<p>HT2010, I understand your point. I wasn't trying to say that publications are necessary to get into graduate school; only that because of the quality of student it implies (this is a student whose work is judged by peer review to be of publishable quality), they would rather have the student with the publications than the student without unless the student with the publications is an "eh" student everywhere else.</p>
<p>Most people I know who are in graduate school right now didn't have any publications before they got in.</p>
<p>HT2010, I only applied to three schools because I think that I can manage to get into at least 2/3 of them; I'm doing my undergrad at one of the top universities in the US, with a 3.8 gpa and one year research experience. Besides, I've already been offered a place to do ph.d. at one university, so I suppose this is my backup plan.</p>
<p>Unless you've done some pretty extensive research, I don't see how you could've ruled out so many potential "safety" schools. There's tons of schools that may not be highly ranked overall (even in the specific sub-categories US News has), but could be considered one of the best in a specific sub-field you're interested in. Algebraic combinatorics? Minnesota should be one of your top choices, and UPenn is far superior choice to the likes of Harvard/Princeton. Dynamics/ergodic theory? Maryland and Penn State should amongst your top choices. The reverse can be true, where top schools aren't as good as they seem. Michigan used to be pretty highly regarded in number theory, but we lost about 4-5 of our top faculty for that in the past 3 years. If schools ask for a list of other places you applied to (or if they just share admissions info), it'll show a lack of focus and background research on your part (or look like you're just playing the odds to get accepted to a "prestigious" school) if your application list is just a carbon copy of the US news rankings.</p>
<p>dilksy, I personally don't consider the research I've done by any means "extensive", but I have done my research on good schools in my field. I know that, for example, top schools in CS Theory (what I'm applying for) are MIT/Berkeley and the top theory publications (such as STOC and FOCS) are pretty much dominated by these two schools + Princeton. As for Stanford, it has weak and very few theory faculty but is fairly strong in overall CS. Also, I already have a professor in mind who I want to work with at Stanford, hence my choice of applying there.</p>
<p>HT2010, I am not applying to the top 3 programs only. If I were then I would probably apply to MIT, Berkeley and Princeton. After these would probably be Cornell, Washington, CMU. Then comes UCSD, Chicago, Stanford, Harvard, Texas, etc.. My choice of these three programs is based on faculty whos research I'm interested in, and of course placement record, since my goal is to enter academia.</p>
<p>I go to berkeley, a top 650 university. But yes, 3.8 gpa is very average for those applying to top CS programs. My first choice of these 3 is berkeley, but it might be hard as they don't really accept their own undergrad, unless exceptional cases. Hence the 2/3.</p>
<p>-Major: Chemical Engineering
-GRE: 760V/780Q
-Top 10 Engineering School
-Major GPA: 3.7
-Research since high school
-4 different labs
-1 in biotechnology
-2 company-wide presentations
-1 Pending patent approval
-1 Awaiting Submission Paper
-4 Recommendations (1 Professor, 1 PI/Professor, 1 PI, 1 Biotech)</p>
<p>Applying to: Stanford (ChE), MIT(Che,BE), Penn, BU, UTAustin, Rice, UCSD, UC Berkeley, USC, Seattle, Harvard. (All others Bioengineering).</p>
<p>Program: Romance Languages / Spanish
-Undergraduate Major: Spanish w/concentration in French
-Undergraduate GPA: 4.0 (LAC)
-GRE: 560V, 700Q, ?AW (Horrible verbal, I know)
-Studied in Spain for a semester
-Spanish tutor @ university
-Volunteer Spanish teacher for adults in Charlotte
-Undergraduate Honors Thesis in progress
-Contacted several professors and received very positive feedback on research interests</p>
<p>Applying to:
Stanford
Columbia
Johns Hopkins
Boston College
Vanderbilt
UC Irvine
UNC Chapel Hill...?</p>
<p>Haha, I totally didn't imagine Berkeley as a top 650 university either. You're probably better off saying that Berkeley is top 15 or 20 (I dunno, I want to avoid arguments, its ranking is probably higher than that)</p>
<p>And what stupid ranking service put Berkeley in only the Top 650? I've never seen Berkeley below like 20th in anything (undergraduate, graduate, whatever).</p>
<p>UG Major: Biochemistry UCLA
Overall GPA 3.799, Major GPA 3.871
Research: 2 solid years
- 1 year immunology lab
- 1 year (current) biochemistry lab
- summer internship in Genentech Process R&D
- summer material science internships at national lab, but I didn't include this because I thought it was irrelevant to my major.
