2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

  • 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.

drumminskillz
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 5:52 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by drumminskillz » Thu Jan 15, 2015 5:58 pm

Undergrad Institution: Small private university, not known for physics
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Mathematics
GPA in Major: 4.0/4.0
Overall GPA: 3.6/4.0
Length of Degree: Switch majors, so did physics in 3 years.
Position in Class: Top physics student
Type of Student: Male white domestic

GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q:170 (98%)
V:160 (84%)
W:4.0 (56%)
P:650 (40%) <- I took the PGRE before taking most of my upper level physics courses.



Research Experience: 2.5 years of research in various fields, including work at Fermilab.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's list, nothing special.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutor, TA for several classes, SPS President

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points:

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Took entire physics curriculum in 3 years.

Applying to Where:

All Condensed Matter Experimental:

Stanford- Rejected 2/17
UCSB- Rejected 2/24
UCLA-
UC Irvine
Colorado Boulder-
UW Madison- Rejected 2/2
University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana)-
Iowa State- Accepted 2/13 ($1900/month for 9 months TA)
Mizzou-
Vanderbilt-
Notre Dame-
Purdue- Accepted 1/21 ($18.6k/9 months TA + $1.7k over the summer)
Last edited by drumminskillz on Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:37 pm, edited 6 times in total.

hari00968
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 4:07 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by hari00968 » Fri Jan 16, 2015 4:26 am

Undergrad Institution: Indian technical institute. Well known for engineering, top in the country for engineering, physics.
Major(s): Engineering (interdisciplinary)
Minor(s): Physics
GPA in Major: 8.8/10
Overall GPA: 8.64/10
Length of Degree: 5 years
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: International male.

GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 170 (98th percentile)
V: 162 (89th percentile)
W: 5.0 (94th percentile)
P: 990 (94th percentile)

TOEFL Total: 113/120 (iBT)

Research Experience: 12 months, at the physics department in my school. Details -
Computational condensed matter physics - 6 months - conference poster presentation.
Computatonal materials science - 6 months - conference, published in proceedings.
Computational solid mechanics - 3 months - no conference/publication.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: None.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: TA for a sophomore course, 6 months.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: None.

Special Bonus Points: Graduate level courses in condensed matter physics, mathematical physics.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Strong extra-curriculars?

Applying to Where: (Mostly materials science departments with a research focus on CMP/faculty from physics)

U of British Columbia - Engineering Physics - CMP th/exp - Rejected
U of Virginia - Engineering Physics - CMP exp - 11/02 - Accepted to the PhD program! RA, $22,500 first two years, $24,000 after.
Cornell - Materials Science - CMP th/exp (Master's) - 23/02 - Accepted without funding.
Penn State - Materials Science - CMP exp (Master's) - Accepted with funding into MS/PhD program. RA, $27,000 p.a. Attending!
UT Austin - Materials Science - CMP th/exp - Rejected
UMich Ann Arbor - Materials Science - CMP th/exp - Rejected
UIUC - Materials Science - CMP th/exp - Rejected
ENS Lyon (Erasmus Mundus ATOSIM) - Computational Physics - 03/07 - Accepted, with funding.
______________________________________________

Since my undergraduate major is in engineering, and I have neither a perfect GPA nor any publications, the selectivity of graduate programs in physics makes it impossible to get into any of the well known schools. However, I have found that several physics faculty members working in CMP (mostly experimental, in rare cases theory) are also part of their respective schools' materials science departments. I hope that by applying to engineering physics/materials science graduate programs, my engineering background wouldn't be as much of a deterrent to admissions committees.

UPDATE - Worked! Having joined a graduate program in Materials Science, I see there is ample scope to work in experimental condensed matter physics, despite not formally belonging to the department of Physics. I assume it would be similar in other schools.
Last edited by hari00968 on Mon Sep 07, 2015 9:44 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Rotenberg
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 10:40 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by Rotenberg » Fri Jan 16, 2015 11:31 pm

Undergrad Institution: Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly University of Missouri-Rolla)... mainly engineering, probably not much of a reputation in physics.
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Mathematics
GPA in Major: 4.00
Overall GPA: 4.00
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: Domestic white male

GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 170 (98%)
V: 169 (99%)
W: 3.5 (38%)
P: 980 (93%)

Research Experience: In the middle of two semesters of senior lab class research projects. That's it. :(

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's List, Academic Scholar's List

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutored math and physics one semester, SPS member

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Lots of programming experience (personal and professional) in several languages.

Special Bonus Points: Taking a semester of graduate-level quantum mechanics.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: I have a fairly non-traditional academic history--dropped out of high school, took the GED, and attended two community colleges full time before transferring.

Applying to Where:

MIT - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via email 2/18
Harvard - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via website 3/2
Caltech - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via email 2/23
Stanford - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via email 2/17
UC Berkeley - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via website 3/12
Princeton - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via email 2/19
Chicago - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via email 3/3
University of Washington - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Accepted via email 1/29 - TA and $4k scholarship = $1500 + $1956/mo. - Accepted offer 3/13 - Will attend
CU-Boulder - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via email 3/11
Washington University in St. Louis - Physics - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Accepted via email 1/30 - $25,500/yr fellowship for 3 years + $8,500 for one summer - Declined offer 3/13
Cambridge - Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (MASt.) - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via website 2/11
British Columbia - Physics (M.Sc.) - HEP/Astro/Cosmology Theory - Rejected via email 3/12


Captain Obvious says: HEP-th is hard. Shows that you can get accepted at respectable places without any actual research experience, though (not that I recommend trying to)
Last edited by Rotenberg on Fri Mar 13, 2015 2:30 am, edited 11 times in total.

vagnox92
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2014 10:57 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by vagnox92 » Sat Jan 17, 2015 4:23 am

Undergrad Institution: University of Trento. Very small public University in Italy, building a good reputation for physics
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 29.6/30
Overall GPA:
Length of Degree: 3
Position in Class: Top 3

Master's: University of Melbourne. Big foreign public University, strong reputation for physics
Major(s): Theoretical Particle Physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 91.4/100
Overall GPA:
Length of Degree: 2
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: International Male

GRE Scores: revised
Q: 169 (97%)
V: 159 (81%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 960 (91%)


TOEFL Total: 118

Research Experience: at my Master's institution, 2 years of research experience. 2 papers, one accepted by PRD and chosen for an Editors' Suggestion (yay! they said it was really interesting and well written) and one submitted for publication. Two poster presentations at a workshop and a Winter School. Since I finished my Master's in December I am spending the period of time until Fall 2015 as a visiting student at a very important research institute in Europe, the Niels Bohr Institute, doing research with a visiting Professor from Oxford.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: various within my school and college (such as "you have good marks" stuff), plus a recognition the ministry of public education in Italy and a prestigious scholarship from the government of Australia. Graduated with 110/110 from my Undergraduate institution and with First Class Honours from my Master's one.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: tutor in College and at the University, laboratory demonstrator, Postgraduate Physics Students' Society Secretary, engaged in a lot of outreach, good programming skills.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Master's thesis was awarded a very high mark, hold a violin diploma, speak 3 languages, lived in several different countries (hopefully can help on diversity statement), attended various workshops, attended two Winter Schools recently.

Special Bonus Points: three very famous recommenders with very good connections in most of the places where I applied to.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: spent some time on exchange at Imperial College and now working at the Niels Bohr Institute with a visiting Professor from Oxford. I think my recommendations are very strong and people have told me my SoP was very well written. Mentioned 3-4 Professors I wanted to work with in my SoP, and was very specific about parts of their research I'm interested in, I read their papers very carefully. Also kept an open mind mentioning other opportunities should these Professors not be available. Took graduate courses and obtained high marks.

Applying to Where: all for particle phenomenology, cosmology and mixtures of the two.

