4th year (out of 5 years) student at top South Asian uni, Grade: 9.1/10 (Physics: 9.4/10). Decent number of advanced graduate courses thrown in: QFT 1+2, GR, Cosmology, Particle Physics and taking Advanced Mathematical Physics and Standard Model this year. All grades in Physics are either A or A+. No publications so far. Bad grades in one of the COVID semesters (first) but I was dealing with mental health issues. Don't wanna make any excuses COVID was hard for us all.
Will be applying for fall 2025 positions this year. Extremely stressed due to how difficult graduate school is. I want to get into top schools in the US but the competition is brutal. I've done my best so far but still I feel like I could do more every waking moment. It's eating me up every day and taking a toll on my mental health. I've been working mechanically to get publications but its very hard to build a HEP-Th background as an undergrad, even doing the hardest classes my uni had to offer barely put me at a level where I could maybe 10% of the papers on ArXiv.
Please be brutally honest, how does my profile look so far and how much can I do in the remaining ~1 year? Thanks.
My chances for HEP-TH PhD programs?
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adeavilacadena
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2022 2:48 pm
Re: My chances for HEP-TH PhD programs?
It looks pretty good to me. Just find a research group you want to join. To strengthen your profile, I would learn machine learning, python, and maybe C++. Try to find some internships and see if you can join a research group. Try to make your last year strong. You also have graduate courses so that will look good as well. When you apply to schools, make sure to apply to range of places because even if a school has a good reputation, you may not like it there.