Do I have a chance at making it to graduate school?

[aneeshm]

I'm in my last and final year of computer engineering, and the plan is to get a Master's degree in the field from a good university in the USA.

I've heard that six things are important for admission:

1) Academic Record
2) GRE Score
3) Subject GRE score
4) Letters of Recommendation
5) Statement of Purpose
6) Work/projects in the field

The current status of these:

1) Academic record: not good. Not bad, but not exactly good either.
2) GRE score: 1600 (I'm yet to get my analytical writing scores)
3) Subject GRE score: Yet to take it, but I'm sure it'll be good, if the sample paper on the ETS site is anything to go by.
4) and 5) won't be a problem.
6) The project I've got is a pretty good one, so it should look good.

Given this, do I have a chance at making it into a good graduate school, say, one of the top 15? Can the GRE scores compensate for the average academic record? And is there any chance of a scholarship starting from the second semester, based on performance?

There are quite a few people from academic backgrounds here, so I thought I'd ask. I've tried searching the 'net, but nothing is a substitute for the knowledge of someone who has actually done it.

What does your experience tell you?

[DaShi]

Usually, given that most masters degrees aren't that useful, if you can pay, you can get in. However, the current economy has changed some things. As a foreign student, don't expect much in financial aid from the school or US government. The other issue is that a lot of people are apply to graduate school now to weather the poor job market, so competition is fierce. This hits foreign students the hardest. Your GRE scores are good, but they are the same for everyone applying from Asia. However, they often have good grades too. But at my school, we have some complete dunces from Asia that I don't see how they got in other than fake records (there are a ton of ways to do this in China) and a lot of money.

Generally, for the top schools, it is a lot like applying for a job. They want to see accomplishments. So emphasize your work/project and what you did with it. Judging from how you post here, you're rather informed (if a bit biased ), so unless your grades are dismally bad and your project and role in it is insignificant, I think you have a pretty good chance.

[DaShi]

Also, in America, we don't cook food in the bathroom and are rather turned off by the idea of it.

[aneeshm]

Thanks for that. It's a relief knowing that there is at least a chance.

As far as the dunces from China/India/[insert country here] are concerned, I think it's mostly caused by an education system which continues to focus on pure rote learning throughout even an undergraduate education. It's possible to work your way through the system without understanding anything, and get stellar marks, simply by mugging up everything in the two weeks before the tests.

I'm a lone fool who tries to actually understand what they're trying to help us learn, so the grades suffer a little. The marking patterns are a bit ridiculous, TBH - if you don't use the exact same words that are found in the model answers, marks are deducted. The examiners generally don't bother to check the answers, they simply compare them against the scheme they've been given.

Even then, the academic record is average. Not bad, not good, average.

However,

Also, in America, we don't cook food in the bathroom and are rather turned off by the idea of it.

???

What?

[DaShi]

That last bit is a complaint about my neighbors here in China. They are Indian (or Pakistani. I can't tell, but the clearly Hindu markings indicate that Indians once lived there) and cook in their bathrooms which leaves an awful smell.

[Jon Miller]

My roommate and other indians I know generally got a masters degree in india (at an AIT or whatever the best schools are) and then came to the US to acquire a doctorate. Often they still had to (and sometimes had difficulty with?) take the general requirements that are often waived for US masters students who are intent on acquiring a PhD.

JM
(Of course, most US PhD students come straight from a BS/BA. And have to take all the general requirements because they aren't really prepared for them.)

[Jon Miller]

If 1&2 are likely problems, then you have problems... most likely they will decide based on the other things .

JM

[KrazyHorse]

GRE score: 1600

There are three choices here:

1) You are lying
2) You cheated
3) You spent far, far too long studying to take the GRE general test

Given the verbal abilities you've displayed on Apolyton (which are excellent for a non-native speaker, don't get me wrong) you could not have walked in and gotten an 800 on the verbal section without some serious test-specific preparation. Something like 0.1% of GRE general test takers get an 800 on the verbal section. If you achieved this via (3), prepare to be disappointed; nobody in any scientific or engineering field cares how well or how badly you did in the GRE general, as long as there isn't something blatantly wrong with your scores (e.g. getting less than 800 on the math section or less than 600 on the verbal section).

