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Graduate School Advice

By Ayaan Qayyum, 5/10/25

This is my advice on how to get into a graduate school and whether it is the right fit for you.

Overview

A graduate school application is arguably a lot more straightforward than an undergrad application. The purpose of graduate school is to help you specialize into a particular field or area. Depending on the type of graduate school that you apply to, it may cost a significant amount of money for you to attend, or it may be free or you may receive even a stipend. This will focus on mainly applying for MS/PhD and engineering. I applied for electrical and computer engineering and will be attending Columbia for their Master’s of Electrical Engineering. I also got into Georgia Tech for their MS in Computer Engineering.

If I had to break down all the components of a graduate school application, I would list it like this: resume, essay, letters of recommendation, grades, research, and internships. The main things that you can plan for in the short term rather than the long-term or your essay and resume. Everything else requires significant care and attention for long-term planning.

When to Plan

If you are a freshman in college and your plan is just immediately go straight into a PhD program or MS program after you graduate at some other university, then you must start planning early. Try to get into a research lab and do research and eventually try to get a paper published. I applied to graduate schools without any papers published and still got in, but I did have some very interesting projects and industry experiences, such as private research. You can always do self-motivated / independent research into a particular fields, but sometimes you need the structural support of your school to succeed. For example, in my third year, which was my last year, I enrolled in the James J. Slade Undergraduate Research Program. This program gave me six credits of Computer Engineering credits to write a research paper, which was guaranteed to get published at the symposium. There were structural aspects of the program that really helped me through it. Such aspects include being required to check in with a PI (principle investigator) and having to come up with a research topic in advance.

Applying to PhD Vs. MS or Both

All of the advice that I received said that you should probably apply to a PhD program rather than a masters program. This is because a lot of schools will consider you for funding and if you don’t get funding, as a PHD student, you will most likely still be considered as a Master’s program. However, this tends to not be automatic. You typically need to opt-in to being considered for both a MS and a PhD. Meanwhile, some schools have you decide between a Master’s and a PhD program, so you have to be careful. For example, Georgia Tech’s Electrical Engineering forced me to choose between a masters and a PhD. I chose the masters. I got in, but they never considered me for funding. I don’t regret applying, but be sure to learn from my experiences. You must double-check and do all your research to make sure that you know exactly which program you’re applying to. Also, start all your applications early in the web application portal so you know what each program precisely requires, such as an official or signed transcript. I would recommend you start your application early, possibly in October or September. I started all of mine in October, which was a little late.

Letters of Recommendation

Most schools require three letters of recommendation, but some only required two. Try to ask letters of recommendation well in advance. It is better to get letters of recommendation from professors in your field that you have taken classes with rather than letters from a boss from an internship for example. You can still get a letter of recommendation from an internship manager you had, but this internship should be more focused on research and development. Most people go to graduate school to do research (PhD), to be a Professor (PhD), or specialize in a particular field (MS). If these appeal to you, you really need those professors in your field to really support you.

Resume

Making sure your resume is top-notch is not as difficult as it seems. Follow the online templates for graduate school published by Carnegie Mellon or Harvard or whatnot. Highlight the important things and highlight the projects that you’ve been working on that is directly relevant for a master or PhD program.

Transcript

Possibly the most important yet underrated part of your application, which will absolutely play a significant portion of your application is your transcript. Make sure to take hard classes early and do well in them. Show that you have demonstrated academic success and that you’ll survive at the rigorous school that you’re applying to. Things are definitely not easy at graduate school, but with the right support, things could be great for you. You have to believe in your potential, as nobody else will believe in yourself more than you will.

Essay Structure Overview

Regarding your essay, you have to make it very clear your intentions and what you plan on doing there. Make your research interest very clear both on your resume and in your essay. You are trying to sell yourself so they will invest in you. So you have to mark the best things about yourself. This is not easy, but arguably it is a lot easier than applying to undergrad because undergrad is a complete mess (at least in my experiences). A lot of schools will have supplemental essays that you’ll have to write. Try to answer them to the best of your ability and be clear and direct.

When writing, consider the type of skills a graduate school is seeing that you have demonstrated. Such skills include critical thinking, research, communication, and interpersonal skills. The earlier you can identify your strengths and weaknesses, the better off you will be. Explicitly list three situations where you have demonstrated these skills. Then these form your paragraphs. Don’t start your intro paragraph, in fact this should be the last thing you write. Don’t lock yourself into a particular theme. I started with a spreadsheet of how I demonstrated these skills and went forward with that. Recall that the purpose of your graduate school essay is to simply demonstrate what activities you have engaged in, what you learned from them, and how it relates / reflects to graduate school.

I would say that applying to graduate school generally is a lot more straightforward than applying to jobs (which is a numbers game), and more straightforward than applying undergrad (which is idiosyncratic). You have to ask yourself, why am I applying to graduate school? What is my goal? What do I hope to get out of it?