MIT - Physics - Rejected 2/18 via email
Caltech - Physics - Rejected 2/23 via email
Harvard - Physics - Rejected 3/2 via website
University of Chicago - Physics - Rejected 3/3 via email to check website
UCLA - Physics & Astronomy - Rejected 2/27 via email to check website
University of Pennsylvania - Physics & Astronomy - Rejected 3/18 via email to check website
Johns Hopkins - Physics & Astronomy - Accepted 2/3 via email - Declined
Carnegie Mellon - Physics - Accepted 2/20 via email - Declined
Ohio State University - Physics - Accepted 2/12 via email - Declined
University of Minnesota - Physics & Astronomy - Accepted 1/29 via email - Declined
UC Santa Cruz - Physics - Accepted 2/20 via email - Declined
UC Irvine - Physics & Astronomy - Invited to Open House 2/23 via email - Unofficially accepted 2/24 upon email enquiry - Declined
University of Utah - Physics & Astronomy - Accepted 2/5 via email - Declined
Temple University - Physics - Withdrawn
McGill - Physics - Rejected 3/30 via email to check website
University of Melbourne - Physics - Accepted 1/20 via email - Declined
University of Heidelberg - Institute for Theoretical Physics - Rejected 1/17 upon email enquiry
IMPRS - Elementary Particle Physics - Rejected 11/05 via email
Royal Holloway - Physics - Invited for interview 2/15 via email - Interview 2/16 via Skype - Accepted 2/20 via email - Declined
University of Oxford - Physics - Rejected 3/4 upon email enquiry
University of Southampton - Physics - Invited for interview 2/26 via email - Withdrawn
University of Sussex - Physics - Invited for interview 3/9 via email - Withdrawn
University of Edinburgh - Physics & Astronomy - Invited for interview 2/16 via email - Interview 2/25 via Skype - Unofficially accepted 3/11 upon email enquiry - Declined
Durham University - Physics - Invited for interview 2/26 via email - Interview 3/3 via Skype - Accepted 3/12 via email - Declined
Stockholm University - Oskar Klein Centre - Accepted 12/14 via email - WILL ATTEND!!!! Joint position between the Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics at Stockholm University, and the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA). Primary advisor will be Katherine Freese, coadvisors will be Lars Bergström and Joakim Edsjö. Salary starting at 24100 SEK/month (~2800 US$/month), increasing to ~28000 SEK/month (~3300 US$/month), eventually with extras from TA :lol:
Utrecht University - Institute for Theoretical Physics - Selected to write a research proposal 1/23 via email - Withdrawn
University of Amsterdam - GRAPPA - Invited for interview 12/22 via email - Interview 2/12 and 2/13 in person, 2/16 via Skype - Accepted 2/17 via email - Declined
Leiden University - Leiden de Sitter Cosmology Programme - Invited for interview 12/18 via email - Accepted 1/19 upon receiving Leiden/Huygens fellowship - Declined
Leiden University - Leiden/Huygens Fellowship - Accepted 1/19 via email - Declined
Leiden University - Instituut-Lorentz - Withdrawn
Last edited by vagnox92 on Sun Apr 12, 2015 12:13 pm, edited 99 times in total.

blevyblevy
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:35 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by blevyblevy » Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:52 pm

Undergrad Institution: Top-ranked Midwest Liberal Arts School - very good physics reputation among its peer institutions
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): none
GPA in Major: 3.8
Overall GPA: 3.6
Length of Degree: 4 year
Position in Class: pretty average, I think, but I don't really know.
Type of Student: domestic white male

GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 163 (86%)
V: 162 (89%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 600 (29%)

Research Experience: Two summers of research experience (experimental optics and condensed matter) at large research universities, but no publications or conference talks. I have also done a little bit of research at my home institution.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Freshman year Dean's List

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: not really...

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Captain of Varsity sports team -- I don't know.... maybe it helps?

Special Bonus Points: none that I can think of. One recommendation is coming from within a school to which I am applying.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Worked in Mechanical engineering industry for four summers.

Applying to Where:
(all experimental condensed matter except where noted)
Cornell Rejected 2/17/15
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) Rejected 2/11/15
University of Colorado (Boulder) - Optics Rejected 3/11/15
Colorado School of Mines - Clean Energy Physics Rejected 3/20/15
University of Minnesota (Twin Cities) waitlist
Michigan State University (East Lansing) **Accepted 1/16/15** Declined
University of North Carolina (UNC Chapel Hill) **Accepted 4/5/15** Going Here!!!!
University of Washington (Seattle) Rejected 3/9/15
University of Virginia (UVA Charlottesville) waitlist -- withdrawn
Notre Dame Rejected 4/3/15
Last edited by blevyblevy on Wed Apr 15, 2015 11:01 pm, edited 4 times in total.

myjlt
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:53 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by myjlt » Sun Jan 18, 2015 8:46 pm

Undergrad Institution: Ivy
Major(s): Physics, Mathematics
GPA in Major: 3.99, 3.97
Overall GPA: 3.98
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: Asian male

GRE Scores : (old)
Q: 800 (92%)
V: 700 (96%)
W: 3.0 (15%)
P: 990 (94%)

Research Experience : 1. Accelerator Experiment(1 year, 1 paper), 2. Particle Theory(1 year, 1 paper)

Independent Study: 1. String Theory(1 year, studied Polchinski, Kiritsis under supervision of a professor)
2. Mathematical Physics(1 semester, studied second half of Nakahara under supervision of a math professor)

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: 1. $50,000/year for 4 years in undergrad from some private foundation 2.Phi Beta Kappa member

Special Bonus Points: Have taken all first-year physics grad courses(QM(2), E&M, Stat Mech), and all hep grad courses(QFT(3), GR(2), Pheno(2), String(1)) + algebraic topology, and the math independent study is equivalent to algebraic topology + differentiable manifold + alpha). Got 4 strong letters from my research, independent study advisors.


Applying to Where: all string theory, quantum gravity

Princeton - Physics - HEP Theory (rejected via e-mail, 2/19)
Stanford - Physics - HEP Theory (rejected via e-mail, 2/17)
Harvard - Physics - HEP Theory (rejected via e-mail(I asked the result), 2/27)
MIT - Physics - HEP Theory (rejected via e-mail, 2/18)
UCSB - Physics - HEP Theory (rejected via e-mail, 2/24)
UC Berkeley - Physics - HEP Theory (accepted via e-mail, 2/23)
Caltech - Physics - HEP Theory (rejected via e-mail, 2/23)
Stony Brook - Physics - HEP Theory (accepted via e-mail, 1/18)(>$26,000 TA)
Rutgers - Physics - HEP Theory
U of Michigan - Physics - HEP Theory (wait-listed via e-mail, 2/22)
UPENN - Physics - HEP Theory
UCSD - Physics - HEP Theory
UCSC - Physics - HEP Theory (accepted via e-mail, 2/20)(~$30,000 including $10,000 Regents' Fellowship)
Last edited by myjlt on Fri Feb 27, 2015 10:00 am, edited 14 times in total.

i_like_mango
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2012 8:27 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by i_like_mango » Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:56 am

Undergrad Institution: top 5 in physics
Major(s): physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.185
Overall GPA: 3.2ish
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: don't know
Type of Student: domestic asian male

GRE Scores : old version, took em a while ago before the revision
Q: 800
V: 550
W: 4.5
P: 890

Research Experience: Did a couple years at one lab during undergrad, experimental dark matter search. Worked in another lab after graduation doing submillimeter astronomy. Two conference proceedings and one poster presentation.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:
Tutored other students in physics.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Don't think so.

Special Bonus Points: Strong letters. I'm handy with a screwdriver and am good at making things.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: I had personal stuff that influenced my GPA. Took a few years off after undergrad.

Applying to Where: Mostly experimental astro with some high energy and condensed matter stuff. I applied to the physics department at all schools.

UIUC - accepted 1/23 via email!!!!!! will be attending
Cornell - rejected
U Maryland, College Park - rejected
U Colorado, Boulder - rejected
Johns Hopkins - rejected
CMU - rejected (they have a free application)
UT Austin -
UC Berkeley - rejected
UC Davis - rejected
UC Irvine - rejected
UC Santa Barbara - rejected
UC Santa Cruz - accepted 2/20 via email, $6k Regents' fellowship

In hindsight, it wasn't a good time to apply to the UCs. UCD and UCI were supposed to be my safety schools. Santa Cruz is a really beautiful place with a lot of happy people. It was tough to turn down their offer.

