Admission to PhD EECS/EE at Berkeley/Stan/MIT for Fall 2011

Momwaitingfornew
Wed, 17 Nov 2010 07:45:45 +0000

The way pre-acceptance contact is viewed varies from program to program and even professor to professor. If they don’t want to talk to you, then you probably have your answer.
Yes, LOR letters matter. A lot – especially at more competitive, more prestigious programs.


But I have some questions for you. And you really prepared to start over, at ground zero, for your PhD? What makes you think that getting a PhD from a top four will be any better than getting one from a top ten? What matters is your advisor and, even more, your own research. How will you get good LORs from your graduate school professors if you leave a program that has supported you for three years?

My guess is that this is a futile effort on your part that is only going to damage your relationship with the faculty in your program. You have to have an excellent reason to leave one PhD program for another (e.g. your advisor left or the program cut your subfield), and a perceived notion of better employment options isn’t one of them.

Do groundbreaking research, and you will succeed in the academic marketplace. Remember that it’s rare these days to go directly from the PhD to a tenure-track position in the sciences. Most do a post-doc first – and that applies to PhDs from the top four as well.