u/memegorl

Hi all. Brief context - I'm applying for grad school in mechanical engineering. I graduated in 2024 from a state school (USA) with a 3.8 GPA in the program's honors college (because I didn't realize it was pointless). I've been working in an irrelevant engineering field since graduating. I worked in research labs for 3.5/4 years during my undergrad and I have one first-author conference paper. Had a pretty sweet senior design project/thesis too. Both my paper and my senior project are relevant to the research I want to pursue. I'm applying to PhDs in the US, master's degrees in Canada and Europe (I'm Canadian), and I'm considering a few PhD programs in the UK. I'd like to stay in academia long-term (or at least have the option to do so), so school prestige is a factor here.

I started with a list of 60+ schools and looked into the research of 100+ professors who had recent publications in my target research area. I've trimmed the list down to 20 schools based on my research fit.

I am STRUGGLING to cut the list any further, but I know I need to so I don't spend a ton of money on applications and to take some stress off of LoR writers. I have a couple of "safety" master's programs on there (with research I don't love but in labs I have a good shot at getting funding for). I have quite a few PIs on there with best-in-the-world labs, but all of their current grad students went to top 20 schools AND have perfect GPAs plus journal publications. A few schools are a perfect research fit, but I think I would hate living in the cities they're located in. Some labs only have 1-2 PhD students, some labs are run by assistant professors, and some schools only have one PI I'd be interested in working with.

Basically just looking for advice. Where should I draw the line of being realistic when applying to "dream" labs? Is it worth it to have some "safety" programs on there? How much does location really matter if I love what I'm doing?

I took the GRE last year in September and met the minimum scores required for the MScs in mechanical engineering and robotics. I got 165V, 165Q, and 4.0AW. I sent those scores to ETH Zurich when I took the exam.

They increased the minimums to 159V, 168Q, and 4.5AW for those programs. I will be applying this year.

Essentially, I'm trying to decide if it's worthwhile to retake the GRE. I don't see anything on the ETHZ admissions website about the admissions committee only considering the highest submitted scores. I'm worried that I'll put the time and money into meeting the increased GRE minimums and it'll be worthless because I've already submitted a lower score.

I know you all aren't on the admissions committee, but I'm wondering if anybody has experience with being below the new GRE minimums (especially since this was changed in November last year). Does the admissions office usually reply to this type of question via email?