To those of you who are going through this site and are getting depressed from seeing all the 4.0/990's and the omgMyGPAIsOnly3.95DoIEvenHaveAChance posts, I hope my profile makes you feel a little better. Feel free to message me if you'd like to know more details and stuff.
Last edited by i_like_mango on Tue Apr 21, 2015 6:37 am, edited 5 times in total.

zeper
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2015 4:03 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by zeper » Mon Jan 19, 2015 4:26 pm

Undergrad Institution: (top 2 university in Turkey)
Major(s): physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 2.90 /4.00
Overall GPA: 2.35 /4.00
Length of Degree: 4 years)
Position in Class: middle
Type of Student: International female minority

GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q: 163
V: 142
W: 3.0
P: 740


TOEFL Total: (96)

Research Experience: at freshman worked at lab for granular matter physics-non newtonian fluids
at sophomore I worked at computational analysis and modelling for climate physics
at junior and senior, I entered the high energy group and study the cyclotron building and responsible proton tracking system
last year I went to CERN for cms upgrade in order to study my master thesis

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: (I am currently a TA and RA at private university, before that when I was undergrad I have 3 years of student assistantship at freshmen and sophomore labs and tutor since high school)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: ( my recommendations are highly valuable, my gpa is low but the university I graduated is known as a little bit not generous for grading for all students,my advisors certainly emphasise it and some of the usa universities already know the reputation that might be positive I don't know...I attended lots of workshops, winter-summer schools...)

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

I started to school two years earlier, I also started to play tennis at the age of five since then I was a pro-tennis player , competed at national and international tournaments, I love doing sports, I am also a semi-pro diver with 2 stars.

Applying to Where:
I am experimentalist but I did not decide the area exactly, I am between cosmology and biophysics...but I didn't clarified it during the application just said experiment. As you can see I am not applying for top 10 ... it is impossible with this gpa...I mainly apply for the schools where I pick couple of researchers I would like to study with...It doesn't matter for me the name of the college as long as I enjoy doing research.

Brown Physics
University of Maryland Physics Rejected 02/19
University of Michigan Ann-Arbour Physics
University of Pittsburg
U-Mass
Tufts U.
Northeastern U.
Rutgers
Rochester
Carnegie....



GOOD LUCK ALL OF US=)
______________________________________________
Last edited by zeper on Thu Feb 19, 2015 10:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

Strange_Beauty
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Oct 31, 2014 2:11 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by Strange_Beauty » Wed Jan 21, 2015 8:52 pm

______________________________________________
Undergrad Institution: Big State in the US, with a lot of research activities
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): None
GPA in Major: < 3.9 (approximately for privacy)
Overall GPA: < 3.9 (approximately for privacy)
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: Around top
Type of Student: International Male

GRE Scores : mediocre (approximately for privacy)
Q: >160
V: <160
W: low
P: < 800


TOEFL Total: Waived for most school. Otherwise, about >100 (2 year old score)

Research Experience: 1 summer at a national lab, about one year of a particle experiments(1 UROP)
Publication: no journal but some online conference proceeding kind of thing

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: a lot of small and few-grands-worth scholarships

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: none

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: grad classes, possibly postitive LOR (?)

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: a previous very very crappy university degree&transcript from Abroad, then 2 years at a community college, 2 years at home US university,. a summer class at a different university on an uncommon topic in undergraduate curriculum

Applying to Where:
Univ. Minnesota Twin-Cities: Accepted Jan 28th
Stony Brook : Accepted Jan 20th. 500 people applied
New York University: Informally Accepted Jan 28nd by e-mail. Funding info to come mid Feb: a four-years fellowship. TA is optional and pay additionally. !
Univ. Pittsburgh Accepted Feb 05 by e-mail. first year fellowship
Boston University Accepted by e-mail Feb 11.
CMU Feb 05 wait-listed by e-mail.

Brown: rejected for PhD, accepted for paid master

*recommendation: I recommend future students to choose LOR providers who seem to think highly of you (even unreasonably high) and who believe that you can get into [the kind of your dream schools or better]. Show potential providers your profile and ask them what do they predict of the apps outcome, where should you apply, etc.. to probe their opinions of you

I was getting LORs from who know me the most but in hindsight, that is not automatically a good strategy. if prof A knows you personally well but think of you as an ordinarily good student, while prof B knows you less but somehow get the impression that you are the best of the class, then B is a better provider.
Last edited by Strange_Beauty on Wed Mar 18, 2015 12:28 am, edited 16 times in total.

FuturePhD
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:00 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by FuturePhD » Fri Jan 23, 2015 2:18 pm

Undergrad Institution: Small Liberal Arts School
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Math
GPA in Major: 3.8
Overall GPA: 3.8
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: Domestic White Female

GRE Scores:
Q: 167 (94%)
V: 165 (95%)
W: 5.5 (98%)
P: 770 (66%)


TOEFL Total: n/a

Research Experience: Two undergraduate research projects, one in theoretical CMP and the other in theoretical cosmology. Cosmology honors project. Poster presentation at a professional conference on the CMP project.

Publications: None.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Large merit scholarship to my undergrad institution, physics departmental award, Dean's list.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Currently taking a "gap year" before grad school and working in industry doing experimental materials science/engineering.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Studied abroad at Oxford, vice president of physics club at my undergrad institution.

Special Bonus Points: Female, I have worked very closely with all three of my recommenders and (I think) they gave me strong recommendations.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Socioeconomically disadvantaged (included for schools that asked for a "diversity"-type statement).

Applying to Where:
All for physics with an emphasis on computational physics.

UT Austin - Still no word, nor a response to my email inquiry. Weird.
U of Minnesota - Accepted via email, 1/28
U of Wisconsin - Accepted via email, 1/23
U of Chicago - Rejected via email prompt to check website, 3/3
U of Washington - Accepted via email, 1/22 - WILL ATTEND!
UC Berkeley - Rejected via email prompt to check website, 3/12
Stanford - Rejected via email, 2/17
UC Santa Barbara - Rejected via email prompt to check website, 2/24
UC San Diego - Rejected via email, 3/10
Princeton - Rejected via email, 2/19
Last edited by FuturePhD on Wed Mar 25, 2015 10:51 am, edited 3 times in total.

astroindian
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2015 5:25 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by astroindian » Sun Jan 25, 2015 7:33 am

Undergrad Institution: A new Indian institute
Major(s): Physics
GPA in Major: 9.5/10
Overall GPA: 9.1/10
Length of Degree: 5 years
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: Indian, International

GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 170 (98%)
V: 159 (81%)
W: 4.0 (56%)
P: 990 (94%)


TOEFL Total: 111

Research Experience: Two summer projects in astronomy. One year long master's thesis project in cosmology. No publications.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: None

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: None

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: None

Special Bonus Points: None

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: None

Applying to Where:

Ohio State - Astronomy rejected via email
University of Arizona - Astronomy rejected via email
Penn State - Astronomy and Astrophysics - accepted via email on 24th Jan
University of Maryland, College Park - Astronomy
Cornell - Astronomy rejected via email
University of Chicago - Astronomy and Astrophysics rejected
Columbia - Astronomy accepted. Will attend
Yale - Astronomy rejected
Caltech - Astronomy rejected via email
Princeton - Astrophysical sciences rejected via email
UCLA - Physics and Astronomy rejected
Carnegie Mellon University - Physics accepted via email
Last edited by astroindian on Wed Apr 22, 2015 11:28 am, edited 2 times in total.

JonC85
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:41 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by JonC85 » Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:52 am

Undergrad Institution: QMUL (English, with a great theory group)
Major(s): Theoretical Physics
Minor(s): not applicable to UK institutions
GPA in Major: First Class Honours
Overall GPA: First Class Honours
Length of Degree: 4 years including 1 year at entirely graduate level
Position in Class: near top
Type of Student: White english male, slightly older than most.

GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 170 (98%)
V: 168 (98%)
W: 3.5 (38%)
P: 720 (56%)

Research Experience: Summer research internship within the strings group at QMUL

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Institute of Physics teacher training scholarship, several funded internships.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Organiser of peer mentoring scheme within physics department. Six years of private tuition work. One year as a student teacher which will culminate in qualification this summer. Lots of varied previous work experience before returning to education in my mid twenties.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: seven and a half years sober (not sure if this helps) and active within service at a national level in a related organisation.

