<p>I talked with berkely representatives today. I am interested in doing CS and they told me that they only accept 35 students per year. The average GPA from undergraduate is 3.8 and average GRE is 800. They said that they only accept students who are planning to continue doing PHD after Masters, and they said that if I only plan to do Master degree, I shouldn’t apply to Berkely? Was the thing that they told me true?? 3.8 gpa in engineering with GRE score of 800!!! that’s insane!! If berkely requires this much… how hard will MIT be?? That is even harder than getting into top notch Business school…(And yes, they said that getting into graduate school in engineering (at Berkely) is ALOT HARDER than getting in Business School. Any one got any idea about what they said whether those things are true or not?</p>
<p>First off, before applying to Berkel<em>e</em>y, make sure you spell the name of their university correctly. </p>
<p>Now…Berkeley is number one for graduate studies in computer science (along with Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and Stanford), so of course admissions are extremely competitive. Because of this, only top students will be admitted. You better be at or near the top of your class if you wish to be admitted (the high GPA demonstrates this). </p>
<p>An 800 on the GRE quantitative section is no amazing feat (~94th percentile), and it really is expected of someone with a heavily quantitative background (like CS). I imagine MIT has very similar admission standards.</p>
<p>Business school admissions put much more weight on work experience than anything else, I imagine. Numbers-wise, yes, graduate admissions at Berkeley for engineering are more competitive. </p>
<p>In short, believe what they told you.</p>
<p>yikes… I’m applying Berkeley EE and I barely meet those standards</p>
<p>oooh hahaha I am really sorry that i misspeilled the name I was in a hurry when I typed the thing… and the representative said that EE also has the same standard (average score)… since they both are under EECS… by the way… when they said 800 gre… it means only math part?? or 800 in english part too?</p>
<p>just in reference to a quant 800 score.</p>
<p>in the small pool of 4 GRE scores i’ve ever known (1 from an MD, 1 from a grad student from Harvard, 2 from an OD (wrote it twice)), ALL 4 scores had 800 on the math. so i haven’t actually known a score less than 800 Q.</p>
<p>if u were into writing high school math contests for fun (e.g. AHSME), then 800 Q is probably the expected score.</p>
<p>One thing I’ve heard over & over again in “applying to grad school” information sessions is - ALWAYS apply for the phD program… don’t apply just for a masters - even if you want just a masters. Once you are accepted to the school & decide to go there… that’s when you can “change your mind” & do just the masters. Schools are more likely to accept phD students because the research they do is longer, more in depth, and more likely to bring funding/grants to the university (and of course they want more money).</p>
<p>yeah, I agree that the 800 quant. can’t be that hard to do- I managed a 750 with no study, and I haven’t taken a math class since high school!</p>
<p>i got 730M and i one of my majors was math! but yea, the math wasn’t complex, just hard to get a 800.</p>
<p>yah if 800 for math alone… it is not that hard… I tried it before… but just wondering… 800 for them… does it mean… 800 on english part too?</p>
<p>No way! Anything over 600 is considered very good if you’re a science/engineering major. It is much, much, MUCH harder to ace the verbal part compared to the quant part. For a perspective, a 630 on verbal is roughly the same percentile as a 780 on quant.</p>
<p>yea, it’s crazy that 2 of my friends (math/cs or math/physics double majors) here at florida tech got 710V and 780V, respectively, without any studying… just 1 practice test each. they put my 470V to shame.</p>
<p>99th percentile for verbal begins at 740. so 740, 750, 760, 770, 780, 790, 800 are ALL 99th percentile. as such, one can begin to distinguish a low-99 (e.g. 740) from a high-99 (e.g. 780). it’s kinda like the LSAT where 172-180 are ALL 99.</p>
<p>so absolutely, an 800 V (high high 99th) is much much more rare than an 800 Q (94th)</p>
<p>IIRC for verbal…</p>
<p>700 96
710 97
720 98
730 98
740-800 99</p>
<p>CT - are u going to re-write the GRE? i’m convinced that with some studying (memorizing top 300 most frequent words etc.), most people can improve their verbal by (well over) 100 points.</p>
<p>I’m hoping the GRE isn’t going to drag me down for PhD: 560V/800M/5.0AWA</p>
<p>What on earth is wrong with that GRE score?!</p>
<p>I’ve been wondering the same thing, mostly because my verbal score was much lower than I expected: 590V/750M/6.0W. But then I found out that most of the schools I’m applying to don’t even require the GRE!</p>
<p>“Schools are more likely to accept phD students because the research they do is longer, more in depth, and more likely to bring funding/grants to the university (and of course they want more money).”</p>
<p>Grad students in academic areas are expensive to the university. They usually get office space, some administrative help, and lots of professor time per student. If the school sees PhDs as their mission, anyone who bails out after doing enough work for a masters is a comparative waste of the investment of one or two years of grad-school time.</p>
<p>Graduate schools of business and law schools, on the other hand, are some of the university’s most reliable cash cows. Professional students pay top dollar and don’t need expensive labs, fellowships, etc. The creme de la creme of cash cows are fully-employed and “executive” MBA programs – all of the tuition revenue with none of the financial aid expectation. These students don’t make much use of other university resources, either, such as graduate housing, health services, etc.</p>
<p>I spent a few years on the alumni association board of my alma mater. It was educational.</p>
<p>so what they mean is… people who finish undergrad can apply for PHD right away? Don’t they need Masters degree first before they are able to apply?</p>
<p>right after obtaining a B.S. you can pursue a PhD. the master’s degree is something you just ‘pick up along the way’ in pursuit of the higher degree.</p>
<p>Addwit,</p>
<p>That’s below average/or right at average at most of the top 15 schools.</p>
<p>Well, you can’t top an 800, engineers aren’t expected to get more than a 5.0 on the writing section, and a 560 verbal is well within acceptable range for any school. No adcom will have a negative view of that GRE score.</p>