| | | Student Quotes about Ranking Examiners from 1998 Survey |
You must put those "popular" professors on "Group 1" (if you really want
them to be your examiners).
- 1st year, 1998, [ISL STAR], [EngPhys, Ckts, EM, Sig, Ctrl], 1st pass
Get the professors you know. Get the professors working on areas you know
- they will ask you almost exclusively on their research areas.
- 1st year, 1998, CSL, [SIG, CTRL, Comp Arch, Soft], not yet passed
Ignore professor's popularity. Just rank them based on your
own preferences.
- 1st year, 1998, CSL, [Elec Dev., Ckts, Comp Arch, Soft], 1st pass
find out about the professors' personalities as well as their research
areas. if you get an asshole prof (and there were a few) in your subject
area, you are likely to get a random score, which underestimates your
ability in that area.
- 1st year, 1998, ISL, [Sig, Ctrl, Soft], 1st pass
Master of obvious: those asking questions from areas you're familiar with rank highest, regardless whether they're considered being "tough" or "easy".
- 1st year, 1998 ISL, [Ckts, EM, Sig , Ctrl], 1st pass
Pretty straightforward. Just don't do like 1 guy I know whose philosophy
was: 'Since I'm pretty much guaranteed 4 from my 1st group, 3 from my
next, 2 from the 3rd, and 1 from my 4th, I'll put 4 of my favorite profs
in the first group, 3 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, and 1 in the last'. This
doesn't work. He ended up with profs he didn't want and he didn't pass
quals.
- 1st year, 1998, ISL, [EM, Sig, Ctrl, Comp Arch], not yet passed
Personality of the professor is almost as important as the type of question asked.
- 1st year, 1998, ISL, [Elec Dev., EM, Sig, Ctrl], 1st pass
rank those you've taken classes and feel more comfortable with higher
- 1st year, 1998, ICL, [Eng Phys, Elec Dev., Ckts, Comp Arch], not yet
passed
If you can do Nish. questions put him in your first group of 5 with 4
other prof of your favorite area. Than in your second group of 5 put the
two other profs in your number 1 area plus 3 other profs you want. Since
you are not likely to get Nish. You will get the other four you write
down in group 1. and than in group two you have to get the other 3 since
you can only have 4 per an area. If the scheduling of the profs makes
this iimpossible than Gill will give you NIsh so make sure that you can
answer his questions.
- 2nd year, 1998, SSPL, [Eng Phys., Elec Dev., EM, Sig, Ctrl], 1st pass
forget about the area, rank the professors you know the best
- 1st year, 1998, ISL, [Ckts, Sig, Ctrl], 1st pass
Talking to people who took it before. Without that information, you'll
never know what to expect. I don't think you can believe the information
provided from EE dept. It depends a lot on profs what they want to ask
you.
- 1st year, 1998, [CSL, ISL, STAR], [EM, Sig, Ctrl, Soft], not yet
passed
Put the subjects you are stongest in first, though it seems to help if
you are ISL since there are so many.
- 1st year, 1998, other, [Eng Phys. Elec Dev., Ckts, EM], not yet
passed
Your favorite group of professors first. However, don't choose them all
from the same area. If you do so you are sure not to get them all. Try 3
from one area into first group and the best two (for you) from two other
areas to put into the first group too. The same strategy applies for
following groups.
- 1st year, 1998, SSPL, [Eng Phys., Elec Dev., Ckts, Comp Arch], 1st
pass
Don't play games. Just place the profs you want at the top of the list.
The selection process works out pretty well, for the most part. I know
people who played probability games with their selections and ended up
with very undesirable picks. The two highest scoring people on our group
merely wrote down the professors as they wanted them.
- 1st year, 1998, [ISL ICL], [Eng Phys. Elec Dev., EM, Ctrl], 1st pass
Put popular professors in your top group to ensure that you get them
(even if they are not necessarily in your top concentration area). I
found myself with empty slots for my last group. There were not enough
professors that I wanted on my committee to fill all the slots, so I put
in names of the more popular professors in areas that I was not entirely
comfortable with in these last slots. My thinking was that these were
popular professors in other areas, so they would assigned to students who
requested them as a top preference and I would get assigned the professor
that I wanted in my last group. Listing professors from whom I'd taken
a class helped because I know how they think and what they expect from
students.