Special Bonus Points: entire 4th year was at graduate level, and intercollegiate, took classes at KCL with some world experts

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where: (all for hep, theory, with a focus on phenomenological implications of duality)

US

UCSB: Rejected via email to check website 24th February
UMass-Amherst:
UMN-Twin Cities:
Penn State: Rejected via email 5th March
Northeastern: Accepted February 26th - TA $21k (2 semesters) + healthcare
Brown: Rejected via email 2nd March, invited to apply to masters program, declined
William and Mary: Accepted January 29th - TA $24k + healthcare
UNH: Accepted February 17th - $28k fellowship
UNC-Chapel Hill: Rejected via email to check website 3rd February
Virginia Tech:


Canada

PSI:
Last edited by JonC85 on Thu Mar 19, 2015 6:30 am, edited 6 times in total.

dss387
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2014 7:26 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by dss387 » Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:05 pm

Thanks for the template!
______________________________________________
Undergrad Institution: Large private university, great and growing physics department
Major(s): Physics and philosophy
Minor(s): Mathematics
GPA in Major: 3.8
Overall GPA: 3.8
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: Domestic male minority

GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 162
V: 163
W: 5.0
P: 900

Research Experience:
Summer REU at Rutgers University in a mechanical engineering lab synthesizing graphene using pulsed laser deposition.
1.5 years in soft condensed matter lab at home university with fairly famous professor, doing experiments on anisotropic colloids suspended in nematic liquid crystals. Completely independent project, no grad student or post-doc working with me. No pubs or presentations.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:
Award for exemplary interdisciplinary study, given to top two students in individualized major; Dean's List; Sigma Pi Sigma

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:
Volunteer science summer camp coordinator for grade school aged children of Mexican immigrants.
Tutored pre-meds through the physics department for 2 years as undergraduate.
Currently taking gap year, doing research at undergrad university and working as a TA for intermediate physics classes

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: I'm fully bilingual (English and Spanish), audited a grad course on QFT with one of my recommenders. Completed physics major course load in 3 years.

Special Bonus Points:
Professor for one class I TA'd wrote a letter to his alma mater, other recommenders are well known in their respective fields (soft matter, astro, HEP-th). Minority.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Maybe the fact that I'm not a physics major? My major emphasized writing skills, hoping those will set me apart a bit.

Applying to Where: All physics, expressed interest in CME, complex systems, and non-linear dynamics for all

Harvard - Rejected
Yale - Accepted Will attend
Cornell - Rejected
U. Maryland-College Park - Accepted
U. Michigan-Ann Arbor - Rejected
U. Illinois Urbana-Champagne - Rejected
UT Austin - Accepted
Northwestern - Accepted
UC Davis - Accepted
Rutgers - Accepted
Last edited by dss387 on Sun Mar 29, 2015 1:22 am, edited 6 times in total.

User avatar
YodaT
Posts: 102
Joined: Mon May 10, 2010 2:01 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by YodaT » Tue Jan 27, 2015 7:33 pm

Undergrad Institution: Undergrad private university
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Math
GPA in Major: 3.6 (3.8 upperlevel)
Overall GPA: 3.5
Length of Degree: 5 years (175+ credit hours)
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: Minority

Research Experience: 2 journal publications (1 first-author, 1 coauthor), 1 conference proceeding, preprint being prepared. Numerous presentations (APS Meeting, seminars, conferences). Description below:
  • 1) Two years on GR theory. First-authored publications in Phys. Rev. D and a conference proceeding, gave a talk at an APS April Meeting, one poster presentation, four talks at undergraduate symposiums.
  • 2) REU program at Top 10 school on modeling test particles in strong gravitational regimes. Wrote up a manuscript, but wasn't published.
  • 3) Invited for 10 weeks to work in theoretical physics (HEP-theory + differential geometry project). Coauthored publication in PLB, attended a workshop, and gave two talks at undergraduate symposiums.
  • 4) Currently working on theory project with LIGO, began as undergraduate thesis and continued. First-authoring publication (submission soon). Scheduled talks at a few seminars.
  • 5) Research assistant after a 1 year post-college break. At an Ivy working with compact binaries, gravitational waves, and E&M fields around black holes. Two talks in the department here.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's lists, full-ride scholarship.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: SPS (Zone Councilor, President, VP, Outreach Officer). Sigma Pi Sigma (President, VP). Several grants awarded to conduct outreach efforts. Took a year off after undergrad helping high schoolers and working for disability resources at local uni.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Medical issues had an impact on academic performance, upward trend in grades. Took a lot of computer science courses (operating systems, data structures, algorithms, etc), but no minor/major in it.

Special Bonus Points: Got connections (LIGO collaborators, current advisor is well-known). Minority.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Helps to publish in your area of interest I guess.

Applying to Where: Overall interest was in gravity, relativity, and cosmology (theory and computation).

Caltech - Physics - Accepted 2/19 (website). $32k
Maryland - Physics - Rejected 2/19 (website).
PennState - Physics - Accepted 2/12 (email). $27k+.
Montana State - Physics - Accepted 1/29 (website).

Chicago - Astronomy & Astrophysics - Accepted 1/26 (phone). $35k/yr
Cornell - Astronomy & Astrophysics - Rejected 2/13 (email).

NSF Fellowship - Received 3/31. (E/E, E/E, E/E)
Ford Fellowship - Received 3/23.

Update 2/20: That sums up my application year, just waiting on fellowship results. Ifelt confident on the NSF, even my well-known advisor said she felt I had a good chance at getting it. Back in December I imagined acceptance from Cornell (astro), PennState (physics), and Montana State (physics). I felt like I was an automatic rejection from Caltech, UChicago, and Maryland. This goes to show how much you can misjudge your application.

Update 4/6: Not to sound too pretentious, but I would've been very surprised if I didn't at least get an honorable mention on the NSF. I was that confident (ended up getting three E/E's ratings). Research is essential here. Same with LORs. In the fall I feared my current advisor's LOR wasn't going to be spectacular, so 1-2 months before requesting it I really pushed my research. I think doing that really left a good impression on her. I sacrificed a good grade in the grad quantum course I was taking with this tactic. In summary, it's all about research and LORs. The exams are just to stamp you with a number to make the committees' jobs easier.
Last edited by YodaT on Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:01 pm, edited 45 times in total.

Sportsfan77777
Posts: 19
Joined: Wed Dec 24, 2014 12:30 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by Sportsfan77777 » Tue Jan 27, 2015 8:33 pm

Hmm, no waitlists... This ended sooner than I was hoping...

Undergrad Institution: Top 20 Overall / Top 10 in Physics / grae's school :P
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Computer Science
GPA in Major: 3.42 in Physics / 3.61 in all major-related courses
Overall GPA: 3.57
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: Close to average, but probably below average
Type of Student: Domestic, White Male

GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 170 (99%)
V: 156 (73%)
W: 5.0 (93%)
P: 800 (71%)

Research Experience:
(1) Programming-based project related to instrumentation (2 semesters + 1 summer freshman/sophomore year)
(2) Good REU (summer following sophomore year) --- 4th author of 4 author paper
(3) Project in field of interest (junior + senior year)
(4) Good REU also in field of interest (summer following junior year) --- one co-authored paper submitted after application deadlines

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:
None

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:
Leadership in two-major related clubs (SPS + astronomy club)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:
Not really...

Special Bonus Points:
(1) I write well. I think my personal statement was well written with clear intentions.
(2) I know what I want to study in grad school and already have worked on two projects in that field.
(3) Two of my recommendation letters have already got me into two REU programs, so they can't be too bad.
(4) I've met a lot of people at AAS.
(5) I have a somewhat direct connection to someone at University of Arizona.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:
(1) Clear Downward Trend in GPA (two worst semesters came Junior Year)
(2) I have taken a difficult course load, but not unusually difficult. I don't think this will play too much of a role in vindicating me.

