@magnamos: Are you still waiting on any more applications?

Big congrats to physicall and myforumid.

@physicall: gatech is a really good and highly-ranked school in technology. Its a great offer you got there.

@myforumid: lol @ witch catching me. Thank God we didn't get to that point. Make we dey find the funding sha. About your Tulsa offer with RA, isn't a bird in hand worth 2 in the bush? Let's be watching how things turn out sha. We go really plan our yankee trip at you-know-where

Abeg guys, I'm a little unsure of what to do in this situation: I contacted a prof at madison about research openings in his group. He replied that there were openings but no funds. What do I tell him? If I say I'm interested, where will the $50k for fees come from, if I say I'm not interested, it will seem like I was just after the money. What to do, what to do.

Errata: Omo, Stanford is entering a long thing o! I can't get TA/RA there until I've done at least a quarter there. Abeg how long is a quarter? Do these schools generally allow people pay fees per quarter?

Omo, Stanford is entering a long thing o! I can get TA/RA there until I've done at least a quarter there. Abeg how long is a quarter? Do these schools generally allow people pay fees per quarter?

@myforumid: thanks for the encouragement.

Meanwhile, my MIT decision just came in. The day just keeps getting better. No specific funding information yet but its looking good:

The vast majority of TPP students fund their studies through research assistantships offered by individual faculty members.

@superbrain: You've been admitted to Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison?

@NKnight: Trust me, I've given the Stanford offer extremely full consideration but without funding, $86k is going to be hard to come up with.

Another offer came in last night: University of Wisconsin-Madison. No funding information yet but I can contact the professors for RA appointments. Biko, what and what do I need to say in my emails to the professors? NKnight? Sefago?

, I think being one of the first people to take with the new format will be a better idea,

Ever heard the expression, ", the devil you know is better than the angel you don't, "?

please as regard sending your transcript urself to the various schools using a post office, Do your school that's UNN gives an individual his /her transcript to the student, ? And if so, is there a form of seal on the transcript apart from the school stamp, I will really do appreciate if you can clear the air for me,

UNN can give you your transcripts for you to post yourself and there are several stamps across the envelope seal. I think you have to pursue the process personally though i.e talk to someone in the registry and follow-up with the person as opposed to dropping your application in the box and waiting. I dropped someone's application in the box in April 2008 and till today the transcript has not been posted. Once you get your first transcript, the rest become quite easy.

@NKnight: Unfortunately many Nigerian undergrads will not get to read this until it is too late. And I'm speaking from experience. . Did you co-author any papers while you were in school here?

@NKnight: Thanks for the heads up. I'll look into the Mobil Scholarship thingy.

Yay! Stanford's decision came in yesterday. I applied for PhD sha but they gave me Masters. No funding information yet though.

Also, congrats to magnamos. Have you accepted the MIST offer yet?

@myforumid: congratulations my friend.

Abeg no give me heart attack o! Fingers crossed sha.

@superbrain: congrats o! I'm still waiting for Penn State's EE

From one of my friends in unilag, I heard that Princetons Mechanical Engineering results just came out today- they mass mailed admissions on the 11th of February.

I really thank God my blood pressure is fine. My heart beats faster everytime a new mail buzzes on my BlackBerry. I could have burst an artery with worrying by now. How come Princeton's decisions came so early? I just checked the site and they said March 15. Anyway, I applied for Electrical Engineering so the wait continues.

I'm also curious, did your friend make it in?

The post office will tell you how much; my brother did most of the posting so I don't really know how much he spent on each one. I vaguely remember him saying something about 600 naira though. I also posted one to Holland for about 700 naira.

Please I'll like to know how you sent in your transcripts to the institutions you applied to in US, since I'm also planning to apply to more schools, did you make use of Post Office or courier services.

I wasn't under strict timelines at the time I sent them so I used post office for them all.

Hi Peoples,

My TU Delft admission email came in today. No Huygens nomination though . We now await the TU Delft scholarships. Fingers crossed.

@tabarity: Did you get nominated for Huygens? Any further communication with the school?

