List Physics Grad School Acceptances

l3amm · Post by **l3amm** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:35 pm

I guess someone has to start this list, and since I'm applying to Biophysics Grad School apparently they send the first replies. I was accepted to Yale's MB&B(Molecular biophysics and biochem) program for next year and will be flying out to Yale from feb 1-4. I also have interviews for UCSF biophysics Feb 9-10. My stats, if you're interested:

3.96 GPA (UC Berk.)
4 labs worked in (2 CMB, 1 Quantum Comp, 1 Biophysics)
1540 GRE (800 Q 740 V 5.5 W)
760 Phyiscs sub score
3 solid letters of recomendation, probably good quality but I really don't know
Very solid SOP edited by several grad students and professors.

Richter · Post by **Richter** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 1:01 am

You really have a solid background. No doubt that Yale will give you an early acceptance.

tnoviell · Post by **tnoviell** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:34 am

When was Yale's deadline?

l3amm · Post by **l3amm** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 2:51 am

The yale deadline was the 8th of December, and they replied on the 3rd of January, less than a month, I'm trying to see how many people applied/were accepted.

schmit.paul · Post by **schmit.paul** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 3:24 pm

My apps are mostly to physics programs, with a few applied physics. Stats:

4.00 GPA Physics w/ math minor, large state university
Lab work: development work in a biophysics lab, DOE fellowship that led to summer research in plasma physics at MIT, and just began working in a quantum computation group this semester
GRE General: 780 Q, 610 V, 6.0 writing
960 Physics subject score
4 letters of rec, 2 from research advisors at MIT and my school; 1 from my academic advisor for the last 3 years who also taught 2 of my classes; and 1 from a high energy theorist who taught 2 of my classes and can vouch for my potential in theory better than most of my other letters

I'm still wavering between plasma/fusion theory and high energy theory, so my schools are divided up as follows:

SOP/app emphasizing plasma/fusion theory:
MIT (physics, also nuclear science and engineering)
Princeton (astrophysical sciences)
Columbia (applied physics/applied mathematics)
UCLA (physics)

SOP/app emphasizing high energy theory:
Harvard (physics)
Stanford (physics)
Caltech (physics)
UC Berkeley (physics)

Also going for Hertz, NSF, NDSEG, and ORISE fellowships. Didn't have any prof's look over my SOP, which I now realize may have been a critical error, but I did edit it ~20-30 times and my friend and I peer reviewed each other's. Hoping I didn't bite off more than I can chew. This next month and a half or so should be pretty damn exciting, for better or for worse.

Good luck everyone

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Sat Jan 06, 2007 10:33 pm

Stats:

Bachelor's candidate in both physics and math
4.8/5.0 GPA (undergrad, graduate classes 4.0/5.0) at MIT

Research experience:

1 semester and 1 summer of doing computational astrophysics (binary star evolution).

about 2 years of experimental astro work with data analysis and periodicity detection with data from X-ray observatory / timing satellite.

Publications:

1 ATel (astronomer's telegram) as second author
1 publication hopefully to come out in late Jan.
1 thesis to be completed this semester

GRE:
Physics 990
General 800 Q / 630 V / 5.5 W

Letters : 3 of which two should be very good. These two are from my research advisors. The other one which should be decent to good is from my academic advisor / lab instructor.

Statement of purpose: had several people look over it. at the early stages i had my research advisor (a scientist at MIT who has been on the admissions committee before) look at my SOP and he suggested improvements. after that, I had several others check for style, etc. and I feel it's solid as far as writing goes.

Applying in high-energy astrophysics (either experimental or theory) but have expressed some interest in observational cosmology

Schools / depts.

Harvard Astronomy
MIT Physics
Cornell Physics
Princeton Astrophysical Sciences
Chicago Astronomy & Astrophysics
UCSB Physics
Caltech Physics
Berkeley Physics

ualritemate · Post by **ualritemate** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:59 am

congartulations on your acceptance;
i guess i won't hear from school until after mid-february....
for some schools, application deadlines aren't closed yet...

