Shortlisting Universities

By Kanishk Chaudhary (2018A4TS0481P). He got admitted for MS in Mechanical Eng. in Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Shortlisting universities is quite an extensive process that varies significantly on one's personal interests, course, and location. I'll be using my example for reference to provide insight into the process of shortlisting universities and programs. Hopefully, I'll be able to paint a clear picture of the intricacies involved, and you'll be better prepared to make an informed decision.

Factors in Shortlisting Programs

The first step is to carefully understand what you really want to study.

1. M.S. or Ph.D.? MBA or MEM, or any other degree?

• Your interests (More info about M.S. vs. Ph.D. over here).

• Your financial standing (most Ph.D.'s are funded while almost all masters are self-funded)

• Your career ambitions - academia or industry? R&D or management?

• Your current experience - industry-oriented or research background? Any past experience?

2. Area of Specialisation?

• If you've decided to go for an M.S. in the same field as your Bachelor's, what would you like to specialize in? E.g., If you graduated with a B.E. in Mechanical, do you want to study thermal or fluids, robotics, manufacturing, or biomechanics? Don't worry much about the scope of these specializations - find seniors and professionals on Linkedin who have studied them and see their career progression. Talk to them to learn more about their work and their courses.

• Follow the same networking process if you're planning to change your major (e.g., B.E. Mechanical to MS CS and looking for specializations within C.S.).

• To increase your chances of getting a good admission, ensure that your CV and past experiences (internships, projects, work-ex) are well-aligned with the specialization you wish to take. This is important in drafting your SoP since you'll have a lot of points and stories to talk about.

3. Research-based or professional-based?

• This depends on your career goals and profile - a professional master's (a.k.a. coursework-based or non-thesis-based) gets you equipped for industry and corporate jobs. They may have leadership or management courses, networking sessions, etc. A perfect example of this is UC Berkeley's MEng. On the other hand, a thesis-based master's is more research-oriented. You have a compulsory thesis requirement and often prepare for research-oriented jobs or Ph.D. / academia.

• Many thesis-based masters are funded through RAship, but professional masters can have shorter durations (1 to 1.5 yrs). However, funding depends a lot on the university and the department.

Next step - identify where you want to apply to.

1. Choose your location - U.S.? Canada? The U.K.? Europe? Australia? Singapore? Any other country? Back up your choice with research - opportunities in the country related to your field of interest, work-life balance, average salaries, tax, cost of living, fees, etc.

2. Choose your universities - Varies on your program of choice. Go through usnews rankings and QS rankings (subject-wise); check individual departments to see how their labs are doing w.r.t. funding, collaborations, and research outcomes, how impactful the Profs' works are; alumni outcomes. Network and connect with current and past students. Look at the fees, cost of living, and chances of scholarships or funding. Ensure a good profile-program fit - your profile (and the SoP you draft) should match the goals and outcomes of the department you're applying to. In the next section, I've given an overview of how many units and how ambitious/safe you should be while applying.

3. Choose your sub-location - e.g., Bay area to tap into the Silicon Valley network, Michigan for automobile engineering, etc. However, this point has lost its importance with better access to virtual networking.

The Cruyff Rule for University Selection

In football, team formations determine how you strategize players in different positions to get the best out of your team. Johan Cruyff, one of the all time-greats as both a player and a manager, was the first to use the "3-4-3" formation (3 defenders, 4 midfielders, 3 attackers), and he achieved great success with this, both in Ajax and Barcelona.

Similarly, I used the 3-4-3 formation for my university selection. Note that following this is not a mandate, but statistically, it's a good option (I've given the stats below for reference).

By this point, I'm assuming that you've made a list of 20+ programs you want to get into and are further shortlisting from them.

3 Ambitious Programs

The three universities or programs you choose here are ambitious for your profile, and the chances of getting in are low (but not 0). However, you feel that there is a decent chance of getting in. Around 10% percent of the past profiles are comparable to yours. NOTE: Some top universities like MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc., will always be ambitious irrespective of your profile, just because of their low acceptance rates and tough competition.