@niklee: I know I said I won't comment on my chances again but I must say thank you for the encouragement. I'll definitely put up my decisions as they come in. I wish we could chat a little more. If you dont mind, you could send me an email so we can get the conversation going. Kindly send it to thisbighead at gmail dot com. I'll give you my real email address from there.

Hey cezeozue, so you do know what your gpa is on a 4.0 scale?

Using simple proportion I should have a GPA of about 3.86 on a 4.0 scale.

Why do you think Cambridge/oxford rejected you?

I have a number of hypothesis about this:

1. Abdulmutallab or whatever his name was. His incident occurred smack in the middle of the application season
2. Credit crunch. I needed serious funding.
3. A general disregard for degrees earned in Nigeria
4. Late submission of application materials (Cambridge's arrived the day after the deadline)
5. Lack of research experience (I applied for the PhD at Oxford)
6. Mistakes in my Cambridge application. I forgot a certain instruction pertaining to me essay.
7. Weakness of my recommendations (unknown recommenders, generic and DWIC letters etc)
8. Misaligned research interests. I did not list interests in line with any profs' interests in the department.

What undergraduate program did you attend?

Avoid my mistakes. I wish you all the best. If its any encouragement, I have a friend who earned a 2.1 (I think his GPA was quite high though) from LAUTECH and he got Cambridge + Gates. Funnily, an unfortunate turn of events made him not to attend.



These are the much I can think of at the moment

About application fee payment, Visa from Zenith (both from the Cash Domiciliary account and Buxz) sufficed for most schools but for the schools on the Applyweb network (MIT, Stanford, Princeton, ETH Zurich etc), the Visa cards did not work. In fact, I had to transfer money to a cousin in the US (I paid $50 in charges for that) to help out with the Applyweb schools.

Another one that stressed me was TU Delft (I applied after November 1 and was required to pay the fees). Unfortunately, they required that I transfer the money to a bank account in the Netherlands, I tried bank transfer from GTB but they said they weren't transferring euros at the time. I then looked at a couple of online services (Xoom, Mukuru) and tried Mukuru. After wasting my time, Mukuru refused to effect the payment. They had issues with me using a prepaid card and refunded my money shortly after. Any more ideas anyone?

Impress! I mean your friend. I will like to know a bit about his profile as a friend of mine is also interested in MIT.

My friend had 800 in his GRE Quantitative and 780 in his GRE verbal. He also has a 2.1 (with a very high GPA) from UNN.

@2good: we could go back and forth about this all evening so I'll say my last on this matter now. I see your point of view about rankings and competitiveness. I guess I didn't look at it that way previously. Unfortunately, the deed is done. There's no going back. And it will take some convincing to make me apply to even one more school. Well, suppose I did agree, which ONE school will you advise me to apply to?

About programming, as Tuface once sang, no be today. I may not be Donald Knuth but I know my onions as far as programming is concerned. From C for small devices to MATLAB and Java (that I work with everyday) so I don't believe that programming will be a problem.

Concerning masters in Nigeria, like I said earlier, education in Nigeria is what you make of it. I have a former lecturer doing his PhD in TU Delft and he did his masters in UNN. (Ok, I admit, I don't know if he was required to do a masters there first but I don't think so). The research areas that have caught my interest (mostly information theory) don't require much expensive equipment asides a computer, books and research papers. If I spent about 300k on applications, I can spend that much on books. And reading has never been a problem (I'm growing a little old these days though   ).

Truth be told, people abroad may not think much of a Nigerian university but what is undeniable is substantial contribution to a field of study. And why are we seriously discussing the unilag option, its an option C or something like that. I have other non-academic interests that I could choose to pursue. In fact, now that I type this, I'm thinking marriage may not even be a bad idea   .

However like I love to say, we'll see. I really don't wish to discuss this further since we seem to be dwelling on the more pessimistic outcome of my efforts. On the other hand, if anybody here knows that ONE school that I would apply to in January that would guarantee me admission and full funding, I'll be glad to consider it.

lol @ catching witch. Its not just about extra money my friend. There's also the stress of having to call and constantly remind all my recommenders. I'm through and out.