Undergrad Double Major vs Master’s Degree

I advise a lot of the freshman that come to me to plan their four-year plans to either choose between a Master’s degree or a double major, since they’re the same amount of credits typically (30). I originally planned to do a double major / double degree, but since the scholarships I got from Rutgers had to be renewed every year (with the amounts I received varying wildly over time), I was convinced to speedrun my undergraduate degree by finishing it in three years and just do my Master’s in that extra year. I was supposed to spend four years in higher education anyway, so I’d rather be more efficient. In ECE, I only knew three people in my major who could do the same thing. You have to plan EXTREMELY early, like as early as first semester freshman year to plan to finish. As time goes on, you lose a lot of flexibility. Same thing with a double degree.

Since it worked so well for me, I’d recommend everyone rush their undergraduate degree in three years or less if they are able and skip doing a double major. It’s usually the same amount of credits anyway, and the level of the courses typically change as compared to a double major. For example, you typically have to take more 100-200 level courses to complete a double major. To do a Master’s degree, you have to take all 30 credits at the 500 level or above. The rigor is definitely different, and as an undergrad at Rutgers you have the ability to take Master’s courses as an undergrad or have Master’s students in your classes (such courses are called cross-listed). It also helps that a Master’s degree lets you specialize in your field, but a double major gives you two introductory looks at two separate fields.

But fundamentally, whatever you may choose, do NOT make the mistake of choosing your classes before you pick the job you want. The job that you want should guide the courses you choose to study to give you clarity. If you have an internship that’s all about building analog circuits and you want to do that as a career, maybe you want to take more classes on that topic. Find jobs you find are ideal and pick the classes and major that will help you be the ideal candidate for that job.

Credit Load Per Semester as an Undergrad

The standard ECE curriculum at Rutgers recommends no more than 16-17 credits a semester. Just because you can handle more does not mean you will have a fun time. Aside from my first year at college, I never completed more than 14 credits a semester. The one semester where I took 18 credits and had three jobs I was so stressed I had to withdraw from a class. Making the tough decision to withdraw early gave me more time to focus to my other classes. That’s a big deal! When you have less classes to worry about, you can spend more time towards each one. And when you can do that, you have a lot more flexibility on what you can work on on the side. Since high school, my philosophy has always been that classes are secondary in your academic pursuits. Your first priority should be to distinguish yourself from the hundreds of other people taking the exact same classes as you. In my experience, I tried taking advanced classes early, and took less classes. Since many Rutgers students overestimated the time they could commit to each class, the averages of the classes I took were very low, lowering the bar needed to earn an A or a B+. The moral of my story is to distinguish yourself from those around you. I did so by taking less classes and taking advanced classes early.

Networking and Seeking Advice

Definitely take the time and actually talk to professors and have them review your resume, essays, and topics of interest. I must have reached out to over 15 people for advice, including those who are doing graduate school right now and professors and Deans at my current university and those at other universities. The people who admit you for graduate school is the ECE department (or whatever department you’re applying for). This is important because for undergraduate they are looking for well-rounded holistic candidates to enrich their undergrad community. But for graduate school, they are looking for a focus fit and research fit. Are you going to be an asset to the university?

Cold Emailing and Demonstrating Interest

Cold emailing professors is important. This demonstrates interest and makes you stand out from the other candidates. This especially makes you stand out and especially works if you’re applying for a PhD program. It may even work better in as a Master’s student, since the only real administrative difference between a MS and a PhD student is that a PhD student works directly under a PI through their funding and are strongly attached, versus a master student is unattached and essentially can work for a professor for free. However, MS students tend to be lower quality than PhD students (from what I’ve heard). So if you demonstrate interest and catch the eye of a professor, they can bring up your name on your behalf to the admissions committee and make things easy for you to help you get admitted. I met with a faculty from the University of Michigan and they recommended you include your transcript and resume in a cold email, so if they’re interested in you, they already have more information on you to investigate further.

Fee Waivers

A lot of graduate schools are really happy to give you fee waivers. Pay close attention to any programs or ways you might be able to receive a fee waiver. For example, at Columbia, I received a few waiver by visiting an information session, and the fee waiver was automatically applied after I applied. A lot of people get fee waivers for being women through the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). I have a female friend who spent $0 on graduate school applications through SWE. I spent more like $300…

Conclusion

That’s pretty much all the advice I have to get regarding graduate school. Fundamentally, try to keep in mind a few things:

  1. Strategically plan early.
  2. Work to always distinguish yourself from other students.
  3. Try to take hard classes early if you can handle it.
  4. Try to do research or internships on the side.
  5. Always, constantly seek advice.

Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Do let me know if this advice helped. As always, results may vary. Good luck!