Hey all,
I am an international student studied in Penn State University for my junior year physics major. I am going to apply for the graduate school over the summer. I have just done the general GRE and subjects test recently. Although, I have scored 2350 on the general one and 990 on the subject one and I think I can get a good recommendation letters from the faculties, the problem is I have very weak GPA from other competitors. Only 3.36 overall( I sucked on the Gen Ed course on my sophomore year but have an average 3.9 on my junior year). And also, as an internation student, it is really harsh to have a intern or research opportunities from the citizenship elegibility. I have tried on the REU program at my univesity but was also hurrdled by the citizenship requirement. After I talked to my adviosr recently, he told me that is the wrong information that did not take off from the webpages. However, it is too late to apply for any research vaccancies over this summer. Now, I am going to apply for the Graduate school. I was so worried about the conditions that I have now. I am worried that none of the graduate school willl accept for these kind of low GPA and non research experience applicationer like me. Can anybody give me so suggestions or advises? I am really dismayed now.
An Extremely harsh condition for Grad Apply

By the way, don't except to get paid for any of these. haha...
As long as it is above average (3.0 or higher), they could care less about your cumulative grade point average. The gpa they are more interested in is the one of your physics classes as well as math classes. I doubt your grades will be any issue.
Research on the other hand could be a bit of a factor for some schools. You do not need to do an REU program though it would be nice. What you should do is definitely talk to a professor in the department that is working on a project that you are interested in. Ask if you can do anything to help on the project as you are looking for research experience. Then maybe sign up with him under an independent study type thing.
Anyway with your test scores, your gpa (the fact that you attended an American university for those is important), recommendations, and last minute research experience, I am sure you will get into a good physics program.
I had a friend who was from India. He had the same situation that you have except that his test scores were lower and he had research experience. He attended an American university for his undergraduate degree. He didnt have any problems getting into a program and he just recently got his doctorate in physics at Stony Brook.
Research on the other hand could be a bit of a factor for some schools. You do not need to do an REU program though it would be nice. What you should do is definitely talk to a professor in the department that is working on a project that you are interested in. Ask if you can do anything to help on the project as you are looking for research experience. Then maybe sign up with him under an independent study type thing.
Anyway with your test scores, your gpa (the fact that you attended an American university for those is important), recommendations, and last minute research experience, I am sure you will get into a good physics program.
I had a friend who was from India. He had the same situation that you have except that his test scores were lower and he had research experience. He attended an American university for his undergraduate degree. He didnt have any problems getting into a program and he just recently got his doctorate in physics at Stony Brook.