I’m entering my final year as an undergraduate pursuing a degree in Biomedical Eng. and Electrical & Computer Eng. I want to get into a top 20 graduate Electrical Eng. graduate program as a full-time student with a RA/TA position. My question is: What are top 20 engineering graduate schools looking for in students (including GRE scores, GPA, letters of recommendation, research etc.)?
My scores:
GRE => 161 Verbal, 155 Quant, 5.0 Essay
GPA => 3.8
Research => Worked in a lab all four years of uni and hopefully will get strong letters of recommendation
Based on college stat sites like US News, it’s almost too easy to get into a great school like Princeton or U Berkley. I’m not sure if those stats are legit or if universities are looking for something more than just a solid GPA and GRE score. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
@ac1997 - Welcome to the Forum! I am presuming that you are interested in a Ph.D. program as getting RA/TA position is generally not typical for M.S. students. It is never trivial to get into highly selective graduate programs so I am not sure what data you are looking at. When you apply to these Ph.D. programs, you can rest assured that pretty much everyone else will have GPA and GRE scores at least as good as yours or significantly better. If you have a significant amount of research and strong letters, then you certainly have a chance. The most selective programs generally triage on GPA and GRE and then look for applicants who have significant research experience and strong letters of recommendation. If you want suggestions about which schools are good choices, then talk to the professor(s) who you have been working with. These mentors will give you advice from a knowledgeable perspective.
Imo, GPA/GRE stats are more of a gateway: they just get you into the race.
How your research interests/experience line up with those of the places you are applying to; your Statement of Purpose; LoRs, and (for some places) interview, are what get you over the finish line.
As @xraymancs advised, use your advisor and the researchers that you have worked with. Your advisor will know what programs students from your school tend to get into (though obviously that doesn’t limit you), and both your advisors and research leaders will have contacts and info about the program at other universities- that whole network thing is real. Students from the year ahead of you are also a good resource.
When considering programs spend some time on the faculty bios- it is tedious, but if you are accepted, one of them will be your supervisor. Try to id at least a couple of people at each place that you apply to whose work sounds genuinely interesting to you.
If you already have a strong idea of the area you would like to focus on, look at the recent literature on that topic and check out where the researchers are from. You may be surprised to find that some of the leading lights are not where you expect them to be- they may be at universities whose names aren’t as high profile. Grad school prestige is different than undergrad, and going where the acknowledged experts are is more important than the uni name. As an example, I know a recent Cambridge University grad who chose to do her PhD at Nottingham over some fancier names- b/c that’s where the world expert in her field is based.
Don’t accept an offer from program that doesn’t offer you a tuition waiver & graduate stipend (usually tied to some RA/TA requirements) sufficient to live on.
