Momwaitingfornew

Here we are again! Although it's early, I received a request to begin this year's thread for engineering and physical science applicants. Please keep your posts on topic to stats, acceptances, denials, interviews, and updates; otherwise, the thread will get too long. Good luck!

cheme24

I think the title is too broad and we should separate engineering from the sciences.

Momwaitingfornew

Sorry. We cannot have a separate thread for every kind of program or we would have far too many. The biosciences are also broad, from pharmacology to molecular biology to neuroscience. And the humanities and social sciences are placed together, an even broader combination.

Besides, based on years past, I think you'll find that most of the people who post on this thread will be engineers anyway.

ducphan89

Undergrad. Study: UC Irvine & a community college in CA (currently a senior)

Status: International student

Undergrad. Major(s): Biomedical Engineering:Premed

Undergrad GPA: 3.65 (UCI) - 3.86 (CC)

Research Experience:
- 1.5 years of microvasculature remodeling & tissue engineering with well-known PIs in the field.
- 2 second-author papers in preparation.
- Accelerated program at UCI (guaranteed admission for master program/streamlined admission for PhD at UCI)
- 2 undergrad individual research grants from CalIT2 and UCI.
- couple fellowships from UCI, CalIT2 and The Edwards Lifesciences Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Technology (Edwards Lifesciences Center).
- 1 poster presentation award from Edwards Lifesciences Center.

GRE Scores: decided not to tell ..never a good standardized test taker. English is not native language as well. probably the weakest part of my application.

Letter of Rec: one from research mentor, one from director of Edwards Lifesciences Center, both are well-known in the field. last one from biology professor and academic advisor. all letters are expected to be good, cuz they all know me very well and love me, and promise to write good letters.

Prospective Graduate Program: Biomedical Engineering/Bioengineering PhD program Fall 2012, focusing on microvasculature remodeling/biomaterials for tissue engineering.

Prospective Graduate Schools:
- UC Irvine (Submitted)
- VTech-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering & Sciences
- UMich
- Duke University (Submitted)
- University of Virginia
- Washington University in St.Louis
- Rice University
- University of Pittsburgh (Submitted)

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just a quick question here:

I contacted a professor at Washington University to show my interest in joining his research lab there since my research background is similar to his lab's research theme. he replied me back within a day saying "Please go ahead and apply and I hope to meet you during a recruitment visit in the spring." and signed his email casually with his first name only.
does that mean he has interest in taking me in already, or does it just mean he wanna reply for the sake of being polite and comfort a pathetic guy? Thanks..

BearFacts

^^^ does that mean he has interest in taking me in already,.... ? ^^^

I would definitely think so. Congratulations.

DoubleD

For the part about signing his first name only, he could do that on all his emails. I should probably not advise this but you can send him an email on another account that has no tie to your name and see if he responds the same way.

cheme24

Undergrad Institution: SUNY school
Major(s): Chemical Engineering, Applied Math and Statistics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.93 (ChemE), 3.90 (AMS)
Overall GPA: 3.84
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: Domestic Male

GRE Scores:
Q: 770
V: 750
W: 4.0

Research Experience:

4 summers in HS at Columbia Univers1ty Medical Center in organic chemistry laboratory.

1 summer at Columbia University Dept. of Biomedical Engineering. Resulted in two publications (Soft Matter, Nano Letters).

6 months at Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven National Lab (currently working there and will continue to do so until graduate school) and working on first author publication.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society, Sigma Beta Honors Society, National Society of Collegiate Scholars.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

Teaching assistant for one year in courses: Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calculus.

Secretary of Tau Beta Pi

Founding President of Omega Chi Epsilon Chemical Engineering Honors Society Club.

Fellowships: Applied for NSF GRFP

Prospective Program: Chemical Engineering

Prospective Graduate Schools:

Princeton, Stanford, MIT, UIllinois, Cornell, UTexas Austin, UMichigan, Minnesota, Berkeley

SquealOfaRaven

Undergrad Institution: University of Washington (top-5 in atmospheric science, where I'll be getting most of my LORs from)
Major(s): Astronomy, Physics, Math
Minor(s): Applied Math
GPA in Major: 3.77 Astronomy, mid-3's in Physics (but that is still pending til the end of the quarter)
Overall GPA: 3.58 for last two years (overall is in 3.0-3.5 range, but still pending)
Type of Student: Domestic Parrot

GRE Scores:
Biology: 810 (89th percentile), completely self-studied without taking any courses asides from a grad-lvl neurophysiology course
Cellular & Molecular Biology: 82nd percentile
Organismal Biology: 89th percentile
Ecology/Evolution/Population Biology: 91st percentile
GRE Physics: Pending
General GRE: Pending

Research Experience:
Several years. Two publications (although in papers with numerous coauthors where my role wasn't that significant).
Latest research is exoplanetary atmosphere research

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:
- National AP Scholar (8 self-studied APs)
- Early Entrance @ University of Washington

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:
- Attended a grad-student summer program (CASS 2011 - UHNAI Computational Astrobiology Summer Symposium 2011 (CASS 2011) ) as an undergrad last summer
- Quora Reviewer (have really built up the science sections on Quora up over the last few months), and am a top answerer on Astronomy, Biology, Neuroscience, Planetary Science, Atmospheric Science, Animal Behavior, Scientific Research, and Academia
- Panelist on Reddit AskScience, supporting member on Physics Forums, and also active on Astronomy Stack Exchange (and several others). In other words, I'm one of the most prominent users on all the astrophysics-related communities on the Internet

Special Bonus Points:
- Grad-lvl courses in Neurophysiology, Planetary Atmospheres, Objective Analysis (aka Digital Signal Processing), High-Performance Scientific Computing, Numerical Linear Algebra, Causal Modelling (in statistics), Chinese Geography, and Ice/Climate (atmospheric science) - all with 3.4 GPA or above
- I think I really helped my case by contacting professors (more so than most others), given that some of them invited me to call them, and that our research interests were extremely similar.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:
- My overall GPA got nuked by my idiocy when I was 16, but I'm still glad I did early entrance.
- There are also numerous other factors, but probably best not to mention them now)

Applying to Where: (this is probably a preliminary list that needs to be expanded)
Mostly programs with active professors who do 3D modelling of exoplanetary atmospheres.

