<p>I am an international applicant into Harvard. I am applying to an Engineering Phd position.</p>
<p>Basically I have had a good research experience, but haven't published anything yet. During my research master thesis I did surpass any results in the field of the project unfortunately there was not enough time to write a paper or a patent for the work. My recommendation letters were quite good, they were done by important people in their research areas who were also my research supervisors. My CV and SoP were also very good. Although I couldn't really say all I wanted in the SoP due to the limited space of the document. I do have some experience working since young age, also worked on different research centers during undergrad and I also had some experience as an entrepreneur and was certified by two universities in my business plan. My master was funded through scholarships (I studied at UCL) and I have the capacity to fulfill the fees and stipend through external scholarships.</p>
<p>The negative side of the application, I had relatively poor grades in school. My school system in undergrad was very different. I had to chose the teachers and well I always did the courses with the most difficult ones. This resulted in a 3.5 GPA which may look very low for people who don't know that the program that I did. My GRE were also not so good, I finished my master and decided to try to go for the PhD straight away, didn't have much time to prepare as I had to get the other documentation too. I got a 155 in Q and V.... that really looks bad compared to what I have seen posted in the internet. The other bad part is that my british grades may look quite poor, the conversion of the grades to GPA are not very beneficial, I got a bit ill during my master and that affected the grades. I stated in a section of the application. I didn't know if I did more harm in stating that, I didn't want to give them much details of the problems that I had but I didn't want them to believe that I had some sort of illness that won't let me finish a course.</p>
<p>I got a bit worried by that. I am very satisfied with my career so far but I really would like to go one step further. I am sure I would be a fantastic student. I was really hoping that the funding I can bring into the uni could help to get the position.</p>
<p>Well my GPA in the bachelors, despite being around 3.5 is in the top 5% rank. In the case of the master, its an approximate, rarely someone gets a mark above 80/100 in my school. The individual modules are weighted and I really don’t have an idea of the equivalences.</p>
<p>¿Does having external funding doesn’t help the application at all?</p>
<p>You really don’t want to self-fund a Ph.D. If they don’t admit you with full funding then they really don’t want you. You have to understand that places like Harvard have lots and lots of excellent applicants and they limit the number of students they take each year because there is a limit to how many they can support as RAs. So, no matter how good your application, it is a long shot to get into these highly selective programs. This does not say anything about how good you are, just how strong the competition. You will see lots of anecdotes on this forum about those who get into these programs and of course they do. The odds are simply low.</p>
<p>You need to apply to Harvard, of course but also find some other programs that are less selective and where you have a better chance to get in. At the end of the day it is better to have a choice than be stuck in a situation where you don’t get into those “dream” programs and have nowhere to go. There are plenty of excellent Ph.D. programs in engineering all over the U.S.</p>
<p>I know. I did apply to caltech, john hopkins, columbia and harvard. I would apply to others but time/money doesn’t allow it.</p>
<p>My concern was that the GPA may look low compared to US GPA. Also the fact that I had to state that I had health problems to justify that may grades got affected. I know one of the recommenders mentioned it. Honestly I wouldn’t want them to think that my problems would resurface and would affect the completion of the course. Even if they do, my resolution to work would be the same.</p>
<p>Also I wouldn’t self-fund it. I have a scholarship that can pay for the fees and living stipends. There are others external scholarships that I can get once accepted. I myself don’t have any money, I paid the applications with a loan.</p>
<p>I asked about the funding because the financial aid website of SEAS says this.
“To provide full support throughout the program for all Ph.D. candidates, we anticipate that a certain number of entering students will gain financial support from sources outside of Harvard.”</p>
<p>OP, just want to let you know that @xraymancs is a professor who admits PhD students into his department - which is either physics or engineering (I can’t remember which). He knows what he’s talking about.</p>
<p>As far as I know, external fellowships can help somewhat. But remember that very competitive programs will get lots of applicants who have external funding - they can pick and choose which ones they want to bring on.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree. Most scholarships are for research afterall. From my previous experiences, it seems funding helps decisions a lot, even when they already have funding for a specific research. However USA universities could be very different from what I know.</p>
<p>Also what I was trying to figure out is if adding to the application that not I was not in good conditions during my master was a good idea or bad. I have the feeling that adding negativity to an application gives a bad taste of the person.</p>
<p>And, if standardized test are that important… some college websites in the USNews mention whether they are very important to them or not. The exams are very expensive and so is the material to study, it should be obvious that people who can afford these things would do better. If the admission process is holistic then the criteria for what is expected from A and B shouldn’t be the same. </p>
<p>While I was in my master, there were rich Asian students who were constantly on travels during courseworks or research period. To the eyes of the professors and researchers, they were more efficient at doing things. Reality was, they paid a lot of money to have people polish their essays and other works. Of course nobody goes and takes a standardized test for you, but surely they can efficiently cut the learning curve. </p>
