I am writing
this note to help provide you with some specific information on the graduate
admissions process in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Princeton. All applications
for graduate admission are evaluated by the admissions committee, independent
of the faculty member(s) the applicants have expressed an interest in working
with. Based on an absolute ranking, the top students are offered
admission. All students offered admission to the PhD program are also
assured financial aid for a four year period.
Once admitted, and having accepted the offer of admission, graduate students spend the first semester largely in course work, and select an advisor at the end of this time based on a match of mutual interests.
Thus,
individual faculty members cannot make private assurances of financial aid to
applicants before admission. Please keep this in mind
when contacting me regarding your interest in applying to
I receive a large number of email messages from students expressing an interest in working with me. Unfortunately, I cannot respond to each of these individually. I will, however, gladly respond to email messages from students who have made the effort to better understand my research before expressing a generic interest in working with me. If you can demonstrate that you have read at least one of my papers, I will definitely respond to your message.
Good luck in your application process.
Sharad Malik