<p>Hi everyone. I'm from Vietnam seeking to do graduate degree in the US. I'm currently studying at Monash University, Australia. Main points regarding my profile are:</p>
<p>Major: Mechanical Engineering
GPA: 83% (1st class honors, maybe 3.6 equivalent)
GRE: 780Q, 410V (gonna retake it to get 500-ish V), AWA awaiting
Research experience: honors project (1 year) and 1 summer research project (3 months)
TOEFL: waived for most schools
Publications: none</p>
<p>What engineering schools should I apply through? Will I be able to make it to UCLA, UCSD, U of Michigan, U of Texas at Austin, UIUC and the likes? Any suggestions would be much appreciated!</p>
<p>I am still in the midst of applications so I really have no idea what your chances anywhere are but I still have something to say. </p>
<p>Are you applying for graduate school starting in Fall 2010. Because if so I think you might be in trouble because there isnt a lot of time left for some schools and it sounds like you havent started yet. Most of my applications are due in about a month. </p>
<p>What do you want to do? Are you going for a masters or PhD. If a masters are you going to do a thesis. Because if you are planning on doing research you need to find schools with faculty that are doing things that interest you and that can be a very time consuming process. I am of course assuming that you have not done this already. </p>
<p>You also need to have letters of recommendations which I assume you could get from the people who advised your research projects. If you havent already done so you should ask them soon because you dont want to be rude and give them very little time to write the letters.</p>
<p>Thanks dudes! I’m going to do PhD in Fall 2010 'cause it’s my eventual goal and schools advise not to choose master’s if your ultimate goal is PhD. Most of the deadlines are in 15th Dec with some exceptions in mid Jan or Feb. There’s of course not much time left.</p>
<p>The only thing that hinders me now is the GRE. I’ve done research of top engineering schools to pick out potential professors that have mutual interests, I’ve started written up the statement of purpose and personal statement although they’re not yet final and I’ve asked 3 professors in my department for their letters of recommendation. Everything’s under control except the GRE. I just asked some schools and they seem to accept an arriving-late GRE score as long as I take the test before the deadline and self report the score in the application form.</p>
<p>I’ve arranged retaking the GRE on 10th Dec. Hope I could get a verbal score something in the middle 500’s. What worries me the most however is that my application doesn’t seem to possess anything special that helps me stand out of the applicant pool. The fact that I’ve no pubs hurts. Anyway, I’m just about to graduate and how many college undergraduates can get a pub before their graduation.</p>
<p>That’d be good if someone has further comments on my profile and suggestions of where I should go. Thanks all!</p>
<p>Thanks for reminding. I understand that. They usually just take the highest score from what I’ve heard. Otherwise I can explain why I had that bad score.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure where I should apply through. Some are discouraging me that I couldn’t make it to top 10 schools since my profile doesn’t have anything outstanding.</p>
<p>If a school has research that interests you then you should apply there. Some of those schools you will probably have a very small chance in but if you can afford the application fee then there really is no risk. Just make sure to apply to some schools that have interesting research but are not top 10 as “safety schools”.</p>
<p>You’re right but if I don’t really want to go for the backup schools, having applied through them just doesn’t make sense. However I’m thinking about going for one of lower ranked schools to do MS first and then go for a much better school for PhD after getting some papers published. Any thoughts?</p>