Profile Evaluation fall 24(fall 23 was a disaster)

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ZoroAsh801
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2023 4:42 am

Profile Evaluation fall 24(fall 23 was a disaster)

Post by ZoroAsh801 » Fri Jul 14, 2023 6:25 am

I am an International prospective PhD candidate in theoretical physics. I graduated in Oct 2021 and intend to apply for PhD programs starting fall 2024.

Master's Institution: One of the 24 Russell group universities in UK
Major : Theoretical Physics
Grade : Distinction
GPA : 3.92/4.0 (Conversion according to https://www.scholaro.com/gpa-calculator/)
Length of Degrees : 1 Year
Position in Class : No clue

Bachelor's Institution: Good engineering college in India
Major : Mechanical Engineering
GPA : 8.34/10.0 (around 3.4/4.0 on conversion)
Length of Degrees : 4 Years
Position in Class : No clue
Type of Student : International (Asian)
GRE : Not done yet. Planning to take PGRE in October later this year. Targeting above 890 or getting over 50 questions right out of total 70.

Research : '
  • MSc dissertation starting in Jan 2021 until Aug 2021 with a professor who is the Head of Centre for Theoretical Physics at the university and fairly well known in scattering amplitude research in Europe.
  • Research trainee(Feb-Jun 2019) at board of radiation and isotope technology, department of atomic energy, India. Working as finite element analyst for nucleonic gauges
  • Major project at the bachelor's university starting in Aug 2019. Study on flap wing mechanism used in miniature air vehicle
  • Research intern(Jun-Jul 2018) at National Technical Institute of Ukraine, Kiev. Laser engraving related experiments.
Any other info that might help : Since January 2022, I've been teaching undergraduate physics at a local college and tutoring a few students online. During my undergraduate studies, I worked on a number of research projects. However, I don't believe adding any of these would be beneficial because they are utterly irrelevant to my research interests. ICTP Brazil invited me to a summer school on scattering amplitudes. Due to costly trip expenses, I decided to attend online. I've taken advanced courses offered by the International Society of QG and Physics Latam. During my MSc, I completed numerous courses including string theory, QFT, differential geometry, and SUSY that are taught in US graduate programmes.

Recommendation Letters: All three LoR's from MSc institution. My LoRs were quite good, according to a professor from a European university who interviewed me for a PhD position.

Scattering amplitudes, Renormalisation group, strings, perturbative or non-perturbative QG, Loop quantum gravity, calabi-yau manifolds, compactification, and other topics are among my research interests.

I intend to apply to the graduate programmes listed below.

1. Utah State University
2. U.N.C Chapel Hill
3.Boston University
4. Duke University
5. Texas A&M
7. Arizona State
8. Purdue
9. University of Iowa
10. Northeastern University
11. University at Albany SUNY
12. University of Alabama
13. Louisiana State Uni
14. Virginia Tech

Aside from these graduate programmes, I intend to apply to a few pre-doctoral programmes at the University of Toronto, Princeton, Stanford, and ICTP Trieste.

This is not the final list. Any suggestions regarding dropping or adding few other names are appreciated ?

P.S.: I applied to six schools for the fall 2023 entry and was refused by all of them. USC, Brown, UCSB, UChicago, Pennstate, and UPenn all turned me down. I believe my essays were a major factor in these rejections, and I plan to drastically improve them for fall 24. Even if these are the finest colleges for me, I am not interested in reapplying. As a result, I'm being exceedingly humble for the upcoming cycle.


Thanks a lot.



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