Applying to Where: (in order of application deadline!)
All for Theoretical / Computational
University of California - Berkeley - Astronomy - Rejected 2/19
University of Maryland - College Park - Astronomy - Accepted 1/21 by Email ($26.9K/yr w/TA)
Harvard University - Astronomy - Rejected 2/27
University of California - Los Angeles - Astronomy - Accepted 2/3 by Phone ($38K 1st yr, $29K 2nd yr --- for TA or RA)
University of Arizona - Astronomy - Accepted 1/20 by Phone ($30.2K/yr w/RA + $2.5K for Research Expenses)
California Institute of Technology - Astronomy - Rejected 2/17
University of Washington - Astronomy - Rejected 3/6
University of California - Santa Cruz - Astronomy - Rejected 2/20
University of Chicago - Astronomy - Rejected 2/9

Take Away These Points:
The worst part of my application is GPA-related, so there's not much to learn here.
Grades won't get you into grad school alone, but you still need to meet some loose threshold before they start to consider you based on research + rec letters. That threshold varies from person to person and place to place,
but is undoubtedly higher at the better, more difficult-to-get-into places and probably less loose if you are applying for theory.

So..., get good grades -- especially junior year. That counts the most. Even if you don't have the best GPA entering junior year, you can make it up junior year.
Of course, you need to do research too, so...
In the end, you always need to be looking for the right balance between courses and research.

On the flipside, the University of Arizona might have been the best research fit (at the very least, top two) out of all of the places I applied -- even the ones where I was rejected. So even in my case, research experience and skills are extremely important.

Also, don't get all of your advice from this website. Talk to your advisor(s)! :D


One More Edit:
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship -- Awarded :-)
The reviews cited the strength of having recommendations from three researchers at different institutions, having co-authored publications and also conference presentations, the familiarity with the literature in the proposed research, and having leadership positions in two clubs as key reasons for offering the award.
Last edited by Sportsfan77777 on Thu Apr 02, 2015 1:51 am, edited 13 times in total.

dean_winchester
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:02 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by dean_winchester » Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:03 am

Undergrad Institution: Small liberal arts college with no reputation in Physics
Major(s): Physics, Math
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.7 (I messed up at some critical points)
Overall GPA: 3.7
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: probably top
Type of Student: International Asian Male

GRE Scores : revised
Q: 168 (95%)
V: 158 (78%)
W: 4.0 (56%)
P: 980 (93%)


TOEFL Total: Waived

Research Experience: 1 summer at Fermilab doing accelerator stuff. 2 years working in thermoluminescence research with my professor at school - 2 papers out of that.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: dean list, and two scholarship for good grade and stuff.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: I do a lot of tutor for both mathematics and physics. Have one semester being TA for the general physics class.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: hmm I was in charge of several student organizations on campus, I don't know if that matters. I think I have strong LOR since the professors knew me well.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Kappa Mu Epsilon, SPS. Vice-president in both (not the whole SPS, just the group at my school).

Applying to Where: Most are HEP-ex

MIT - Accepted via e-mail 2/16 - first year RA at least ~$2800/ month - Will attend
Cornell - Accelerator Physics - Accepted via e-mail 2/10 - TA $27k/9 months
Michigan - Accepted via e-mail 1/21 - department fellowship and quarter-time TA $2,371.38/month
UT Austin - Admitted via website 3/3 (e-mail 1/28)
Minnesota - Accepted via e-mail 1/29 - TA 24k/12 months + 2400$ for supplementary scholarship - Declined
Duke - Accepted via e-mail check website 2/11 - Declined
Boston - Accepted via e-mail 2/11 - TA $20k/9 months + $10k summer support - Declined
Purdue - Accepted via email 1/26 - partial TA 18k/9 months - Declined
UMass - Accepted via e-mail 2/19 - TA $18k/year - Declined
Virginia Tech - Accepted via e-mail 1/26 - Declined
IIT - Accepted via e-mail 3/2 - Declined

Harvard - Rejected via check website 3/2
Princeton - Rejected via e-mail 2/19
Stanford - Rejected via e-mail 2/17
University of Chicago - Accelerator Physics - Rejected via website 3/3
Yale - Rejected via e-mail to check website 2/16
Rice - Rejected via e-mail 3/9
UC Santa Cruz - Rejected via e-mail 2/20



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The result is frankly surprising to me and I think I got off lucky. What I learn from all this is to never assume that you will never be accepted into one particular school. I waited until very near the deadline to apply for MIT because I'm afraid I won't get in. Also, the PGRE is massively important, especially if you are from a small school with trivia coursework.
Last edited by dean_winchester on Mon Apr 06, 2015 12:39 pm, edited 41 times in total.

valson
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2015 9:07 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by valson » Wed Jan 28, 2015 8:56 am

Undergrad Institution: Top technical institute in India. Good reputation in undergrad physics
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): N.A.
GPA in Major: 8.6/10
Overall GPA: 8.6/10
Length of Degree: 5 Years ( Masters' degree )
Position in Class: Not announced
Type of Student: International Male
GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 168 (95%)
V: 159 (81%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 900 (85%)


TOEFL Total: 107/120

Research Experience:
Two summer internships in India working on open quantum systems. One conference paper.
Two one semester long Master's projects: both in quantum information.
Review project in neutrino physics.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Not much.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: None.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Five courses in philosophy?

Special Bonus Points: I have taken many grad courses in quantum information.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:Has a physical disability.

Applying to Where:

University of Washington- Quantum Optics, Quantum Information Rejected (2/19) Prospective adviser contacted me and said that his research interests are different from mine. Received the official rejection letter later.
Boston University - Quantum Information Rejected (4/21) At least they responded earlier that it is very unlikely that I get in.
University of Southern California- Quantum Information Rejected (05/05)
University of New Mexico- Quantum Information Rejected (4/21)
Louisiana State University- Quantum Information - Accepted (2/8) $22,000 and full tuition waiver :) - Will attend!
University of Waterloo- Quantum Information Accepted (4/22) But accepted to a Master's program with possible upgradation to a PhD program after one year upon excellent performance. Declined after a lot of thought
University of Oxford- Quantum Information - Invited for interview(2/10) Rejected Haven't heard back since the interview. Must have been rejected.
University College London- Quantum Information Rejected Haven't heard back since I applied in January. Must have been rejected.
University of Manchester- Open quantum systems Accepted (12/11) No financial support given. Declined
University of Bristol-Quantum Information Rejected (2/18) Said that there is no funding for international students.
University of Vienna- Quantum Information Rejected (1/16)

In the end, I had only one real option for a PhD with financial assistance. So selecting the grad school was easy. It was a complete waste of time applying to the UK. And they didn't even have the basic manners to respond back with a rejection letter. My conference paper apparently did me no good.
I will be joining the Quantum Science and Technology group at Louisiana State University.
Last edited by valson on Tue May 05, 2015 1:02 am, edited 5 times in total.

peglegjeff
Posts: 16
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:18 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by peglegjeff » Wed Jan 28, 2015 11:28 am

Undergrad Institution: Big top 20 state school
Major(s): Physics, Mechanical Engineering
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.8
Overall GPA: 3.8
Length of Degree: 5 years
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: Domestic white male

GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q: 166
V: 167
W: 3.5
P: 990

Research Experience: Undergrad research in applied physics (high velocity impact simulations), 3 years of working full time in applied physics (geophysics/geodesy)

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: A few departmental scholarships, dean's list, etc. Nothing major

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: TA for two years during first run at grad school

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: first author on a geophysics paper.

Special Bonus Points: Two years of grad school with great GPA, but no degree when I left.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: I did two years of physics grad school at the same school as my undergrad. I was academically successful (3.8 GPA), but didn't get involved in research and left early due to financial reasons. Got a job in applied physics for the last 3 years

Applying to Where:

Wisconsin - Medical Physics - Diagnostic Imaging: Accepted on 1/27 via email. No funding info yet.
Duke - Medical Physics - Diagnostic Imaging: Interview/invitation to open house via email on 2/2
Last edited by peglegjeff on Mon Feb 02, 2015 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Chrono
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:53 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by Chrono » Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:10 pm

Undergrad Institution: Big State State school, top 25 physics
Major(s): Physics, Math, Astronomy
GPA in Major(s): 4.0, 3.8, 4.0
Overall GPA: 3.9
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: top 20%
Type of Student: Domestic White Male

GRE Scores: (revised)
Q: 170 (98%)
V: 163 (92%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 680 (47%)

Research Experience: 2.5 years of research with single group. Gave poster presentation at 1 APS conference. Have 1 submitted publication (not in area of application).

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: 4 semesters Dean's List, 1 school specific academic award, 1 school specific research fellowship

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Student Hourly / Undergraduate Research Assistant in physics department for 2.5 years

Special Bonus Points: Active Duty Military Experience prior to undergraduate education.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: One of my recommenders was late submitting pretty much all of his letters (1-2 wks).