Richter · Post by **Richter** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:41 pm

You guys are really amazing! I think you are definitely going to enter the schools you are applying for.
Sometimes I really envy you guys having such a nice research environment and excellent preparation for graduate school application, reflected from your high scores in GRE and extensive physics research background.

braindrain · Post by **braindrain** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 6:25 pm

Congratulations, 13amm! Looks like you're the first
acceptance of the season!

tnoviell · Post by **tnoviell** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 3:56 pm

I heard from Hopkins today - I got accepted.

soluyanov · Post by **soluyanov** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 1:19 pm

Tnoviell, congratulations!!!

Did you apply to physics? And when was their deadline?

physgeek · Post by **physgeek** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 7:03 pm

This post has been removed

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:06 pm

Hi everyone,

This may not be the correct thread, but does anyone know about the admissions stats (avg. gre, etc.) for Chicago's Dept. of astronomy & astrophysics? I was just wondering. Thanks

phun · Post by **phun** » Sun Jan 14, 2007 11:13 pm

http://www.gradschoolshopper.com/gpb_se ... it2=submit

look for the program.

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:28 am

hi,

wondering if anyone applying to chicago in astro. can tell me this. the info at gradschoolshopper says that the financial aid deadline = application deadline = 12/28. but, the application itself said jan 12., and the app said it was the same app for admission as for financial aid. wtf is up with this? thanks.

CPT · Post by **CPT** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 2:10 am

@rjharris: Dec 28th is the Physics department deadline, Jan 12th is the deadline for the Astronomy & Astrophysics department. Some of the fellowships that are common to both Physics and Astro, willl start getting filled up earlier than the Jan 12th deadline, so it's better to apply earlier, that's all.

Best of luck to y'all.

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 2:36 pm

CPT:

thanks for the info. i looked at grad shopper, and it said that chicago admitted 4 out of 189 applicants in astro (!) I was not aware that they were so incredibly selective. you think that the number might be those that matriculated or those that were actually offerred admission? or, maybe last year was a lean year

/as you can tell, i'm a bit worried by that stat.

braindrain · Post by **braindrain** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:08 pm

I have the paper book from grad shopper which I got from the AIP and mine says for the dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics for Chicago, for 2005-2006, 5 students were admitted from 201 applicants so I guess that was the year before.

CPT · Post by **CPT** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:13 pm

Yikes! Those are scary stats. But then probably These things vary year to year, and if they've taken a lot of students then they'll like to reduce intake for the next year or so. This lean patch would mean that they're probably likely to take more students now.

Anyway, how reliable is Grad Shopper? I wouldn't trust third party sources too much if I were you. Ask a few grad students at Chicago, or maybe a prof you know to find out more accurately about this.

astrobio · Post by **astrobio** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:36 pm

For Chicago astrophysics, I am pretty sure that's the number that enrolled last year, not applied! One of my friends was one of the people who enrolled to start their astrophysics program last year, and I think she said that there's 3 or 4 people in her class, soooo... I'm pretty sure that everyone they accepted didn't go there, because that would be weird and different.

jormiga · Post by **jormiga** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:24 am

I agree with astrobio. You should also take a look at source of support of first year students. You can check the number of first year students getting TAships, fellowships, etc... If that number matches closely the number of "accepted" students, you can be pretty confident that the program is just trying to look as if only deities can get into it.

The GradSchoolShopper book is a valuable resource, but you have to be very keen and consider many aspects while looking at it. While its reliability is a subject of debate, I consider it to be much more elucidating that the US News or the NRC rankings. If you are interested in say, condensed matter, you can just take a look at how much money a department has in that area to learn about its strength, or the number of researchers active in that particular area. You can normalize the money by the number of professors if you don't want to be unfair to smaller, high-quality departments.

