. Also, Umich funds people before and after the April 15 deadline regularly.</p>