Materials Science and Engineering Grad School Admissions Chances

ender314
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:21:15 +0000

Hi guys, I’m new to CC but I’ve been reading a lot of the forums lately. I’m a third year UG student looking to go to graduate school in MatSci & Eng.

I was wondering if any of you could provide me some insight regarding my chances of getting into the top engineering schools I am considering:
MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Cornell, Northwestern (top 3 in matsci)

Here’s some stats:
BS in Mechanical Engineering from UT Austin
Engineering Honors program

UG gpa: 3.7 / 4.0
(I could prob get it up to 3.75+ by the time I apply)

two years + one summer of research by graduation
currently three journal publications (one second author)

two strong LOR’s from professors I have worked with.
(One of the profs mentioned was a pretty big name at Northwestern, if that helps.)
one from either a postdoc or an associate prof.

I’ll be writing an undergraduate honors thesis next year
no internships
some community work at local schools in Austin

I know that a lot of graduate school admissions is unclear, but any advice/help would be much appreciated.
Also, what areas should I improve on? How important are GRE scores?

Thanks.