Applying to Where:
Caltech - Astrophysics - Astrophysics - Denied 2/17 via email
Princeton - Astrophysical Sciences - Astrophysics - Denied 2/18 via email
MIT - Physics - Astrophysics - Denied 2/18 via email
Penn State - Astronomy & Astrophysics - Astrophysics - Accepted 1/24 via email
UC Santa Barbara - Physics - Astrophysics - Denied 2/24 via email
Cornell - Physics - Astrophysics - Denied 2/25 via email
UC Boulder - Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences - Astrophysics - Accepted 1/30 via email
U of Arizona - Astronomy - Astrophysics - Waitlisted 2/10 via email
UW Milwaukee - Physics - Astrophysics
UC Santa Cruz - Astronomy & Astrophysics - Astrophysics - Denied 2/20 via email
ASU - Astrophysics - Astrophysics
Syracuse University - Physics - Astrophysics
Last edited by Chrono on Wed Feb 25, 2015 1:54 pm, edited 9 times in total.

physapplicant2015
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2015 4:04 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by physapplicant2015 » Thu Jan 29, 2015 4:22 am

Undergrad Institution: Big State School
Major(s): Physics; Applied Math
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.71
Overall GPA: 3.7
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: top 10%
Type of Student:

GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 169
V: 155
W: 4.5
P: 780


Research Experience: Astrophysics for 1 year, Quantum computation for 2 years
Awards/Honors/Recognitions:

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutor and Grader

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: 4 publications (1 in Nature)

Special Bonus Points:

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Famous recommender who has been on admission committee to know how to write a good rec letter

Applying to Where:
[All for quantum computation]

Caltech - Accepted 2/14 via email WILL ATTEND

Chicago - Accepted 1/27 via phone call, Fellowship 35K+ for first year Declined
Colorado - Boulder - Accepted 2/23 via email Declined
Maryland - College Park - Accepted 2/10 via email Declined
UC Los Angeles - Accepted 2/3 via email Declined
UC Santa Barbara - Accepted 2/11 via email, 26K+ with part time TA Declined
UI Urbana Champaign - Accepted 2/9 via email, 22K+ stipend TA Declined
Wisconsin - Madison - Accepted 1/23 via email, 30.5K stipend Declined

UC Berkeley - Rejected 3/12
Harvard - Rejected 3/6
MIT - Rejected 2/18
Princeton - Rejected 2/19
Stanford - Rejected 2/2. I might have forgotten to send a 2nd transcript now that I think about it.
Yale - Phone interview 2/9, Rejected 2/19
Last edited by physapplicant2015 on Mon Apr 20, 2015 4:27 pm, edited 27 times in total.

Aspirant
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2012 1:06 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by Aspirant » Thu Jan 29, 2015 5:40 pm

Undergrad Institution: Large State School
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Astrophysics
GPA in Major: ~3.7
Overall GPA: 3.8
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: Domestic male

GRE Scores : revised
Q: 165 (90%)
V: 163 (92%)
W: 4.0 (56%)
P: 820 (74%)

Research Experience: 1 year in engineering, with 1 publication in conference proceedings. 1.5 years doing science/instrumentation in astronomy. Senior summer REU at home institution. I've also been on 2 observing runs, as well as an instrumentation installation trip to CTIO. Attended a AAS meeting where i met several PIs i want to work with, as well as other professors on adcoms. Met several other faculty from places I'm applying to at colloquia at my school.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Big university scholarship, Goldwater Scholarship

Special Bonus Points: One grad class (A), well known & connected recommenders, particularly at several places I applied to. Know 2 of my recommenders very well, worked with both of them for >1.5 years.

Applying to Where:
All of the applications are focused on applications of big data to astronomy (survey work, pipelining, algorithm development, etc.)
I applied to a few other places as well, but I cancelled my application when I recieved an acceptance from Ohio State, since I would go to Ohio State before any of my safety schools

Harvard - Astronomy - Rejected Feb. 17
Harvard - Physics - Accepted Feb. 17
Princeton - Astrophysics - Rejected Feb. 06
Caltech - Astronomy - Accepted to Physics program Feb. 19 - Letter said Astro people thought my application was better suited for the physics program
U. Chicago - Astronomy - Rejected Feb. 09
U. Washington - Astronomy - Waitlisted Feb. 27 - Declined
Ohio State - Astronomy - Accepted Jan. 03
Yale - Astronomy - Rejected Feb. 23
Last edited by Aspirant on Mon Mar 16, 2015 6:56 pm, edited 10 times in total.

manojrgukt06
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 9:09 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by manojrgukt06 » Sat Jan 31, 2015 12:17 am

Undergrad Institution: RGUKT(Unknown)
Major(s):Electronics and Communication Engineering
Minor(s):Physics
GPA in Major:8.99/10
Overall GPA:9/10
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: 5
Type of Student: International(Indian)
GRE Scores :
Q:165
V:156
W:3
P:790


TOEFL Total: 95

Research Experience: 2 years a research student under the professor at my University in Biophysics,Poster Presentation at XRM 2014,Melbourne,Australia,1 conference talk Institute of Engineers,2 papers out for Publication in Biophysics
1 REU in Laser and Plasma Physics at RRCAT
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Young Scientist Fellowship, INSA Fellowship

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Research Assistant for 2 years

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: Though my Major is ECE I have done all most all physics courses.

Applying to Where: ALL Physics(Biophysics)
1.University Of Michigan Ann Arbor Rejected 2/11
2.Penn State University Rejected 06/03
3.Ohio State University Rejected 06/03
4.Purdue University waitlisted
5.University Of Arizona Accepted 2/17 via email TA($15,494/9 months)+7.9K during Summer
6.University Of Minnesota waitlisted
7.NYU(MS) Rejected 2/27
Last edited by manojrgukt06 on Sat Mar 21, 2015 6:11 am, edited 6 times in total.

ofstarlight
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2015 12:37 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by ofstarlight » Sat Jan 31, 2015 1:30 pm

Undergrad Institution: Top-ten liberal arts college, well known
Major(s): Astrophysics (a full physics major with four astronomy classes)
Minor(s): Women's and Gender Studies
GPA in Major: 3.36
Overall GPA: 3.55
Length of Degree: 4 years (graduated May 2014)
Position in Class: Above average both in school and major
Type of Student: domestic woman, under represented racial minority (Latin@)

GRE Scores: taken fall 2014
Q: 166 (92%)
V: 160 (84%)
W: 5.0 (93%)
P: 590 (27%) *forever crying*

Research Experience: Two summer REUs in observational astronomy (one at another liberal arts college, the other at a very famous museum), one summer with NASA doing planetary science, a semester of theoretical astrophysics research; presented posters at AAS two years in a row

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: GEM Fellowship recipient (applies to all but UWSeattle and CUNY); my poster from NASA won 1st place in science in their internal contest; Sigma Xi; Academic Achievement Award from school all four years; member of Prep for Prep (big deal in NYC in terms of promoting leadership and academic excellence across people of color)

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Casually worked with the physics department and observatory, currently tutor physics and math

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: While in college I was super active in promoting social justice in terms of race and religious pluralism, and also took on a lot of non-academic leadership roles. Also, I'm currently a finalist for the Fulbright Travel Fellowship.

Special Bonus Points: I'm not quite sure how to phrase this without coming off conceited, but I try to be friendly and earnest in my interactions with people, which translates to easily creating positive relationships with my mentors and coming off as charismatic in groups and to strangers. My three recommenders all like me a lot, and my NASA mentor was very impressed with the quality of my work. Additionally, the schmoozing I did at AAS this year and at departments' open houses was definitely instrumental to some of my admission decisions. One of my recommenders is a professor at my top choice school. I'm also assuming that the fact that I'm a woman of color with good research experience and decent grades is not inconsequential to how people read my application.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: My school has active grade deflation. Also, I studied physics abroad at a UK school and got good grades. In all my application, I talked a lot about how I wanted to apply my education in becoming a leader, either in the context of education or NASA missions. When it was relevant, I went into detail about my time with NASA, my eagerness to explore new topics, and my fluency in Spanish (re: Yale's program with the Universidad de Chile).

