ritwik

Advice for graduate students SPIRITUAL-INSPIRATIONAL STUFF

Hi all, I am posting after a long long time. So here is a reference that i created long long time back .... might be of some use http://www.ritwikkumar.netfirms.com/usa__admissions.htm best of luck to all, Ritwik

Dont worry ... this just means better things are in store for you

Classes have started and we in (i think) 3 rd week. You know ... classes are like they are ... not much different from back home. Assignments really keep us busy. I have like 3 classes this sem and so far they have been as I expected. The campus crowd is certainly better than what i expected. Yeah ... the day i left mumbai was drowned. the airport was a wreck. but the plane did take off at time and as we were a group of 15 students leaving together, the journey was lot of fun. But its damn tiring to travel halfway across the globe. BTW Where are u thesedays? Ritwik good to know about that. I can totally understand "feel aati hai" funda.

A post finally after so many days ... Well ... UFL Campus rocks. BTW did u guys find about dingus .. where is (was) he?

I am supposed to take off for Gainesville on 5th Aug early early morning

Thanks to super-duper (Damn it!!!:mad:) monsoon this year, my plans to fly to Gainesville are all set to be blown apart. How could I have possibly done any contingency planning for this. This happens only once in like a 100 years !!! Unlucky me :( People! please pray that these insane rains stop, if not totally, then atleast only till my flight takes off .

But to get into a place like umich ... you need all the component above certain level and 700 in Q in just too low. You would get a terrible percentile.

I agree with DestinationUSA

Depends on the university ... for example Princeton being a small place, the whole committee decide together on the admission while at other places individual professor recommends to adcom about a condidate and adcom does some final formalities (rarely rejecting the candidate one he has been recommeded by a faculty for admission).

Generally recommenders attach a letter (on their letter head) along with the cover sheet which primarily serves two purposes: 1. The space given on the form in generally inadequate (with all the addresses and tick marks) 2. This allows the recommender to type the recommendation once and take printouts with minor modification each time, if required. I remember seeing this note "Use extra sheet if necessary" on most of the recommendation forms.

1. This may work at a place or two but certainly is not the best way to go about things. You will loose more than those few $s if your application is rejected because of these petty things. 2. Some universities have strict rule that under no conditions will a paper reco will be accepted so there you may have problem. Other than that most universities have provisions for paper based raco along with online. I wonder why wouldn't you recommenders go an fill it online. I mean my recommenders found the online business more convenient than paper. 3. Yes that is true. It may be acceptable in certain cases but again I am puzzled why you would want to avoid using the cover sheet. Its just one sheet where a fews ticks have to made and only name etc has to be filled. These sort of shortcuts certainly dont give a good impression of you on admissions committee. 4. I do not think that will work. Most universities insist ion original scires directly from ETS. The photocopies (with or without sign from HoD) work only when you original scores are delayed and admission committee can proceed on with your application. Before the final decision I think original scores are mandatory for most of the university. Yeah ... it is a very expensive process and all these short cut may save you a few $$ but you wud regret it more than that if you loose your admission because of such things. moreover .. WHY TAKE ANY RISK?

hehehe

Thats appalling

I am on with "the godfather"

Well me and a lot of my friends had experience quite different from yours. It takes 4-5 days in normal course by DHL and even more by UPS (I tried this also). Anyway ... but advice is that DO NOT send packets with 2 or even 5 days margin. Send them good 15 days before because these courier servcies can come down with all kinda crap and delay your important application. About holidays... what I have found that if your packet is not stuck at some hub it will atleast be taken to the destination and not delivered. This happened to my USC application which reached LA during vacation but was stuck their because of local holiday there.

TOEFL is very easy examination and experience with my friends was, the lesser you prepare more you scored. If you have gone through english medium school, it should be nothing more than "dont fall asleep" contest. A week ot two should be enough to get to know the examination. It does not have much relation to GRE Verbal section. Its more like the Quant section of GRE in the sense that the questions are really really easy, you just have to be careful not to make any silly mistake.

@bond Dude ... I dont think DHL takes you packet to US in 2 days for 650 bucks. It takes around 4-5 days and if you are unlucky (try posting in last week of december) even 10-15 days.

You might like to include a few huge schools - umich and wisconsin which though fall into the "dream" category but still give you better chances of admissions due to their shear size.

It varis accross universities though MOST will make the admission decision based on your results till sem 6. I know RICE requires people to submit 7th sem trans also. What ever it is, it is clearly indicated on the websites so you needn't worry about it.

Oh .... things are hot here. Anyway XELA ... where are u located?

oops! it is June 3rd (NOT July). The tse website says the mailed date is before july 10th ... its been 14 days since. God knows what kinda mailing service they are using.

You have a very impressive profile and have a very decent chance of an admit from top schools. MIT or Berkeley or likewise may be a little difficult but nothing is impossible. If you can get excellent recommendation of these hot shots you have worked with and incase any of them happen to know professors at these top univs it will really increase you chances of admit many times over.

check out my website for 2006 ee ranks

well you will have to convince the committee of why you wanna do this and how would you manage. For later. scoring welll on CS Subject test is a very decent way. Further if you had some minor courses in CS, that would help too. The best way yo go about it is to contact grad schools with your specific case and ask for requirements for someone like you. You will probably have to take a lot of undergrad course though in case you are admitted. If you are able to show that your work though was in mechanical engineering had certain overlapping segments with CS that will help. Try to go for specialization in mechanical-CS overlapping area. You can also get into mechanical engineering and then try to coordinate with ME and CS department such that you are able to do the courses you want.