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What does it take to get accepted into a vocational educational program?

What does it take to get accepted into Stanford's Aeronautics & Astronautics graduate program?

  • What can i do to make my application strong and what are some common mistakes that applicants can make? What is the administration looking for in applicants? Kindly give a little detail of your own educational/professional background if you have been accepted to this program.

  • Answer:

    There are two types of graduate programs: Those that require a Thesis, which means the student is Working for the Professor, and the student first needs to find a professor with mutually agreeable research and then apply to the college. Those that do Not require a Thesis.   The Masters in Aeronautical Engineering at Stanford does Not require a thesis.  Therefore, one can formally apply to Stanford, or go through the online self-paced program as a part time student, or do what several of my friends did:  Work for a company not far from Stanford and the company supports the students getting a Stanford (No Thesis) Masters However if you want an Engineers Degree in Aero-Astro (beyond a Masters) or a PhD, then one Must have a Thesis, and then the process is like finding a job or getting married......   You must find a group/professor with a mutual interest.  You must believe in the group/professor and the professor/group must believe in you.   Strong recommendations are Very important.  There is the underlying assumption that the student can perform the class work (minimum B) and pass any doctoral qualifiers.  That comes from your GPA for your bachelors, specifically the courses in your junior and senior years, capstone projects and recommendations. But first one must go through the job-search/marriage search.   You can't get an advanced degree that requires a substantial Thesis without the mutually strong relationship with your adviser and research group.  Find them and then you will have found the graduate program for you.  I spent five years of research and course work (lots of courses) getting a Masters and then an Engineers degree in Aero-Astro at MIT.   We had mutual respect and interests (my thesis adviser and I) and the professor asked Me to be a graduate student working on his projects.  The application was an after thought.......     That should be the same for any good graduate program.   You find and interview the Professor first, find the mutual "thing" and then consummate the relationship by doing the paperwork with the college.  So, go find that Professor in Aero-Astro at Stanford with which you have a mutual understanding/beliefs and the rest will be easy...... (Just like getting married......)

Tom Stagliano at Quora Visit the source

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I can't give you much, but I have a pal who is going to Stanford for the graduate Aero/Astro program this upcoming fall. In terms of his credentials, he had the following:   - Very high GPA (3.95+) - One research experience with a well known professor at UIUC - Plenty of rewards related to his good grades - Pretty competitive GRE   He pretty much just studied and partied (he was in a frat), so that's why there isn't much else. Also, I can assume he had a good letter of rec from the professor he worked with and he had a couple others from professors he had classes with. He got into Stanford and got a fellowship so he doesn't have to pay for his masters. So what helped him so much, from what I can see, was his good grades (gave him the awards, a few of the good letters of rec, etc). So definitely try to obtain the highest grades possible and you will have a good chance.

Christian Howard

I did the program from 1994-1995. Aside from good grades, Stanford (at that time) seemed to like some sort of interesting undergraduate research. It wasn't always highly technical, sometimes it was just innovative. Example: using the plastic model of a new military airplane as the basis for a CFD simulation. There were also people who did technical research like variation of the turbulent Prandtl number in the near wall boundary layer region. I found my classmates diverse and very intelligent. There was some feeling that the program was a bit more open (self selecting) as most had to pay their own way as Stanford did not have AA as an undergrad program at that point in time (they may or may not now).It is a great program but in some ways I would have been better off in a less class focused more research focused masters degree. If you don't get in, make the most of the options you have at other schools. It is too easy to regret and fail to see how you actually have found a great experience and education at a school that is not as highly oversubscribed.

Thomas Scott

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