Top schools environmental engineering, already have masters?

targetwalmart
Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:38:05 +0000

How is your undergraduate GPA? Having 4 real publications, master degree and solid letter of recommendation from experts in the field - sounds like a great candidate. If you haven’t spent too much time practicing GRE, you can give it another shot.

For graduate school GPA, there are controversies whether A/A- is good or bad. For some program, B+ is considered good enough, A- is good, and A being excellent, but I have heard that in many places, anything below an A is not impressive at all, just okay.

I say it is very reasonable for you to decide against UD for PhD. However, you should still work at your best to get the highest stipend package from UD, in hope that other univ will match the offer.

Unless you have other motives to stay @UD (family, etc), going somewhere more prestigious is probably a better move, especially if you consider the chance of future employment in the industry. The caveat is: you need to make sure there are 2-3 PIs who seem promising in your field (and have spots for you).
Your performance + PI’s reputation has greater impact than school’s prestige/rank. Many would agree.

Btw, how distinguished are the 3 PIs? I don’t know much about Env E, but there are plenty of so called distinguished professors out there. If I can work with the founding father of whatever subfield or someone who constantly publish in the best journal, I would not miss that chance for anything. You can always do post-doc to expand your horizon

So many factors… GL!