how is my school list ?

  • This has become our largest and most active forum because the physics GRE is just one aspect of getting accepted into a graduate physics program.
  • There are applications, personal statements, letters of recommendation, visiting schools, anxiety of waiting for acceptances, deciding between schools, finding out where others are going, etc.

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govsunset
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu May 13, 2021 6:53 pm

how is my school list ?

Post by govsunset » Thu May 13, 2021 7:42 pm

!!!!!!
Last edited by govsunset on Sat Jan 08, 2022 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

geekusprimus
Posts: 143
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2019 1:10 pm

Re: how is my school list ?

Post by geekusprimus » Thu May 13, 2021 8:39 pm

You've got a decent GPA (and if there's an upward trend in your physics courses, even better) and a fair amount of research experience. If you've got good recommendation letters (as you've implied), you're playing it pretty safe, even for HEP-theory. I'm not saying that you're a shoe-in for Harvard or anything (not that I'm saying you don't have a shot, either), but I'd put all of those schools as safeties, maybe lower-level matches.

Based on your list, I'm going to guess that you're interested in staying in the northeast, possibly close-ish to Boston. In that case, maybe throw out applications to Harvard and MIT. Your odds are as good as anyone else's. Also consider applying to Brown. They're not quite as competitive as some of the other Ivy Leagues, but they've got some really tremendous people working there. Since you had CUNY on the list, take a look at Stony Brook. They seem to be mostly experimental, but they might have a theorist or two worth investigating. If you go out a little further, Princeton and Pennsylvania both have very prestigious particle theory programs, Maryland has a fantastic physics program in general, and Penn State recently hired a couple new particle theorists who are making pretty big waves in the community. If I've assumed wrongly that you're fixed on the northeast and are actually willing to go anywhere, most of the other Big Ten schools have pretty good HEP-th programs (I know Michigan has some really outstanding people), UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara are among the best in the world, UT Austin is also very good, and I think Florida and Arizona probably have some people worth looking at.

You certainly don't need to apply to all of these schools (that would be a massive waste of time and money), but I think you're selling yourself short with your list right now. It's good to cast a wide net so that you have somewhere to go, but don't forget that "wide" includes the obvious reaches in addition to the obvious safeties. I also highly recommend that you reach out to your research mentors and recommendation writers to find out where they know people and where they recommend applying; all the schools I got into had potential mentors who were reasonably familiar with my research advisor's work.

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mcentag
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:09 am

Re: how is my school list ?

Post by mcentag » Fri May 14, 2021 1:14 pm

With the research you've done, you definitely have a good shot at even better-recognized schools if your skills match well with a potential advisor. Your GPA won't keep you out of any school that isn't named Princeton, and maybe not even then. That said, after browsing almost a decades' worth of admissions results on this website I've seen one person get into Harvard for hep-th (a domestic female with stellar research) and no one into Princeton or MIT. So when the time comes I myself might apply to Harvard (for Matthew Schwartz) but almost certainly not the other top names.

If your interest in hep-th is QFT (lattice, nonperturbative, etc) and not string theory then UMD and Brown are very very good programs that are good competitive reaches. Two other schools with good all-around physics programs are Washington-Seattle and Wisconsin-Madison. Also consider Rutgers, they have a comparatively big particle group and I think you stand a good chance of getting in. I think UT Austin's particle group is actually getting smaller but besides that, geekusprimus's list is pretty complete.

My general impression is that you can apply to more reaches and be a strong applicant to all of them. I'm not gonna say that location shouldn't matter at all, but because hep-th has become so competitive, restricting yourself further to schools in the Northeast would be too much for my liking. If your goal is to continue in academia, it's especially important in this field that you choose a place matching your research interests and skills.



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