PhD Aerospace and double major

DoubleD
Wed, 09 Oct 2013 00:23:22 +0000

I don’t know what is good enough as I am not part of the adcom, but it seems most of the graduate students I’ve talked to had a 3.8+, but it likely depends on your undergrad institution. A 3.7 vs. 3.8 isn’t that big of a difference.
I do know that Princeton will not admit you if your interests are not close to any of the profs. You probably know this as it’s pretty much the same with all the top insitutions.

Are you an international student attending a non-US institution or an international student attending a US institution? I’ve seen and heard that internationals are hold to higher standards, but personally, I feel like I’ve never seen that happen and it’s hard to compare with domestic applicants since the culture and learning process are so different.

I’m not in the EP field, but I’ve heard from some industries that UMich’s EP program, directed by Gallimore, is currently the best. GaTech has a dude named Walker (student of Gallimore’s) and kinda awkward in a funny way. i.e., he talks really fast and usually prefers phone calls over email.

Idk about Stanford’s program; I didn’t even know they had an electric propulsion group. MIT also has a space propulsion group, but it doesn’t seem like anyone ever talks about it.
JPL is pretty big on EP, but I don’t think Caltech does much of that themselves, ironically.