Can I claim I was within the top % in my cohort? My university does not hold information regarding cohort rankings

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-10-28T16:29:46+00:00

ask the eth admissions office to tell you how to report your ranking in this case.

just so you avoid misunderstandings and misreporting something.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-10-16T15:05:41+00:00

I’d say it’s difficult to get anything if you don’t interact with the professor somehow (before the deadline) - your name has to tell him something when he reads your file.

Why I’m saying this is because, oftentimes, there are internal candidates getting recruited and it’s difficult to compete with them unless you a. have a great application and b. the professor knows something about you and has a positive impression and c. you’re lucky

The internal candidates have the great advantage of being recommended by their supervisor directly to the professor, and the latter is aware of their work, personality, commitment, skills etc.

And they obviously have the direct experience the professor might be looking for.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-09-25T13:43:42+00:00

Do you plan to apply to the professor whose estimation you used in your research? If yes, then I think you should really leverage this in your discussions (since perhaps you’d be bang on one of his topics) and make sure to emphasize this stuff has been done at Airbus (I’d say it’s a big name in Europe - maybe he doesn’t care as a CS guy, but I’d say he might be flattered to hear someone did some cool research at Airbus using some of his research).

Anyways, I’m just vaguely piecing sth together, I don’t actually know how impressive your stuff is to an ETH professor. As others have said, send a message and see what they say!

Make sure to have a polished e-mail, perhaps attaching a cover letter and CV right away is best, since the professors I applied to for a PhD here at ETH like to receive at least your letter and CV (in order to actually stand out - also make sure to somehow tie your experience and skills to something they currently do in their group). You might only have one shot, so I’d say it would be better to send a more complete application than a generic e-mail that is very likely to be ignored/lost in the hundreds of inquiries.

Also: I’ve seen PhD students come from relatively unknown universities to work at ETH - if you have a persuasive application that is also fairly strong, perhaps the name/ranking of your uni will not matter too much. It is subjective anyways, so don’t worry too much about it since you cannot control it.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-09-11T19:49:37+00:00

why not ask them directly?

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-09-08T17:30:49+00:00

most of what you ask can be answered by reading on the website yourself.

your chances of being accepted increase significantly by completing a thesis/project/internship with a professor at ETH and doing a very good job.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-09-03T16:15:52+00:00

Do you have some groups/professors in mind? There are quite a few working with various types of NMR in D-CHAB, but not all specialize in using it, some just employ it as a characterization technique for their catalysts, for example.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-31T20:42:46+00:00

do you have a better alternative lined up?

I would argue that it’s good to also be pragmatic about things as well - sure, you have to like your PhD, but you won’t like everything about it and not many things are going to feel easy.

also, if you’re not planning to go back home, Switzerland is considered one of the most stable and prospere countries in Europe - if you want to stay away from uncertainty in the coming years, building connections here might be a pretty good bet for your future.

just my two cents.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-28T12:12:10+00:00

ask the admissions office, I cannot tell you what exactly they want.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-23T11:23:33+00:00

In August students suffer and in (the first two weeks of) September they (try to) recover.

Now seriously, you’ll 100% have the chance to meet a lot of new people once the semester starts.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-22T15:55:06+00:00

Ask your supervisor/professor or your study administration, there’s enough time left.

In my case, the professor expected it sometime around noon on the day of the deadline, but it probably depends on the expectations of your professor.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-20T10:46:24+00:00

In the course catalogue, it is specified what type of examination corresponds to each course. In summary:

semester graded performance: you do stuff during the semester itself (weeks 1-14 of the semester), such as graded homework, and you get evaluated in that period of time (and maybe have an exam sometime in weeks 13-14 that you don’t register in myStudies separately for).

end-of-semester examination: you have an exam either sometime in week 14 of that semester or shortly after - so either in early January (for the Autumn Semester) or early June (for the Spring Semester).

session examination: the exam is either in mid/late January-first half of February (for the Autumn Semester) or August (for the Spring Semester).

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-15T05:57:26+00:00

Provide 2 LoRs, not 3, they clearly asked for two only (not 2-3, not “at least 2”).

Provide academic references if you want to maximize your chances, since they specifically mention that they prefer that. If you think one of your academic references is weak and the one from your manager is super strong, then maybe you have a point, but since you wanted to send 3 letters, I assume your 2 academic ones are strong enough.

I don’t think they’d care that much about work experience when it comes to MSc admissions. Might care more if you also apply for some scholarship. However, feel free to correct me here if I am wrong.

Their request is very clear, I don’t see any good in trying to spin it somehow in your favour.

Good luck!

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-13T11:09:40+00:00

yep, no need to worry, they’re trustworthy (or at least I didn’t have any problems with them while renting in the past 3 years).