4 Moderate Programs

These are programs or universities where you have a decent chance of getting in. Around 50% of the past/current student profiles are comparable. They are decently ranked and not as competitive as the ambitious ones.

3 Safe Programs

These are the programs you're 80-100% sure of getting in. They are not as competitive as the rest of your options. Past profiles are very similar or lower than yours. They are not that highly ranked but are still great schools to get into. NOTE: Please don't choose safe options you think you'll ditch later. These should be programs and universities you will surely go for if you don't get into your ambitious or moderate options. Suppose that happens and you decide to take a drop year and apply again next year instead of going to your safety program. In that case, your program selection wasn't good enough (unless there were other personal emergencies).

How do you know if a particular program is ambitious, moderate, or safe?

• Use platforms like BITS2MSPhD (for BITSians only - there is a master data of alumni in higher studies), Yocket (Facebook groups), admits.fyi, gradcafe, Reddit (r/gradadmissions). Avoid Quora. Somehow I feel that's less reliable.

• Connect to current and past students on Linkedin. Check out their profiles and ask them about your chances of getting in.

• Some programs provide statistics of their incoming batch - like average CGPA.

Why select 10 universities? Why not more or less?

I feel 10 is a good number considering the high application fees, fees for sending your TOEFL/IELTS/GRE scores, the number of LoRs your recommenders will send, and the number of SoPs you'll draft. At the same time, it's not too low to reduce your chances of getting an admission. We need to ensure that we at least have one admit in the application cycle. Selecting less or more is entirely your choice depending on your risk appetite and finances - quite similar to investing.

Can I follow a different formation?

Again, entirely your call and depends on your risk appetite. Take more ambitious options if you're flexible enough to apply again in the next cycle. However, if you're sure you want to go in the current cycle and not use up another year, take some safe options. The Cruyff Rule is ideal for those coming out of college, applying for MS/Ph.D., and who don't have a backup option in place. MBA guys apply to lesser and more ambitious universities since they can continue their job if they get unlucky.

Let's look at the Cruyff Rule from a statistics point of view. Consider 10% chances of getting into an ambitious program, 30% for moderate, and 80% for safe.

Chances of getting into at least one ambitious program out of three = 27.1%

Chances of getting into at least one moderate program out of four = 76.0%

Chances of getting into at least one safe program out of three = 99.2%

Chances of getting into at least one ambitious or moderate program = 82.5%

Chances of getting at least one admit = 99.9%

4-3-3 also shows good numbers if you're willing to be more ambitious, but 3-4-3 seems a bit more balanced. However, this only works if you've got the shortlisting spot on! For example, suppose you're a 5 CG candidate with no relevant internships, projects, or experience applying to MIT. In that case, your chances could be 0% for ambitious, and if your safe options are actually ambitious, you can do the math to figure out how low your overall chances would be.

Also, this works if your SoP and LoRs are good enough. People with excellent profiles but a mediocre SoP lose out on even the safe options. Get your SoP reviewed by seniors and faculty, and ensure your recommenders value you highly.

Additional Reference - My Personal Experience

If you've made it this far and understood everything clearly, then great! You're all set to go. I'm adding my experience here if you still need more clarity.

My plan was to pursue an MS in Mechanical Engineering - specializing in either Product Design or Computational Mechanics. My past projects and internships were in these two fields. I was initially confused about doing an MS or an MBA/MiM, but I finalized based on these reasons:

• My profile, with a lot of Mechanical and research stuff - was well suited to get a top MS to admit.

• I could still go for an MBA later on.

• I was more interested in using my mechanical knowledge and passion rather than going for a MiM and potentially losing out on the work I put in my undergrad.

• A Ph.D. is too research-intensive for my liking. I didn't have any top-level publications to get a good Ph.D. admit.

Regarding location, I had a higher preference for EU (Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland). I selected one university in Canada. The primary reasons were work-life balance and lesser visa issues. I ended up picking some ambitious and moderate US universities as well, later on, to be flexible.

I used the above shortlisting tips (platforms, groups, and connecting with seniors) to identify ambitious, moderate, and safe universities. They're shown below. NOTE: I swapped TU Delft for KTH Royal after finding out they had already filled seats.