Does Columbia Astro weigh the PGRE less than other schools?
- InquilineKea
- Posts: 301
- Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:07 pm
Does Columbia Astro weigh the PGRE less than other schools?
Columbia's Astro department has research-based quals, rather than problem-based quals. I can see how PGRE scores are extremely relevant for problem-based quals, but they don't matter as much for research-based ones (especially since a lot of Astro research is more computational than physics-based these days).
Re: Does Columbia Astro weigh the PGRE less than other schools?
All I can offer in that "friend of a friend" sense is I had someone in my undergrad class who discussed admissions with the admissions director at Columbia who said they'd seen a study that the PGRE for astronomers doesn't matter if you score above 20th percentile, so as long as you do they don't consider it further. This was a few years ago mind, so there's a good chance that it's a different director now and who knows what they do.
- InquilineKea
- Posts: 301
- Joined: Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:07 pm
Re: Does Columbia Astro weigh the PGRE less than other schools?
*woah*. I'm so surprised by that. Thanks for the information!
Yeah, Columbia has gotten a bit more competitive since then, but it does appear that there are still students who get rejected by almost all Astro programs except Columbia.
Yeah, Columbia has gotten a bit more competitive since then, but it does appear that there are still students who get rejected by almost all Astro programs except Columbia.