Do I pick a thesis adviser now or will I get assigned one after being admit?

Graduate School
1

Applying for UIUC, ECE program for masters degree. I’m applying for Spring 2016.

Got a 170 quant, 167 verbal on the GRE. GPA for last 2 years is around 3.8. Cumulative GPA is around 3.5.

I want to maximize my chance of being admitted. Would it be to my benefit to talk to a few professors that I’m interested in right now? Or is that only necessary if I’m going for PhD?

Because I sent two professors emails and did not get a response. I’m thinking about following up later next week. But then again, maybe we are supposed to wait until we are admitted and then an adviser would be assigned to us? In another, what I’m doing now is completely unnecessary…

Can you guys give some advice?

Thanks

2

Some advice please?

3

You are probably not going to get a response. Faculty are thinking about the entering students for Fall 2015 and they often focus on the Ph.D. students not M.S. It is better to wait and see if you are admitted and then think about making contact.

4

But I heard it’s nearly impossible to get admitted without making contacts before hand and have someone vouch for you? At least, that’s what a few people have told me.

Either way, I’m going to do my best and apply anyway.

5

It really depends. If this is a program that expects you to self-fund, then they will probably admit you if you meet their academic criteria. If it is a program that funds its Masters students, then they will judge you competitively and decide who to fund based on the application and fit with the department research. My guess, knowing UIUC as I do is that they put their resources into Ph.D. applicants and Masters students are expected to self-fund what is more or less a professional Masters degree. So making contact with faculty is not particularly important.

it is also likely that you are not necessarily guaranteed a thesis and you will have to convince a faculty member to take you on. I am speaking from my perspective as professor of physics in a research oriented technical university, where we tend to offer assistantships to Ph.D. students and Masters students are overwhelmingly in a professional, course-work only program. This is certainly also the case at UIUC in physics and I expect it to be the same in the ECE program.