Physics GRE Discussion Forums

This is a long post of everyone hearing from their Grad School choices (already). Makes me a lil' nervous to read this thread. At this point, I'm waiting for that first letter back... I dont care if it's a rejection letter... I just want to hear something. The waiting is driving me insane!

I wouldn't fret too much man...the only program I've heard from was a nuclear science and engineering program...if you look at last year's threads, most of those people didn't begin posting their admissions notices until the first week or two of february. Biophysics (and possibly engineering) are a little more on the ball than physics, it appears. Kudos to the physics programs that have already started getting notices out to people...someone must know we're stressing enormously over the suspense! But now is certainly not the time to be making any judgments about your chances...give it a few weeks (as much as it hurts)

Daily schedule:

1) Randomly wake up a half hour before my alarm because I want to see if I got an email from any schools.
2) Sit at my computer and click refresh over and over on gmail, just hoping that google needs a reminder to update my mail.
3) Take a shower while thinking of the chances someone would email me in those 10 minutes.
4) Check the few status pages that post decisions; knowing that if they had I would have first received an email.
5) Go to work knowing that by the time I get home the mail would be delivered.
6) Drive home after work and check mail.
7) Repeat steps 2 and 4.
8 ) Repeat previous step.
9) Repeat previous step.
10) Check one last time after midnight just in cause some schools have their emails set to be sent out the next day.
11) Sleep

same here. Graduated this Fall. Nothing lined up right now. So basically infront of the computer al the time

The frustrating part is that my girlfriend has already heard back from a bunch of Chemistry programs! I dunno what takes physics so long - maybe it's a function of less funding ? ?

In case any of you are wondering, I know for a fact (80% fact) that:

1)Columbia had not yet had a meeting with the dean of the graduate school re:funding up until last week (This came via a professor in the department). They usually aim to have ~20 students enroll.

2) Cornell may/will probably send out their first round acceptances through the mail sometime this week (I was told this via the department secretary)

I'm giving the 80% fact warning in case my memory is faulty. In any case, this information really isn't outwardly useful, but it's nice to know that the ball is rolling in some form or another.

It's natural to feel a little uneasy when the near future is being decided by a committee that you've never met. I have found myself reading these posts to see if anyone has heard from my applied schools. Thankfully, not yet. (-Or its a diss because everyone else here seems to be so brilliant and i'm not in that circle!) I've been entertained by reading the responses to kracker-advocate in the female & physics posts. Funny stuff.

Acceptances so far:

UMaryland-College Park (astro)
UMass-Amherst (astro)
Penn State (astro)
Rochester (phys&astro)....

Still waiting for others...Anyone else heard from those programs?

just got the call from princeton astro saying i was going to be recommended for admission.

pretty much not going to come down from cloud nine until classes start on next tuesday.

awesome

wats ur stats
i will have rough idea wat kind of students they take in. R u a domestic student
i have also applied to places like rochester..and umass
i have got thru to indiana university astronomy

see above.

my stats were posted Sun Jan 07, 2007 2:33 am according to the timestamp on this website.

and i am a domestic applicant

No i actually i was asking that to rss18...
to rj harris......i have seen ur stats ..........quite an enviable one

Daharoni and others: get Gmail Notifier! It automatically checks your gmail every few minutes in the background. Saves me from a LOT of neurotic refreshing and reduces general stress levels

every few minutes isn't fast enough. I usually just have gmail tabbed in Mozilla and it updates pretty often. I was longing for a gmail service that would text message me when I get emails but I don't think they have that.

Gosh that's a little obsessive ...

Are you sure gmail doesn't have that? If you log out of gmail the first thing you see on the log-in screen is an ad for their "gmail by mobile phone" service.

yea, that service is through the internet on your phone... my phone is old and doesn't have internet. I am not really that obsessive... it is just when I have nothing else to do and I am sitting on my computer i find myself refreshing gmail a lot.

Congratulations to all who got acceptances! At least you have some place to go even if it may not be the final choice. My only e-mail worry is that e-mails have been bounced if my e-mail space is used up - mail box full. I keep obsessively deleting old e-mails just to make room for all my notifications. But, why are people so obsessed with e-mail when lots of people got phone calls. The obsessors should spend half their time sitting by the phone .

School -- Ivy, (Astrophysics major) but I've been out for several years. Strong grades, hopefully good recs, a couple of research projects, lower phys GRE (mid 600).

