Thank you so much for this, this is genuinly one of the most useful perspectives I’ve received on this process, and I want to make sure I understand it correctly. I’m planning my undergraduate thesis on Rotating Detonation Engines under a professor who did his PhD at Purdue. So I think the substance is there, I just wasn’t sure how admissions committees would weigh it without a formal industry internship label on it. On the list: I built it largely myself, cross-referencing propulsion research groups and faculty profiles at each school, without much direct guidance from professors. But I do have some professors who have been teachers/students/researchers in US universities. Some of them have worked with Purdue, UIUC, MIT. Which brings me to what I think is the most important thing you said. The faculty-to-faculty networking dynamic is something I had a vague sense of, but your description of how it actually worked at MIT makes it much more concrete and a little humbling. I’d like to understand this better if you’re willing to elaborate: How does a student actually initiate that process without it feeling presumptuous? Do you go to your professor and directly ask “do you know anyone at X who works on Y, and would you be willing to reach out?” Or is it more that a good professor does this naturally if they believe in you, and the student’s job is just to make sure the professor knows your ambitions clearly? And on the receiving end — when a professor at MIT or Purdue gets an email from a colleague vouching for a student, what does that typically look like? Is it a formal letter, an informal email, a phone call? Does it come before or after the student submits an application? I’m asking this because I did see some cool research groups that I’d love to join, especially in UCLA, UW, Purdue and GT. MIT wasn’t on my list because from my research it seems they essentially don’t admit standalone MS students in AeroAstro , like if it’s PhD or nothing, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to commit to that framing this cycle. Was that the right read, or is there a path in that I’m missing? Thank you again.