Strong definites:

Berkeley EPS -
Caltech GPS -
Caltech Environmental -
Columbia Astro (or EES, depending on PGRE score) -
MIT EAPS -
UCSC Astro (or EPS, depending on PGRE score) -
Arizona Planetary -
Chicago Geophysical Sciences -
UCLA ESS -
Washington Atmos -

Maybes:

Harvard EPS -
Princeton AOS -
Cornell Atmos -
Oregon State COAS -
Penn State Astro (or Meteorology, depending on PGRE score) -

May also consider George Mason CSI, Brown Planetary, Colorado, JHU Planetary, WashU, and a few others (especially environmental science departments). There's also a very small chance I could go for Caltech Astro, Chicago Astro, and numerous other Astro depts, and Oceanography is a possible other option.

swuster

Undergrad: Cornell University

Major: Electrical & Computer Engineering
Minor: Applied Economics & Management

Cumulative GPA: 3.94

Research Experience: none

GRE Scores: 170/170/5.5

Letter of Rec: Two professors and a TA (now a PhD @ Microsoft)

Prospective Graduate Program: EE/CE MS/MEng, in communications systems or computer architecture. No plans currently to go on to PhD.

Prospective Graduate Schools:
- Berkeley
- Cornell
- Stanford
- UCLA
- UT Austin
- UIUC
- Princeton

Spriteling

Undergrad Institution: University of Edinburgh
Major: Mathematics and Physics
GPA (Overall/Majors): 4.0
Type of Student: Domestic Female

Research Experience: One REU in high energy physics, plus senior thesis in mathematical physics.

Letters of rec: Quite good, two from people pretty well known in their fields

Bonus points: Grad level classes in electromagnetism, quantum field theory, general relativity, Lie groups, algebraic geometry, quantum mechanics, and Hamiltonian dynamics

Applying to:
Caltech
Columbia
Cornell
Chicago
Northwestern
Vanderbilt
Glasgow (Accepted)
York
Durham
KCL
Oxford
Imperial
Berlin Mathematical School

Applying to mathematical physics/theoretical physics in the US/UK

hasuchObe

@swuster nice numbers

Chandi

Major: Chemistry
Minors: Mathematics, Classics
Overall GPA: 3.6
Type: Domestic Female

GRE:
780 Q
690 V
3.5 AW

Research Experience:
-1 semester bone chemistry project in an archaeology lab, poster presentation
-1 semester calculus project collaborating with a chemical engineering professor, published in an undergrad journal
-a little over 1 year in a polymer chemistry lab, currently working on honors thesis there; 2 poster presentations, paper as an author (not 1st) in preparation

Job experience: 1 year as a tutor for my school

Honors/Awards:
National Merit Scholar
National AP Scholar

Grad classes: Top student in a grad-level polymer physics course I took this semester

Applying in chemistry or in macromolecular science and engineering to:
UMich
Duke
UNC Chapel Hill
UT Austin
UF
Georgia Tech
Virginia Tech
Clemson

ucinuclear

Major: Chemical Engineering
Minor: Materials Science
Overall GPA: 3.29
Major GPA: 3.32
Type: Male

GRE:
770 Q
500 V
4.0 AW

Research Experience:
2 years of research with a nuclear energy group on campus. Data/results presented at 3 conferences (ACS, NEA/OECD, Solvent Exchange), 1 second author publication in a radioanalytical chem journal; currently working on results for a 2nd publication; starting my own project next quarter with funding from UROP and hoping to write my own publication before I graduate

Job experience:
Paid internship this previous summer at a chemical process simulation company

Honors/Awards:
Deans Honors Lists

Graduate Courses:
graduate materials course in fuel cells and electrochemistry
graduate bio/civil engineering course in bioreactors

Applying to M.S/Ph.D programs to the following Universities:
UCI (Ph.D)
UCLA (M.S.)
USC (M.S.)
Stanford (M.S.)
Notre Dame (Ph.D)
University of Washington (Ph.D) (Bioresource Science and Engineering)
Texas A&M (M.S.)
Purdue (Ph.D)
Columbia (M.S.)
Michigan (M.S.)

Do you guys think these schools are out of my league? My GPA is suboptimal at best but I'm hoping my research experience can make up for it

lilyi89

Major: Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology
Overall GPA: 3.84
Major GPA: 4.0
Tufts University

GRE:
Q: 800
V: 590
AW: 5.5

Awards: 3 for academics, Tufts Summer Scholars, Tau Beta Pi

Research Experience: 2 1/2+ years (including two summers) of independent research. Currently writing a paper where I plan on being first author. Currently second/third authors on two or more papers. I was first author speaker at the AiChE national conference in Minneapolis this past fall.

Schools Applied to (all PhD):
Stanford
MIT
UC Berkeley
UPENN
Princeton
U Delaware
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon

mrund3rd09

looking at these past threads and seeing all the good GPAs and decent recs getting rejected by all these schools makes me tremble in terror