As for going lower, the question is how low? Which school do you know will give me automatic admission? Faith has to come in at some point or we'll constantly settle for the dregs. Afterall, why did you apply to TU Delft instead of LEIDEN University.

Even the TAMU you are applying to is higher ranked than Wisconsin-Madison, UPenn and Penn State (schools I applied to). CSM is not higher ranked than any of my schools in technology as a whole but I understand they have quite a reputation in oil and gas things (your interests, I believe). Everybody has stuff they want for themselves in this life. I guess I've made my choices (however uninformed and naive), counted the costs and I'll see how things turn out. Hopefully you'll still be on nairaland to rejoice (or cry) with me, whatever the outcome.

And if things turn out good, I may just have encouraged someone on nairaland like 2good encouraged you.

@2good: Purdue and UT Austin are both ranked higher than Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin-Madison, UPenn, Penn State and are at about the same level of competitiveness too (if not higher). I just chose not to apply to them. I cannot remember why now. So how far down the list do you suggest I go?

I'm very well aware that there are several medium-difficulty schools that are better than Unilag or any Nigerian university for that matter. But remember I mentioned an opportunity cost. Being in Unilag lessens that opportunity cost greatly so in a way I settle for less so I can win more in other things. Asides that, I believe a Nigerian education is largely what we make of it. Granted, there are obstacles to having a meaningful learning experience in a Nigerian university but if I knew in my undergraduate days what I know now. I doubt I would be having problem providing better research qualifications to the admissions committees. If push gets to shove (inasmuch as I really do not wish for that) and I have to attend Unilag or some local university to gain research experience and a master's degree, it will not be your average, run-of-the-mill, Nigerian masters degree.

But I pray things don't get to that. I am highly optimistic. How is your program at TU Delft going? I applied there too; really late though (after the November 1 deadline) so I'm not sure about getting a scholarship but we'll see. Did you have any difficulty getting a visa?

Everytime I post my stats on nl, it disappears. Anyway, here goes nothing:

GPA: 4.83/5.00 at a Nigerian Federal University
GRE: Q=800, V=730, AW=4.5
Academic Research Experience: Minimal. Computer programs for 2 lecturers' research projects
Work Experience: 2 Years in a local software company
LORs: 1 PhD Holder, 2 PhD students, 2 current employers (I mixed and matched them for the various schools)
Applied to: MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Caltech, UPenn, Penn State, Johns Hopkins, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, UIUC and Columbia (mix of Masters and PhD)

Anything else?

How much did u spend?

Its hard to estimate, transcripts probably cost about 40k, application fees over $1000, GRE and TOEFL over $400. On the whole, I've probably spent over 300k.

Do you know anyone from Nsukka that went to those schools?

I have a friend rounding up his Masters at MIT and that's the much I know from Nsukka.

Nice, I did not know Nigerian professors ran labs.

I've seen the thing about American professors running labs on various university sites. I'm not very sure what it means but does that imply that the lecturer have some space called "Professor X Lab" or "System Y Lab". Anyways, in most good-enough departments in Nigerian universities, there's usually a departmental lab or labs like the ones we had at the EE Dept, UNN and lecturers typically work with the equipments in those labs. Sometimes their work is also purely theoretical thus precluding the need for a lab.

I totally believe you. As a matter of fact, its a little frustrating reading all those results in college confidential etc.

I think there's a little misunderstanding here I did not attend TU Delft; I attended University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The lecturer I referred to earlier taught me at UNN before going on to TU Delft for his PhD. I did a final year project at UNN which was complex enough by local standards but does not amount to much internationally. I also worked with a couple of lecturers on their research projects, did a few personal ones and I currently do a bit of that at my workplace (but you know how little R & D we do in Nigeria). In any case I mentioned all this stuff on various parts of my applications.

About Michigan, I'm doing no more. I'm out of cash and have exhausted all my reco debts too. I'll keep my fingers crossed and knees bent in prayer. If things don't work, maybe I'll do a masters in unilag or something and gain formal research experience there.

Agreed. I figured if it wasn't in a "top top" school, it wasn't worth the effort. There's a huge opportunity cost to this activity, it has to be worthwhile.

I applied to UIUC.