Good luck... the waiting game begins in a few hours for most of us. I really hope you went through an apotheosis during your undergrad years if you want to get into UChicago astro

(sarcasm)

astrobio · Post by **astrobio** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:57 am

I hear that last year, Chicago astrophysics accepted approximately 9 students first round, and 3 accepted. Then they went back for another round and got one more admitted student. Bringing the total to 4! But still probably a total accepted number overall of like 14. The source is a student at Chicago and not faculty/member of the admissions committee, but I would bet it's pretty accurate. I would also guess that the number of applications is also approximately correct on the grad school shopper website. A 10% acceptance rate seems about par for that caliber of graduate school.

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 1:16 am

okay, that seems reasonable. i talked with a professor at MIT, and he said that last year, they accepted 16 people who wanted to do astro and (to the faculty's shock) somewhere between 12 and 14 enrolled, so this year will be pretty lean for astro students. but the number of accepted students is consistent with chicagos (after factoring in possible differences in funding, number of faculty, etc.)

braindrain · Post by **braindrain** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:02 pm

I heard there were and still are severe budget problems in astro. The interest in going to mars and other exploration over science discovery may have changed the budgeting landscape at least from money coming from NASA. It could be tight until the presidents change in 2 years which may or may not have an effect. But low budgets may mean a good time to go to grad school because by the time you get out things change again. That could be why the spots are tight and most everyone accepts the offers - less places to work in the field right now. But, one advisor I spoke to said don't pick your field by budgets but by what you love to do.

l3amm · Post by **l3amm** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:39 pm

Today I received and email from UC Berkeley Biophysics stating that I am invited to interview with 5-7 professors of my choice in early february. Yay for more interviews. I'm still not sure how many people who are interviewed get accepted, it's kind of annoying and intimidating.

tnoviell · Post by **tnoviell** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:09 am

Getting interview invitations are the same as being accepted. As I stated before, they aren't going to dump thousands on paying for you to visit if you weren't accepted. Would that make any sense, really? I don't think I've heard of anyone getting interviewed who didn't get accepted.

l3amm · Post by **l3amm** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:31 am

Cool. The admission committees are extremeley vague on this point however. When I asked how many people who interviewed were accepted, they said that those numbers vary from year to year, Blah blah and that they don't officially accept until after the interview process.

CPT · Post by **CPT** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:35 am

Getting selected for the interview means you're through, unless you royally fsck up the interview. They'll just generally ask you about your interests and your expectations etc, get to know you better etc. From what I've heard, it's usually more of an opportunity for the university to woo you and convince you to join.

So, congratulations & Good luck!

l3amm · Post by **l3amm** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:23 pm

Anyway today I got a call from the head of the Biophysics department at harvard. I am accepted and they are having their visiting weekend on the 22nd of Feb. I am reaping the rewards of earlier applications due dates, apparently.

braindrain · Post by **braindrain** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:54 pm

Congratulations!!!!

The chair CALLED you on the telephone? And you are sure it wasn't a crank call?

What did he/she say exactly, did he/she/it talk to you at length? I would still want it in writing. (We were laughing once at the crank call possibilities for Nobel prize winners. In fact some of them would think it was a crank call if it wasn't for the Swedish accents.) That's a good warning though. I better be nice to people on the telephone between now and mid-March. I might think a professor is telemarketer and hang up

and say don't call here again.

CPT · Post by **CPT** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 1:21 am

Wow! Congratulations l3amm ... great going. So, you got an actual pone call? This wasn't a letter by mail, 'cause I thought these people said that they don't disclose results over phone or email (but I guess that's just to keep nervous students from bugging them all the time)

l3amm · Post by **l3amm** » Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:27 am

Yep, phone call and the whole nine yards. Pretty awesome i'm looking forward to visiting in the end of february.

Daharoni · Post by **Daharoni** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:42 am

I got accepted to the USC physics department (Not officially but heard it directly from the graduate adviser) ... I went to visit them today. This is the first school I have heard back from... the lowest ranked school I applied to (a big back up school) but it is nice hearing a Yes.

For anyone else who applied to the USC physics program, they said the official acceptances should be sent out by the end of the month.