Applying to Where:
All are either PhDs in astronomy or the equivalent that the school carries unless specified, and I'm wasn't incredibly picky about what topic I'll pursue (just no heliophysics, solar system astronomy, fluid dynamics-heavy projects, or ISM).
Asterisks mark top choices; my safety was CUNY.

In order of preference:
Columbia University* Rejected 2/26 via email
University of Washington Seattle* Wait-listed over phone 2/25, phone interview 2/18
Yale University Rejected 2/23 via email
Boston University* Accepted 1/26 via phone call, visited
University of Maryland at College Park*
University of Colorado Boulder Rejected 2/13 via email
Arizona State University Accepted 2/3 via email, visited
University of Minnesota Wait-listed over email 1/29, invited to visit
University of California Riverside, Physics and Astronomy
CUNY Graduate Center, Physics Casually accepted over email 1/30, withdrew
Last edited by ofstarlight on Sun Mar 01, 2015 4:12 pm, edited 4 times in total.

irezumidragon
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2015 6:24 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by irezumidragon » Sat Jan 31, 2015 6:52 pm

Undergrad Institution: Big State School, Top 20 in Phys/Astro
Major(s): Astronomy, Physics
Minor(s): n/a
GPA in Major: 3.55
Overall GPA: 3.66
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: Average
Type of Student: Domestic Female

GRE Scores :
Q: 157 (69%)
V: 164 (93%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 640 (38%) :|


Research Experience: Two summer internships with Lockheed Martin (engineering/instrumentation in the first one, solar physics in the second one). 3.5 years research at my university, 1.5 in ISM astrochemistry/spectroscopy, 2 in IGM/Circumgalactic and AGN topics. One submitted AJ first author paper, one first author paper in prep. Presented poster at Jan. 2014 AAS, was a co-author on a Hubble Observing Proposal.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Magna Cum Laude for honors thesis, Phi Beta Kappa honors fraternity scholarship

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Paper grader for 4 different astro courses, occasional volunteer at campus observatory open house, casual math/physics/astro tutoring/helproom

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: On-site observing experience at Apache Point Observatory (3.5m), certified on university's 24" telescope.

Special Bonus Points: Three grad classes

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Not really? This is my second app cycle after nothing but waitlists that ended in rejections last year, so I emphasized how much I have reflected upon my desire to go to graduate school and my SOP feels much more mature this year.

Applying to Where: All schools were astronomy programs unless astro was encapsulated in physics

Johns Hopkins - rejected 4/9 (They waitlisted me last year, I thought maybe applying again I'd have a shot)
Penn State - waitlisted 1/29
Ohio State - waitlisted 1/5, all slots filled no admission 4/11
Michigan Ann Arbor - waitlisted 3/31
Michigan State - Accepted 1/19 Declined 3/30
Wisconsin Madison - waitlisted 3/12 Accepted 4/13---Will Attend
U. Minnesota - waitlisted 1/29 Accepted 3/28
UT Austin - waitlisted 2/02, all slots filled no admission 4/14
New Mexico State - Accepted 2/13 Declined 2/17
U. Arizona - rejected 1/23
Arizona State - rejected 4/7
UC Irvine - rejected 4/6
UC Riverside - Accepted 2/11 Chancellor's Distinguished Fellowship Declined 4/7

My main takeaways after going through this god forsaken process twice are:
1) Connections are very important. Every school where I was accepted had very tangible ties to one or more of my letter writers.
2) The PGRE was more important than they say. My first cycle I was applying with a 27% and was rejected everywhere. My second cycle, I managed to pry out of my department that they had an unspoken cut-off of around 40% (a top 20 program). By getting to that floor-level score, I was admitted to all schools "below" the tier of my undergrad, and waitlisted at schools that were in a similar tier.
3) Be sure your letter writers have worked with you recently, are friendly/like you, and are not spacey (had an emeritus prof write one for cycle 1 and found out later that he writes terrible letters). If you can, poll around and see if anyone knows the quality of your letter writers before you ask that person to write for you.
4) I don't know if it had any bearing on anything, but my SOP for cycle 2 was trimmed to absolutely professional. No personal anecdotes, just my research experience, what I'd been doing since graduation, my grad school research interests, and what I wanted to do with my career.
Last edited by irezumidragon on Sun Apr 19, 2015 9:43 pm, edited 17 times in total.

pillow47
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2015 6:27 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by pillow47 » Sat Jan 31, 2015 7:13 pm

Undergrad Institution: Elite LAC (strong reputation for STEMs fields, particularly physics)
Major(s): Physics, Math
Minor(s): Econ? (I don't know if it counts as a minor or its equivalence...)
GPA in Major: Physics: 3.95+ , math: 4.00
Overall GPA: 3.90+
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: Top/near top
Type of Student: International Chinese male

GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q: 168
V: 166
W: 4.5
P: 990 (I didn't start studying for GRE until very late (like a week ago before the exam), but I powered through a book called Conquering Physics GRE in 4 days. And it gave me a nice result. I highly recommend this book for cramming, if you ever plan to just cram...But really,,, don't cram!)


Research Experience: 1 summer computational electrodynamics, 1 summer computational solid state, 1 summer + 1 year experimental magnetism, 5 weeks biophysics. No publications, no conferences.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: all departmental, no importance. chemistry in sophomore year, physics in junior year, math in senior year. (guess it means I'm well-rounded?)

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutor for a CS class. Grader for many physics classes.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:
a) I almost took all physics courses offered at my school and did three independent studies in addition. Well-trained in math, somewhat well-trained in chemistry and CS.
b) Did quite well on basically all physics classes I took. (e.g. scored 100 on the final of a very hard class, while the class average was ~60). Performances like these might matter if the recommenders brought them up in letters.
c) Actually did something useful in our lab, though not publishable, but still something worth being proud of ;)

Special Bonus Points:
a) All my recommenders know me very well and seem to like me! :D . My research advisor has many connections in the field.
b) I injured my hand the day before I got into Stanford. I think it gave me good karma. :mrgreen:

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: I think I showed lots of passion for physics (which, really, is the most important thing!!)

Applying to Where: (All CME and CMT. All physics department, except for Stanford, which is Applied Physics)

Princeton-Admitted 2/19
Stanford-Admitted 1/31
UCSB-Likely letter 1/14, Admitted 1/21
MIT-Rejected 2/18
Harvard-Admitted 2/17
Caltech-Rejected
Chicago-Rejected
Yale-Waitlisted-Declined
Cornell-Admitted 2/10
Berkeley-Admitted
UIUC-Admitted 1/23
UCSD-Admitted 1/26
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry-Admitted instantly (for chillness and awesomeness)

------------
Some afterthoughts and comments:
I don't know why I didn't get into MIT. It's still a mystery to me. Before the application, I thought it was a safety school for me. There is a MIT prof who is an ex-member of our research group at college. My research interests match with his almost perfectly. My recommender was his college thesis advisor. I thought MIT was the school where professors' opinions are the most important in the admission process, so I was pretty sure I would get in... Afterwards when I visited Harvard, I went to MIT to visit this professor. He said he never saw my profile. Quite odd that MIT turned me down in the first round given my GPA and test scores. Rather a unpredictable process, indeed.

Then there's Caltech and Chicago. I was pretty sure I wouldn't get in, and I didn't. When I was applying to schools, Princeton was my #1 choice, so I pulled down their website and basically wrote my statement of purpose according to the Princeton profs. For every other school, I changed a fews words. e.g. Princeton to MIT, some Princeton prof to some MIT prof. For pretty much very every other school, it worked out okay. But for Caltech and Chicago, I felt the inconsistency in the SoP even when I was writing it, because the department focus is so different between Princeton and Caltech and Chicago. I would say I'm interested in XX in the first paragraph only to find out that "Oh Shoot, Caltech/Chicago doesn't have any prof who does XX, so let me stick some random prof that does YY, because I really don't want to change my main paragraph cuz it's the 12th SoP I'm writing in one day."
So take-home lesson: Give lots care/time to every single SoP, because the departmental difference across schools can be significant!!

