Master Admission Process

Master and Doctoral Engineering courses are very much in high demand to students wishing to earn a degree from USA. There are several factors that need to be considered as your part of preparation of getting admission.

Following are the key factors you must require to focus before you start up your engineering admission process in USA:

Application Prerequisites

Normally this process starts as soon as you decide to earn your master engineering degree from USA. In this course of action, you will start short listing universities based on your career goals, financial status and certain other factors. You need to consult your elders and friends who are in US taking their views for the suitable universities for the candidate like you. You can make use of internet to get information about the universities, ranking and reputation, programs and entry requirements.

Your efforts will be comparatively lesser if you are planning to pursue master in the same subjects that you have your bachelor’s degree. But if you are planning to change your subjects, than you need to put extra efforts in your home work for convincing your eligibility for new subjects and thus justify the change.

If you are looking for financial aid, you also need to enquire about it. You can either go for tuition or research assistantship which is normally offered to their graduate students pursuing particularly masters or doctoral program in engineering. Normally colleges have limited number of openings for assistantship based on allocated funding amount. It is purely competitive which is available on merits of your academic records.

Hence the procedure of eliminating colleges and short listing the most appropriate one is time taking and need planning before you decide your engineering course and university.

Scheduling your application

You need to start your application process at least 12 to 18 months in advance. If you are looking forward to take admission in September semester, you will require sending your application by the month of December of previous year. It means that you should have your GRE and TOEFL scores latest by the month of October of previous year.

To get better chances for financial aid, you should write to the professors much before you apply, approximately in month of October and November. You will get reply only if you have provided them complete details including your GRE and TOEFL scores. The decision of giving financial aid is taken much earlier as there is lot of entries to get education funds. To sum up schedule your application process and apply as earlier as possible.

GRE Score

GRE scores are the most required to get admission in any college in USA. GRE score is the most prime factor to stand in the top list to get admission in USA. No matter how good is your academic and GPA score; you could not stand to get enter into any college in USA without good GRE score.

Academic Record

After GRE score, your academic record is the second most essential factor to get admission in masters or doctorate program especially in engineering and science. Many students apply to MS program just after bachelor degree. For them GPA score becomes more crucial. Hence your GPA can be discounted in case of lesser work experience after your bachelor degree. Normally most of the top programs require GPA score of 3.00 to 4.00. If your GPA does not fall into this range, work hard for your GRE preparation to get higher score. So try to cover up your GPA score by score higher in GRE and thus getting better chance to get admission in engineering college.

Statement of Purpose

Your GRE Score and academic records are the key parameters for the evaluation at almost all educational programs in USA. However, there are other quantifying parameters that hold equal importance to get admission. One of this parameter is your Statement of Purpose (SOP). SOP should describe your personal skills like personality, interests, goals, motivation level, team spirit, communication skills and dedication to study engineering in USA

Generally, engineering programs in USA do not arrange personal interview. SOP is the crucial factor in the admission process which gives an opportunity to sell you to the admission committee. Your statement of Purpose should be unique describing about you, your ambitions and your interests. Your statement of Purpose will be evaluating your writing ability, substance, and skills of organizing and presenting thoughts.

Recommendation Letter

Most of the engineering college requires 2-3 recommendation letters. These are the reference letters given by your professors describing you as a student with all your personal abilities. Recommendation letter addresses your academic excellence, projects and achievements, research aptitude and interpersonal skills.

You Recommendation letter should speak about your basic qualities like analytical and quantitative skills along with imagination, creativity, intellectual curiosity and ability to think “out of box” in your academic journey. It should also contain some of the good scores that you have got in the course taught by the recommended professor.

If you are research oriented, emphasis on your research aptitude, abilities and your write-ups submitted to any publication. This will be very helpful especially to get research assistantship. It should also address your interpersonal skills, ability to work in team and thoughtfulness. This will be helpful when you apply for teaching assistantship.