JackSkellington · Post by **JackSkellington** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 11:38 pm

I got accepted to UWashington (physics) today- this is the first school ive heard back from. Its nice to know I got into graduate school.

Jaunty · Post by **Jaunty** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:28 am

I also just received an email from UWashington Physics dept. saying I was accepted. This is the first place I heard back from (of 12 schools) too. I was pretty surprised to hear anything this early as I only sent in my application about 2 weeks ago. I am very excited to at least have somewhere to go next year

CPT · Post by **CPT** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 3:06 am

Congratulations both of you. When was the Washington deadline? Now the suspense is gettin' more n more unbearable ...

Jaunty · Post by **Jaunty** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 4:10 am

The UW deadline was Jan. 15th, and I think I sent in my stuff so it would arrive around then. It seems these places offer admissions as they read through the apps to some extent.

physicsgirl · Post by **physicsgirl** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 2:36 pm

Today I received an acceptance to Ohio State physics by mail, TAship & all tution fees/waived. While it is one of my safety schools, it sure is nice to get my first acceptance. Good luck to everyone!

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 5:05 pm

*anxiously waits*

congrats on everyone's acceptances so far.

skozmedia · Post by **skozmedia** » Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:40 pm

I heard that Berkeley was calling people

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:42 pm

You got a call on a Sunday? Odd...

devilzadvocate · Post by **devilzadvocate** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 5:40 am

Saw people were applying to over 4 places on an average....strange..I've applied to 2 only..fairly confident of getting calls from both....
UIUC (Cond. Matt.) and MIT (Cond.Matt.)...

Stats are asunder:
GPA : 4.00 (University of North Carolina , Chapel Hill)
Advanced GRE: 990
General GRE: 800 (q)/ 730 (v)
Writing : 5.5
Publications: 1 AJP, 2 PRL
Summer interns at UC Berkeley, IAS and MIT.
Recommendations : 2 from MIT , 1 from IAS and one from my school.
Silver medallist @ International Physics Olympiad.

pearl jam · Post by **pearl jam** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 7:50 am

has nebody received a call from indiana university astronomy department

wat is the current scenario in aoolications to astronomy departments
is it very crowded lets say like condensed matter or high energy

nimbus · Post by **nimbus** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:37 am

I´m glad I didn´t apply the places devilzadvocate did

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:44 am

@pearl jam

Astronomy is not as crowded, but there are fewer spots available.

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:02 am

add santa barbara physics to that list (jan 29, via e-mail)

schmit.paul · Post by **schmit.paul** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:15 am

good job rjharris, i kind of overlooked ucsb for high energy theory and applied to harvard, stanford, caltech, and berkeley, but ucsb has a killer theory program...their astronomy/cosmology theory has got to be pretty strong as well

rjharris · Post by **rjharris** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:39 am

yeah. they've (apparently) become very good since the NRC rankings for astro came out in '95. At least when I told my prof. (relatively famous guy as far as X-ray astronomers go) the schools i was going to apply to (all for astro) he said something like all top ten, or something like that. plus, we've worked with a guy out of the KITP at SB, and they seem like they're quality. so, we'll see what happens. their visiting days are March 12-13, a monday and a tuesday (yuck). hope i don't miss my GR class, the only really good class i'm taking this term

dan1234 · Post by **dan1234** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:09 pm

Hello,
I've been following the forums and decided to register to share exact info on my admits/rejects.

Vague Stats:
Physics/Math major at Ivy. Applying for Condensed Matter. Good recs, a couple of REUs of research, and very good academic record.

Applying to...

Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Columbia
Cornell
UChicago
UPenn (Admitted Jan 26)

ZAMS · Post by **ZAMS** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:00 pm

I've also been following but have never posted. Got the acceptance call from Penn State Astrophysics yesterday.

List Physics Grad School Acceptances

List Physics Grad School Acceptances

Acceptances (or otherwise...)

Chicago admissions stats?

re: berkeley biophysics

I heard the news today o boy

ohio state

Applications

indiana university

Glad

hello