Also, yes, I am domestic.

Still waiting to hear from a bunch of other schools

hey has nebody heard from University of Hawaii Astronomy
or for that matter Penn State Astronomy

pearl jam: I've heard back from Penn State Astronomy. Nothing from Hawaii yet...

just so everyone knows, MIT's physics department is nearing completion of the first round of acceptances. I heard that they had a meeting today to talk about fellowships, and that 6-8 people in astro were recommended. so good luck to everyone.

RJ,

These are specific questions, but I will try anyway:

1) Do you know if they notify through mail, e-mail etc.?
2) Is the entire first round complete (or only certain parts, i.e. astro candidates)?

Thanks

answers (maybe)

1) I don't really know. I have a sneaking suspicion that it is e-mail, but i'm not sure.

2) i believe its the entire first round. they had reps from each division within physics there at the fellowship meeting, i think, so i think its the entire first round.

hope that helps.

I'm wondering how schools notify applicants, too. Do most schools do email, phonecalls followed by letters?? I would like to be notified ASAP, how well do schools do that?

Anyone know the graduate committee routine?

hey rjharris, congrats on princeton astro. they were among my top choices for geographical reasons, but if you've heard already i suppose their spots are full. from what i see on their website the class size is less than 5; did they tell you on the phone how many they were recommending for admission, and if they were done making their choices? the professor at caltech astro that contacted me told me they were recommending less than 10, and 6-8 generally accept. did anyone else hear from them? i'm wondering if they generally send out these things on the same day...

oh well, good luck to everyone!

I officially heard from USC physics today. It was in an email.

Dan1234,

MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering contacted me via email. I know some schools/departments have a policy against contacting via email or the phone for privacy reasons, and I'm thinking MIT physics might have been one of those departments, but it's possible that they may follow a set of university-wide guidelines, in which case it could be that they will send emails like the NSE department.

rjharris,

great job on princeton astro...i applied to their plasma physics program, which is part of the astrophysical sciences department. I got an email a week and a half ago or so asking my permission for them to forward my application to the plasma physics department (funny, because I was under the impression that plasma physics was a division within the astrophysical sciences department). I was on the campus for a week this summer before I ventured off to MIT...beautiful campus, though a lot of construction/restoration was being done, and the dorm room I stayed in was old and crappy on the inside (though I'm pretty sure it was undergraduate, if not freshman, housing). anyway, congrats again

@slee

he didn't tell me how many they recommended, and i really couldn't think straight due to my excitement at the phone call, so i didn't ask. but from their website, it says that a couple of years ago, out of ~ 70 applicants, 11 were offered admission, and 5-6 accepted, and i have no reason to think those numbers are atypical.

@schmit.paul

thanks. i was also under the impression, though, that their plasma physics dept was under astro. the plasma faculty is even listed on the same page as the astro faculty! bizarre...

I got an acceptance email from the U of Washington (Seattle) yesterday. Full tuition, med. insurance, and $1406/mo TA, plus a $2500 fellowship. Still waiting on Harvard and Stanford.

ditto- im pessimistic about Harvard tho (didnt apply to Stanford....)

baksiidaa -- Was that Washington physics or astro?

astrobio,

baksiidaa was probably talking about physics, because my friend just got nearly the same offer from UW physics via email yesterday as well

Physics PhD - Sorry I didn't specify.

just admitted to U Chicago astronomy & astrophysics program.

notification by e-mail

here is the updated list of stats + acceptances:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 Waiting
MIT Physics Waiting
Cornell Physics Waiting
Princeton Astrophysical Sciences Accepted
Chicago Astronomy & Astrophysics Accepted
UCSB Physics Accepted
Caltech Physics Waiting
Berkeley Physics Waiting


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i am a little drunk and a lot of ecstatic, so excuse the column alignment problems above and any other typos.

bah. all my carefully implanted spaces in between the depts and statuses (stati?) were deleted. alas.

oh well.

off to play some hold em

ditto for me for chicago astro...

just took down a bunch of fools in a hold em game...good weekend for gambling

How long to they give you to decide on an acceptance offer? It's not just 2 weeks is it? I hope they don't require an answer before other offers might come through.

