美国PhD学位的含金量是非常高的，想要申请美国博士的同学们对于美国大学研究生的录取情况了解多少呢？接下来，我们一起来看看圣母大学教授为大家讲解的关于美国博士申请的奥秘。

准备2016申请PhD的你是否有着许多关于套磁、录取、研究的疑惑？是不是想了解教授对你的申请是怎么看的呢?下面，圣母大学(University of Notre Dame)EE系Prof. Laneman为你解答相关疑问，透露PhD录取中不为人知的“潜规则”。虽然帖子针对的是EE专业，但是其中的一些信息对于其他专业的童鞋也很有借鉴意义。相信从教授的角度出发，可以让你更有针对性地准备申请工作。

Q:Are there openings for undergraduate students/graduate students/post-docs in your research group?

A:The short answer is: usually. As long as we are generating good ideas and obtaining funding to support the research, and current members continue to make steady progress toward their degrees, we expect to take on around one graduate student and several undergraduate students every year, on average. Post-docs are very special cases that may be workable every few years.

Q：组里面有空余的位置提供给本科生/研究生/博后吗?

答：简短的答案是：只要我们在产生新的想法并且获得资金来支持我们的研究，同时组里的成员继续做出贡献，我们平均每年会计划招收一名研究生和几名本科生。

Q:Do you respond to email queries?

A:Largely no, for perhaps obvious reasons. The bulk of the emails I receive all look essentially the same and therefore carry little useful information for me to be able to differentiate students. It is more useful to establish meaningful interactions with me or current group members via a class, meeting at a conference, or recommendations from people we know and trust.

Q：你会回我的套磁邮件吗？

答：因为有几个显而易见的原因，所以我很大程度上不会回普通的套磁邮件。我所收到的大量邮件看上去并没有本质上的区别，对于我来说这些Email中有用的信息很少，我也没办法仅仅根据邮件内容来区分学生。我认为通过上课，参加学术会议以及认识的人的推荐等途径是与我或者我们组里成员建立关系的有效方法。

Q:Is funding/a stipend available?

A:Research and Departmental funds are available to cover tuition and a stipend for graduate students and salary for post-docs. I often say, if you are a full-time graduate student in engineering in the US and you are not being paid, you are not doing it right. Undergraduate students can work for pay, or they can earn undergraduate research credit. I make every effort not take on students whom I cannot support financially.

Q：组里面有经费吗？

答：研究生的津贴和学费以及博后的工资由研究经费和学院经费提供。我通常说，如果你是在美国工程学院里面的一名全职研究生，但没有津贴，那是不正常的。本科生也能为他们在组里的工作而拿到津贴，或者他们能够获得本科生研究学分。我会尽自己一切努力在经济上支持我招收的学生。

Q:How are graduate student admissions handled in Electrical Engineering at Notre Dame?

A:The Department currently has a hybrid admission system facilitated by the Graduate Admissions Committee (GAC). Individual faculty can play a significant role in the process if they are willing to immediately fund students as Research Assistants upon arrival to campus. Otherwise, the GAC admits a pool of students who are largely supported by Department funds (Fellowships and Teaching Assistantships) in their first academic year while they are taking classes and pairing up with advisors. Each faculty member chooses their preferred strategy within this system.

Q：EE专业的研究生录取在圣母大学是如何进行的？

答：EE系目前拥有混合的录取系统。如果教授愿意在学生刚来学校的时候就通过RA形式资助他，那么该教授在这个录取过程中的话语权就非常大了。否则，录取过程就由录取委员会主导。被录取委员会录取的学生，在第一年以学院经费的形式(TA或者Fellowship)资助，同时这些录取的研究生到学校后上课并通过rotation的形式选导师。每个教授都能选择他们喜欢的方式录取学生(即直接录取自己心仪的学生或者通过委员会录取后再由rotation的方式选择)。

Q:What is your strategy for recruiting and retaining graduate students?

A:At a high level, the key to joining my research group is to get my attention, or a current group member's attention. To someone applying from outside Notre Dame, this means contacting us with thoughtful feedback about our research publications, or obtaining a strong recommendation letter from someone we know and trust. To someone at Notre Dame but looking for an advisor, this means doing exceptionally well in one of my classes or initiating meaningful interactions with us about our research. Persistence counts. Once someone has our attention, I tend to implement a "trial" period of at least one semester during which we develop a research project and see how things progress. At the end of that period, we make a decision about group membership, and its associated policies for essentially the remainder of the student's graduate studies.

Given the above, I frequently volunteer and work hard on the GAC to help the Department recruit the best pool of students. Then I work hard in the classroom to interact with first-semester students to see who would be the best fit for the group, in terms of raw capabilities, creativity, and personality. In some rare cases, I have admitted a student directly as a Research Assistant, but that student had a recommendation letter from someone I knew and trusted.

Q：你录取研究生的策略是什么？

答：加入我的组的关键是引起我的注意，或者组里面成员的注意。对于从外校申请圣母大学的人来说，这意味着你们需要通过和我们交流研究文献并得到回应(即套磁)，或者获得我们熟悉的人的推荐信。对于已经在圣母大学但需要找一个导师的人来说，这意味着你需要在我的课堂上表现出色或者对我的研究感兴趣，而且坚持才有效。一旦你引起了我们的注意，我就会给你至少一个学期的“实习期”。“实习期”结束后我们会对你能否加入我们组做出决定。

考虑到以上情况，我通常自愿在录取委员会中努力工作帮助学院录取到最好的学生。然后我会在我的课堂上就学生的能力，创造力和人品考察哪个学生是最适合我们组的。很少情况下我会直接以RA的形式录取学生，但是如果我以RA形式录取这个学生，他会有一封来自我认识并且十分信任的人的推荐信。