<p>If you think this is a good practice, you probably shouldn’t be in academia. Research and writing is a huge part of a doctoral program and the expectation is that a graduate student does his/her own work. </p>
<p>Apparently you didn’t read my post correctly. I never stated if I thought that it was a good practice. I didn’t do it either, I am just giving an example of how money can influence on someones work and it may be perceived incorrectly by other people.</p>
<p>If any it was something that made me very angry. </p>
<p>Besides, there’s a huge industry dedicated to those activities and you attack someone who is actually complaining about it.</p>
<p>It depends on how serious the conditions were. If you had a serious illness during your MS (like cancer, a previously undiagnosed learning disability, mono, etc.) but you have since gotten it under control, it might be worth it to discuss. The ideal way is to have a recommender discuss it in their letter and testify that your grades don’t reflect your capabilities because of your illness or whatever difficulty it is. But if it is something minor - or something ongoing that’s not yet resolved or under control - then you’re better off not mentioning it, probably.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you are overestimating the effect that money can have on the application process. The GRE is the least important part and actually most study materials are quite inexpensive - you can buy a test prep book for $30. And there’s only so much polishing an outside person can do on an essay…you have to have base writing ability. If you’re an outstanding applicant, you can be dirt poor and still be competitive - I certainly didn’t spend thousands on essay coaches and GRE studying, and I don’t know anyone who did.</p>
<p>The GRE is a flawed examination, everyone knows that, but nevertheless, it is used along with the GPA in making an initial triage of a large number of applications. These very sought-after programs cannot read all their applications thoroughly and so they make some initial cuts.</p>
<p>With respect to having your own funding, yes it can help but there is still the issue of capacity. Let me do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.</p>
<p>In my discipline, physics, a faculty member usually can handle 2-4 Ph.D. students at a time at the most and some faculty have less. So if you have a department with 20 faculty and a 5-year graduation time (it is probably longer), then if the average number of students per faculty is 2 and all faculty are research active (this too is not usual, it is more like 75%) you can estimate that the total number of Ph.D. students would be 40 RAs + 16 TAs where the TAs keep their position for 2 years while they take courses. Thus the total is on the order of 56-60 Ph.D. students and the department can only take in 8 per year or so. </p>
<p>Now, if the program has 200 applications each year (probably much more for these highly selective programs) for the Ph.D. and wants to take in 8 students, they will probably have to make 12-16 offers of admission per year. If you are not in the top 20% of the applicants with respect to the GRE and GPA numbers, they won’t even read the whole thing.</p>
<p>That is just a numbers thing but consider this. For the any program, it is essential to find students whose academic performance is well matched to their program’s demands. If you take students who are weaker academically, they might not make it through the courses and exams and if the students are too strong, then they won’t come because they will get into a “better” program. No university wants to invest time and effort into a Ph.D. candidate only to see them fail and leave. The most selective schools will therefore only admit the students at the top of the academic heap who match their other criteria.</p>
<p>Sorry, that was long-winded but it is important for applicants to understand the reasoning that goes on in the Graduate Admission Committees.</p>
<p>@Julliet, that’s exactly what the recommender did. I don’t have anything serious, I believe.</p>
<p>Really the money depends on where you are from (Here the min. salary is $4 a day). The cost of $195 plus application costs, can really be a burden. At least in my case it was, I had to get a loan to pay for everything. I just finished my master and returning from abroad was a huge expense, I also couldn’t get a job in the time being. When it comes to the GRE, the questions are usually easy but since english is not my native language sometimes I had to read more than once a prompt, I often misunderstand if I don’t read very concentrated, in the free practices of different companies I was doing much better. </p>
<p>Making my debt bigger, I could re-take the GRE but probably the result would arrive very late in the application process, perhaps it wouldn’t make a difference at that point. </p>
<p>And yes @xraymancs I agree with all you say. Many universities claim that they read the whole applications when it comes to graduates, but its really hard to believe if they receive 2k or applications. </p>
<p>I wish I had more time to prepare the application but I didn’t wanted to wait 1 year to apply for the next year. Considering it could take up 5 years to finish the grade, I really enjoy research but life must go on too. Probably if I get rejected I would apply to the UK.</p>
<p>Let me reiterate that you would likely be a very sought after student for some other programs which would give you an excellent Ph.D. and an advisor who could launch your research career. It is silly to limit yourself to those “elite” universities…</p>
<p>I apply to those universities because they have fellowships with my sponsors. This can help me to get a better stipend. On the other hand, the sponsor considers the position of the university at certain world rankings. This late on the year, it was hard to look for programs whose deadlines gave me time to finish all the work.</p>
<p>For instance I would have prefered to apply to UT at Austin instead of Caltech where I think I probably have no chance. </p>
<p>At the end, I am just looking for a university that allows me to participate in projects similar to mine but that also allows me to develop my project and if possible to add some money to the stipend. Any university that allows an ambitious research project works for me.</p>
<p>I will update you later if I have any news. Thanks a lot for the comments, I appreciate them.</p>