Congratulations rjharris - great job!!!

i'm pretty sure that the deadline for acceptance for all schools is april 15. none of the e-mails/phone calls / letters i got mentioned a deadline yet, so i don't really know. seems silly to call to notify, not say anything about a deadline, and then 13 days later say, " oh, by the way, make a decision now."

Yea I have until April 15 to accept my offers, which is good because there are very hard decisions to make.

FYI, on the MIT website,

When will I be notified of a final decision?
Decisions are rendered and sent to applicants for September admission via mail anytime between the middle of February and the end of March. For privacy and security reasons, we cannot notify applicants of final decisions via e-mail or telephone.


http://www.thegradcafe.com seems to support this, at least for those who were notified earlier.

-Dan

I am a german Physics student applying to MS Physics at the University of Maryland.
I have excellent german grades and good recommendations but nearly no research experience.

ToefliBT 116 (out of 120)
GRE general: 800/570/4.0
GRE subject : only 780

I do have a full scholarship from Fulbright but because of this I was only able to apply to one University through Fulbright.
What do you think of my chances?
Thanks

YEY.... I got accepted to Dartmouth Physics

The stipend for the 2006-7 academic year is $1800 per month, and the health insurance contribution is $1380 per year.

plus a GAANN fellowship if i Qualify vis a vie no finances

Congrats to everyone so far.

krymelchen: I'm no expert but you sound like you have excellent chances.
You are coming in with your own funding for one thing. EVERYONE respects the German physicists which probably translates to respect for the training you had thus far. If you don't plan to do research and will just take classes, its probably a no brainer - why would they turn you down for that? If you want to do research then there might be an issue of professors wanting to advise on a master's thesis. A professor may choose to only focus on phd students for research. (I think some of the older profs even onlyl take postdocs.) It depends on what UMD does typically for the master's level. But, since they have an MS physics program where most schools don't, then they would likely have a research option that way. It does seem strange that there are lots of bachelor's opportunities for research and phd opportunities, but what about the master's. BUT, if you find that a professor or the prof you wanted won't take in master's student, there are relationships with some excellent labs nearby, NIH, NIST, NASA, so there would likely be research opportunties.

You can add Boston U to the list of Physics acceptances. I got an email this morning from them. They say there are a lot of people on the waiting list so they would like for me to make a decision with in 3 week... I don't think that is going to happen. Their open house is at the end of march, I am not deciding before that.

davis -- no word on funding though

I am a newbie here. Let me post my stat. first:

International student
Physics major at the best physics dept in a big city (in Asia)
1 year studying aboard experience at one of the UCs in CA
major gpa at my school = 3.4 / 4.0
major gpa at UCXX = 3.8 /4.0
physics GRE : 980
gen. GRE : v. 360 q. 710 a. 4.0
TOEFL iBT : 94 / 120

Research experiences:
1.5 years in an obs. cosmology group at UC, 1 paper in preparation
1 sem on condensed matter theory

Classes:
GR, cosmology and quantum mechanics and q. optics at grad. level

Other exp.:
as an instructor in astronomy at a astronomy center for public outreach

Letters:
2 from Prof. that I have been working with, 1 from the boss at the astronomy center, 1 from a Prof at UC that I had some As from him

SOP:
emphasis on my passion on astronomy and astrophysics

Schools that have no news yet:
caltech (phy)
berkeley (phy)
ucsd
ucsc (astro)
mit
harvard (astro)
chicago (astro)
penn state (astro)
john hopkins
columbia (astro)

School got rejected:
U of arizona (astro)

I have no offer yet.
I am pretty scared right now. I was qutie naive to apply too many top schools after knowing my score for GRE physics. Perhaps it's impressive for locals, but generally internationals get good grades on GRE subj. Also the funding in public school for internationals is a big concern...I think that is one reason for the rejection of UA.

To sum up, my app. has some strong and weak points:

Strong:
interest in astronomy was developed very early, and I am those who really treat astronomy as my career.
I am those who really go stargazing.
good GRE physics
exp. in astro research (though there is no pub)

Weak:
low GPA at my own school (due to the conservative gradings in my dept, I can't help...that's why I go study aboard to prove that my academic ability is as good as others in US)
low GRE quantitative (I have no idea, I just got no luck)
no publication

Uncertainties:
letters....I really have no idea what my profs would write for me
SOP

Got Hawaii astro on Friday.

astroste- don't sweat it... you have a bunch of other schools to hear back from.