As for the rest of what you've said: you're being far too general for any of us to decipher how strong your application is. Don't BS us with **** like "Academic record: not good. Not bad, but not exactly good either". It doesn't tell us anything. You also didn't tell us what school you went to. Was it IIT? Was it the second-tier one whose name I can't recall? If neither, stop; do not pass go; do not collect 200$. What do your grades translate to? What percentile of your class do you think you're in? As far as research is concerned, did you ever work for anybody whose name is known outside India? What did you do for him? How long did you work for him? Your research is where your letters of recommendation should come from, BTW. Nobody gives a **** about a letter from a prof who taught you a class. They want letters from people you worked for.

Remember that top 15 schools in the US is about 300 students. Add in some Euro schools and you realize that top 15 in US is of such quality that there are only ~400 people in your year who will be accepted to equivalent quality schools in the entire world (assuming that entering classes in your area are of similar size to entering classes in most of the sciences).

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Leaving aside KH's legit questions about the GRE (though some people are just good at taking tests -- I'm one of them, and my GRE scores actually did look like that), I'd say that, usually, there's no way you're getting into a top 20 school in your field with an only so-so academic record. Luckily for you, however, university endowments tanked along with all the other investments last year, so if you plan to pay your own way you might have a shot. But I'd still think Purdue, not CMU.

[Zkribbler]

Remember that top 15 schools in the US is about 300 students. Add in some Euro schools and you realize that top 15 in US is of such quality that there are only ~400 people in your year who will be accepted to equivalent quality schools in the entire world (assuming that entering classes in your area are of similar size to entering classes in most of the sciences).

That's friggin' pathetic! I went to Loyola Law School, not a top-tiered school, but good. It alone has an entering class every year of about 400 student.

IMHO, we need engineers a lot more than we need lawyers.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm good at taking tests too. With a half hour prep I walked in and got a 2360 (760 on the verbal, obviously, and this was prior to the replacement of analytical questions with "analytical writing"). 800 on verbal is extraordinarily high, even for a native speaker. As I said, it represents something like the 99.9% level, and many/most of those who take the test are native speakers. Please recall also that this is the 99.9% level for college graduates who are considering attending graduate school (in other words, they represent something like the top 10% of the general pop. already).

Now, could aneeshm have gotten that score? Yeah, probably. If he spent a couple of days studying word lists and got lucky regarding which words got asked, then sure. On the other hand he could also just be lying to us, or have cheated.

Anyhow, I think that aneeshm should probably be straight with us regarding his academic record, as well as how strong his research is (research = letters of recommendation). FWIW, I had mediocre grades (though the level of the coursework I did served as a mitigating factor here). ~3.25/4.0 GPA. I had some decent research letters. Subject GRE in the 91st percentile. This was sufficient to get me into a top 15 grad school (only applied to 3 total). Things are harder coming from India. Only a couple of universities are well-known to admissions committees. Standardized test results from Asia are generally viewed with great suspicion. In all likelihood the research opportunities available to undergrads are of lower quality/recognition.

[KrazyHorse]

Even if aneeshm can't get into top 15, he would still be far better off going to a top 50 grad school in the US than even going to the top Indian school. No Western company is going to give you a job commensurate with your years of education if the highest level was obtained anywhere in India (even at IIT). On the other hand, he can go back to India with a Western university diploma and probably be treated similarly to somebody with an IIT diploma (this is the impression I've been given by Indians in the US, and is similar to the situation of Chinese students going back to China).

Just apply to a number of different US universities where there are profs doing things you'd like to do. The only thing it'll cost you is application fees.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

FWIW, I had mediocre grades (though the level of the coursework I did served as a mitigating factor here). ~3.25/4.0 GPA. I had some decent research letters. Subject GRE in the 91st percentile. This was sufficient to get me into a top 15 grad school (only applied to 3 total).

This is interesting, and counter to my experience on the other end (sitting on graduate admissions committees). But then, I did that on humanities faculties, which may put less emphasis on test scores.

[KrazyHorse]

3.25 in joint honours math & physics != 3.25 in basket-weaving

My program had a 90% dropout rate due to failure (not maintaining a 3.0 GPA = failure in an honours program, and honours courses are significantly harder than majors courses).

[KrazyHorse]

BTW, my friend got a 3.7 or 3.8 in undergrad and got into Harvard with similar test scores and undergrad research.