Publications: 1 with middle authorship
GRE: 610 V (87%) 770 Q (88%) 4.5 A (58%)
Biochem GRE: 580 (70%) T__T don't know subscores yet
LOR: 2/3 from previous or current PI's, 3rd from honors professor in dept, hopefully 4th from supervisor at internship</p>
<p>Applying to: UCLA ACCESS, UCSD Biomedical Sciences, UC Berkeley MCB, UCSF Tetrad, Scripps Research Institute</p>
<p>Now I think my credentials are low for the schools I am applying to. However, I was told not to worry about getting into my own school's program... hmm. My subject GRE score is just sad, but I just got it over the phone and don't know the subscores. As of now it was only sent to schools requiring it. Also, how big of an effect will my SOP have with these stats?</p>
<p>Your thoughts? (Please be nice, I know I'm not as stellar as most of you)</p>
<p>Don't worry about it chibichan. Your stats are fine. I had similar stats last year (also from UCLA) except with no publications and got into UCLA, UCSD, Berkeley (where I am now) and Scripps, though not UCSF BMS. If I were you, I would send the subject test score to only the universities that require it.</p>
<p>I obviously realize 10 < 650. Given that anon calls it Top 650, that leads one to believe Berkeley's rank is somewhere around 650, which leads me to believe the ranking service that decided that was the case is stupid. If I call my school Top 100, it's probably not in the Top 50, or else I would call it a Top 50 school. Anyway, that's off-topic.</p>
<p>(Edit)
I just found out my thesis has been accepted to a conference, so I'm just going to add that in!</p>
<p>Program: Romance Languages / Spanish
-Undergraduate Major: Spanish w/concentration in French
-Undergraduate GPA: 4.0 (LAC)
-GRE: 560V, 700Q, ?AW (Horrible verbal, I know)
-Studied in Spain for a semester
-Spanish tutor @ university
-Volunteer Spanish teacher for adults in Charlotte
-Undergraduate Honors Thesis in progress, accepted to Undergrad. Research conference in the Humanities
-Contacted several professors and received very positive feedback on research interests</p>
<p>Applying to:
Stanford
Columbia
Johns Hopkins
Boston College
Vanderbilt
UC Irvine
UNC Chapel Hill...?</p>
<p>Alright, I'll play. We can get through this together fellas! </p>
<p>Program: PhD in Mathematics
Specialization: Algebra. Also interested in combinatorics and number theory.
GPA: 3.8 at a Tier 2 school.
Major GPA: 3.9 (Curses to you freshman calculus!)
GRE: 570V, 800Q, 4.0W
Subject GRE: 720 (71%) :(
Research: Semester long independent project at my home institution which wasn't too fruitful results-wise but a good learning experience none the less. REU this past summer that was fruitful results-wise. The paper will be submitted within a month.
Extra: Will have completed the first year grad sequences in algebra and topology so I should be ready to take those quals from the get-go. Hopefully that'll help me out.
Applying to: Washington, Ohio State, UIUC, Nebraska, UC Berkeley, UCSD, UCLA, UCSB, Texas, Oregon, Utah.</p>
<p>That's what you call carpet bombing, folks. I think my Subject GRE score will probably keep my out of a some places, but I'd be thrilled to get into any one of them. Good luck all!</p>