Will being from alaska hurt me? And a couple of other questions.

Graduate School
1

<p>First, my background. I graduated in July 2009 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alaska Anchorage (ABET Certified) with a 3.59 GPA. After a year of looking for work and not being able to get through the industry-wide hiring freeze, I talked to one of my friends who was in grad school and decided it sounded like it was for me. I don’t have any research experience, but I scored 780M/640V on the GRE. (So mad about that question I missed.)</p>

<p>My question is; do you think I will be able to get into the schools to which I wanted to apply? Right now the list includes:</p>

<p>UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
Univ. of Washington
UI at Urbana-Champaign
Georgia Institute of Tech.
Northwestern University
Auburn (my safety school)</p>

<p>I wanted to get my PhD in Dynamics Systems & Controls, which seems to be offered at all of the schools in some form. I’m a little worried about my third letter of recommendation because I only had a few classes with that professor, but I have few other options available to me. Any suggestions/tips you might think of would be appreciated. Also is December 15 a pretty standard deadline?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

2

<p>How exactly did you decide it was for you? With the inability to find a job and lack of research experience, being from Alaska won’t be your biggest disadvantage–it’ll be adcomms thinking that grad school is a last resort.</p>

3

<p>No, it wasn’t that. I got really excited when he was talking about the lab work he was doing. :P</p>

4

<p>With the caveat that I’m an English major who knows nothing about engineering, it seems like you are worrying about things that are irrelevant. Why would being from Alaska be a liability? In my experience, professors are politically liberal people who don’t discriminate based on geographical location. Also, an ABET accredited school has got to be good.</p>

<p>So, for what it’s worth, I would encourage you to have some confidence…if this is really what you want.</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the replies!</p>

6

<p>We really like Alaskans down here, ya know? :slight_smile: One time I sat at a dinner table with a bunch of students and some faculty members and once we found out that one of the students was from Alaska, we let her talk for the rest of the evening.</p>

7

<p>Being from Alaska could help. Schools like to tout diversity, which means several different things. To be honest, where you’re from has little bearing on admissions. It’s grades, GRE scores, writing sample (if required) and LoRs.</p>