- 3rd year, 1998, ISL, [Sig, Ctrl, Comp Arch], 1st pass
Choose professors whose classes you took
- 1st year, 1998, CSL, [Elec Dev., Ckts, Comp Arch., Soft], not yet
passed
Make sure to distribute Professors you want in all 4 groups, as you will
be getting some from each group. Putting a popular Professor in your
second group may make it more likely to get some of the other Professors
in that group.
- 2nd year, 1998, CSL, [Ckts, Sig, Ctrl, Comp Arch. Soft], 1st pass
When ranking professors, also take into account the fact that some
professors are ranked very highly by many students. Then, for example if
you rank 4 "popular" professors in your fourth group, you will likely get
the 5th professor. (Assuming the professor ranking procedure used in
1998)
- 1st year, 1998, [STAR ICL], [Eng Phys., Elec. Dev., Ckts, EM], 1st
pass
Look at the quals questions of previous years; they're a very good
indication of what professors are going to ask in the future. Based on how
much you like the old questions you then rank the professors on the
preference sheet. If there are no old questions available for a
particular professor, then you should look at his/her area. at the area
- 2nd year, 1998, ISL, [Sig, Ctrl, Comp Arch, Soft], 1st pass
Predict every possible outcome. Rearrange and predict every possible
outcome. Pick the arrangement having the most desirable outcomes.
- 1st year, 1998, ISL, [Eng Phy., Ckts, Sig, Ctrl], 1st pass
If you choose any professor from 'engineering physics' then you would get
him with very high probability..(up to is not so familiar, e.g. who did not gave quals questions for long time,
or who is not from out dept, is highly probable to get..
- 1st year, 1998, [ISL ICL], [Elec Dev., EM, Sig, Ctrl, Comp Arch], 1st
pass
most popular profs should be ranked in first group caution: you will get
unpopular professors from your last groups so be careful while putting
professors in last groups.
- 3rd year, 1998, STAR, [Elec. Dev., Ckts, EM, Sig], passed by petition
Pick the ones you want and rank them highly. Mix in profs from different
areas
- 1st year, 1998, other, [Eng Phys., Elec Dev, Ckts, EM, Sig], 1st pass
Be careful who you put in the first two groups.
- 1st year, 1998, [SSPL STAR ICL], [Eng Phys. Elec Dev., Ckts, EM, Comp
Arch], 1st pass
try to rank professors you get along with better and you feel comfortable
in their area the highest. Then, if you don't know the procfessor, rank
them according to how well have you done in questions.
- 2nd year, 1998, ISL, [Eng Phys., EM , Sig, Cntrl], 1st pass
A fair amount of thought went into this by everybody I know, but on final
analysis just ranking them in order you would like them and let chance
lend a hand is the only method.
- 2nd year, 1998, other, [EM Sig Cntrl], not yet passed
Don't try to play games with your rankings
-it may backfire. Put your top
10 choices in the top 10, period.
- 1st year, 1998, SSPL, [Eng Phys, Elec Dev., EM], 1st pass
I just put the ones I wanted most at the front. I seem to remember that I got 4 from my first group, 3 from second, 2 from third, and 1 from fourth. I think that most people got this exact same distribution.
- 1st year, 1998, [CSL ISL], [sig], not yet passed
Depends on your strengths and weaknesses. There are two types. Those who
are very strong in one area, weak in all others (me,) those who are OK to
good in several area (most grad students.) So my strategy was to put all
the H/W guys I could find in my first ranking so that I was guaranteed to
get the maximum of four h/w profs. Second, I put Nishimura in my second
group since I knew that a lot of people had him listed first. This made it
more likely to get the second choices that I really wanted. The third and
fourth rankings are really a crap shoot.
- 1st year, 1998, CSL, [Ckts, Comp Arch, Software], 1st pass
Don't take risk. Just put the professor you want most in the first group. If you try to make some trick, the computer system will have trick on you. (Therefore I think the algorithm of the computer system this year is quite fair.) - 1st year, 1998, CSL, [Elec Dev., Ckts, EM, Comp Arch], 1st pass
| | | Student Quotes about Ranking Examiners from 1998 Survey |