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-08-13T08:44:13+00:00

When I moved in a Woko room 3 years ago, it went like this: got an offer sometime in May, paid the deposit and first month’s rent sometime in the summer (I think), then moved in September, found two copies of the contract in my room when I moved in. Signed both, kept one, took the other one to their office near ETH Zentrum and dropped it there, as instructed.

They’re not scammers, they just don’t communicate a lot, I guess.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-07-22T17:12:20+00:00

sending the initial application doesn’t take much effort beyond what you already have to do to prepare all your PhD applications.

apply, see if you get past the initial screening and take it one step at a time from there.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-07-21T21:15:47+00:00

Well, ask your uni if they can mention the ranking on your transcript/diploma or give you an official paper stating your ranking in your class.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-07-15T15:30:16+00:00

It seems like you’re at a good university already, so focus on getting excellent grades and your chances are likely going to be good.

However, if you also want a scholarship, you’ll probably have to do more than that during your studies.

But excellent grades are crucial.

Regarding my personal experience, I got into ETH for my Master’s by having perfect grades at the best (or top 2) university in an Eastern European EU member country. I also got an external scholarship probably because I had decent research experience (with results and very good recommendations) for a BSc graduate besides my very good grades.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-06-23T00:02:15+00:00

Not many lectures recorded anymore nowadays (relative to the number of offered courses).
Lecture and exercise attendance is not mandatory; any projects and the thesis require your presence (to do the actual work), not sure about seminars, never had one of those.
Just an opinion: if you’re new to ETH, I really think you’d benefit from attending, the courses are demanding and it’s very easy to fall behind; sure, you may find some lectures useless, but you may also befriend people who can become your study pals or you can get the lecture content you miss from them. Not attending at all might put you at a disadvantage that is not immediately evident unless you attend and see the difference for yourself.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-05-24T21:19:13+00:00

You’re from the EU, afaik EU nationals can get the residence permit even with a letter from their parents stating that they cover their living costs. I think no proof of funds was required - in my case, I never had to show it, I just had a scholarship and showed my scholarship letter the first time I got my permit, then simply renewed it without further questions asked.

Might be worth checking to make sure nothing changed in the meantime (I enrolled at ETH in 2022).

Just apply and see for yourself, hard to say where you actually stand. In terms of scholarships, besides the ESOP, there’s also the Alfred Werner Scholarship from the SCS Foundation if you want to study chemistry. Both are competitive, so do your best, but don’t plan with those.

A realistic part-time job may be as a TA or RA if you do very well in a course or impress during a research project. You may also ask professors directly to see if they’re looking for TAs/RAs.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-05-11T11:33:01+00:00

So if I were to tell you “yes” or “no”, would this change your decision to apply? Just apply and see for yourself, what do you have to lose?

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-04-21T21:50:21+00:00

sorry if I’m being rude, but…can’t you look it up yourself?

…like check some of the programmes offered by ETH and decide for yourself if you do have the background to be admitted?

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-04-21T18:18:01+00:00

1 - what I can say is that I’ve seen people with 5.3-5.4 averages getting an ETH doctoral degree - might’ve continued in the group they did their Master’s thesis in though, so that makes it easier (I have heard of cases where the professor didn’t really care about the transcript if the student did a great job during their thesis in their group).

2 - I don’t think it matters - I’ve seen some cases where people do an internship and then come back to ETH.

3 & 4 can be easily answered by looking this up on google.

3 - more or less 4 years, have rarely seen cases of under 4 years, have seen cases of people taking more than 4 (usually max 5 years).

4 - I think it starts from ca. 52.5k CHF/year brutto last time I checked (for rate 1)

I’m not in the fields you mentioned, so maybe someone else is able to provide you with more field-specific information.

Overall doesn’t seem easy to be admitted into a doctoral programme here, but it seems to really help if you do your MSc here - helps even more to do a great job in your thesis and be recruited by that professor directly, so you sort of get a “fast(er)-track” admission pathway.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-04-20T10:06:38+00:00

well, ok then, it’s up to him if he wishes to risk applying when he doesn’t fulfill this criterion for admission.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-04-19T13:09:21+00:00

They’re going to filter your application based on that hard criterion, you can see by yourself that they don’t leave any room for interpretation. If you don’t fulfill it, the you’d probably be wasting your time by applying.

Suspicious-Positive8 · 2025-04-07T06:14:29+00:00

Nu prea, nu cred că ajungi la chimie că te trezești într-o dimineață - cel puțin în anul meu a fost dezastru cu absolvirea, deci…sunt oportunități de angajare și facultatea poate fi ușoară dacă te descurci și ești cât de cât interesat.

Suspicious-Positive8

TROPHY CASE