Wish everyone a fruitful grad school career. :mrgreen:

______________________________________________
Last edited by pillow47 on Tue Jun 23, 2015 9:07 am, edited 13 times in total.

phizzles
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 2:58 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by phizzles » Sun Feb 01, 2015 3:22 pm

______________________________________________
Undergrad Institution: University of Michigan
Major(s): Physics, Math
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.89
Overall GPA: 3.84
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: top 10%
Type of Student: Domestic, half white half Latino

GRE Scores :
Q: 170
V: 166
W: 5
P: 890

Research Experience:
Home Institution:
- 1.5 years in plasma physics lab designing and building a vacuum system and characterizing spectra from laser irradiated targets. Nothing really came out of this, it was fairly unorganized.
- 1 semester in dark matter detection doing electronics stuff
- Senior year: Condensed matter lab doing spintronics stuff, culminating in honors thesis. Also second author on a paper in Optics Express, in review at time of application.

REU at UCLA after sophomore year in a computational project related to free electron lasers.

REU in materials science at Cornell doing domain wall measurements in nanowires. This went really well I think.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Sigma Pi Sigma, some random stuff

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: SPS board member, grader, TA, tutor

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Nah

Special Bonus Points: Recommenders have some connections to schools

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Can drink a gallon of milk in 45 min.

Applying to Where (All Physics, condensed matter experiment unless otherwise noted):

US News Top 10
MIT - Rejected 2/18 - Definitely expecting this. MIT looks at your first semester senior transcripts and my senioritis set in early.
Stanford (Applied, nanoscience and quantum engineering) - Accepted 1/31! 3k/month for three quarters, plus summer option. 2/18 fellowship 6k/yr for first 5 years, plus 1500 this summer and 4k next summer
Berkeley - Rejected 3/12
Harvard - Rejected early March
Cal Tech - Rejected 2/23
Cornell (Applied)- Accepted 2/11! Fellowship for 29k/9 months
Chicago - Rejected early March
UCSB - Rejected 2/24 - Not that it necessarily made a difference but I forgot to report my GRE scores

Top 20
Columbia (Applied) - Accepted 3/10! A little late but I'll take it. No offer yet.
Maryland - Rejected 2/18
UCLA - Accepted 2/11! Fellowship+TA/GSR 33k/first 9 months, 24k/9 after that
Johns Hopkins - Accepted 1/22! 25K/9 months TA + 8K summers

Top 30
Minnesota - Accepted 1/28! 24K/12 months, 2 year fellowship
Rutgers - Accepted 2/6! first year fellowship 29k/10 months, plus 4k Torrey Fellowship


Reflection:
Obviously I had better luck with applied physics than physics programs. There is some discrepancy in the acceptance rate at Stanford (17% for applied, 13% regular physics) but its about 20% for each at Cornell. So it could be that applied physics programs are easier to get into, that my application is better suited for applied physics programs, coincidence, or some combination of the three.

As advice for future applicants, I think my biggest weakness is that I didn't have a long term project at my home school. This is mostly because I couldn't find what I was interested in. So my advice is to try to find what you like as soon as possible, or at least find a lab where you fit in and really work hard at a project for a couple of years so you can get a strong letter of rec.


Good luck to everyone, this year and in the future!
Last edited by phizzles on Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:23 pm, edited 16 times in total.

yunuskink
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2015 6:58 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by yunuskink » Mon Feb 02, 2015 7:11 am

Undergrad Institution: Big State ~ Top 15 for physics
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Math
GPA in Major: 3.55
Overall GPA: 3.45
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Average-ish I think?
Type of Student: Domestic Male, kinda a minority

GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 165 (90%)
V: 166 (96%)
W: 4.0 (56%)
P: 790 (69%)

Research Experience: Worked with two labs (neuroscience and materials science), no publications.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: None

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Been teaching math/science professionally for the last 6 years and also did Peace Corps for 2 years (I'm old).

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: See above, I've done a lot of do-gooder stuff that is not exactly physics related. I've taken online courses and done some other things in my free-time in addition to teaching advanced secondary physics at both private schools in Africa and at high needs public schools in the States.

Applying to Where:

Stanford - Applied Physics - Rejected 2/2/2015
UC Berkeley - Withdrew
Princeton - Applied Physics - Rejected 2/2/2015
Cornell - Applied Physics - Accepted! - Around 25,000 for 9 months guaranteed whole career
Yale - Applied Physics - Rejected 2/2/2015
UT - Austin - Physics - Rejected 2/2/2015
CU Boulder - Withdrew
UW Madison - Physics -Accepted! - Around 20,000 for full year and a 2,000 fellowship I think
UW Madison - Medical Physics - Accepted! - Financial is not guaranteed, but seems like if you want it you get it, around 18,000 per 9 months, very informative department who even assigned a student representative to answer questions
Rice - Waitlisted and withdrew (had to e-mail for status around early March)
Duke - Physics - Rejected 2/2/2015 Medical Physics - Withdrew
UVA - Accepted! - Around 20,000 for 9 months I think plus more for the Summer
Vanderbilt Accepted!
Colorado State - Physics - Accepted! - 18,400 for 9 month TA stipend
LSU - Accepted! - Around 20,000 for the year I think

I posted these things on gradcafe, that is the best place to see timings for when people are accepted, I didn't want to dredge up all the old e-mails. My tip is to apply to a lot over a huge spread of school, as you can see above I got accepted into more selective schools than the ones I was rejected from (although it really helped I spent a Summer at Cornell and my advisor was still there. I don't know if he did anything behind the scenes for me or not). Most of the ones I withdrew from I was probably waitlisted and would not have been accepted to.
Last edited by yunuskink on Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

croth1992
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2014 2:05 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by croth1992 » Wed Feb 04, 2015 1:12 pm

Undergrad Institution: Prestigious Liberal Arts College
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.87
Overall GPA: 3.68
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top 25%
Type of Student: White Domestic Male

GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 170 (98%)
V: 168 (98%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 950 (91%)

Research Experience: Two years AMO-ex, Secondary Author on Poster

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Deans List/Academic Stuff

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: TA

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Graduate Coursework in QM and Scattering Theory

Applying to Where: All for CMT

Washington-
Austin-
Boulder-
Maryland- Rejected 2/10 Upon Inquiry, Officially 2/18
Berkeley-
Santa Barbara-
Yale- Rejected 2/16
Columbia-
Harvard-
MIT- Rejected 2/18
CalTech-
Stanford- Rejected 2/17
Last edited by croth1992 on Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:05 am, edited 3 times in total.

geneliad
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:11 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by geneliad » Fri Feb 06, 2015 5:31 am

Undergrad Institution: Reputed foreign school
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 8.8/10
Overall GPA: 8.7/10
Length of Degree: 5
Position in Class: Near top
Type of Student: International

GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q: 165
V: 164
W: 4
P: 980

Research Experience: 3 summer projects, 1 publication

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points:

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

Harvard Rejected
MIT Rejected
Princeton Rejected
Caltech Accepted -- Attending!
UC Berkeley Rejected
Yale Wait listed
UChicago Rejected
Columbia Accepted -- Declined
Cornell Rejected
Johns Hopkins Rejected
Last edited by geneliad on Thu Apr 16, 2015 2:53 am, edited 12 times in total.

Ne10
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2014 3:11 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by Ne10 » Sat Feb 07, 2015 11:12 am

Thank you to all the people who have posted their profiles here on this website.
______________________________________________

Undergrad Institution: Indian Engineering School
Major(s):Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering
Minor(s):No such concept...
GPA in Major: 62% (excluding marks for 7th semester, which were not reported in applications due to their not being declared at that time). 65% (including semester 7) Grade: First Class (in both cases)
Overall GPA: same as above
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: within top 3% of University
Type of Student: International Indian Male

GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 165
V: 153
W: 5.0
P: 740 (severely disappointed here :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: )


TOEFL Total: 111

Research Experience: One project in the field of RF communications, one project in the field of digital image processing. 6 months(and still ongoing) research at one of the top astronomy and astrophysics institutes in the country. Topic of research is related to AGNs, specifically Seyfert 1 galaxies, which will result in a publication, though not nearly in time for this application season.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Scholarship offered by INSPIRE for being in top 1% of class at std. 12 examinations.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Nope

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Play soccer(more accurately, football) for local club, college

Special Bonus Points: Took short courses (1 to 1&1/2 weeks long) in QFT and GR , along with two complete graduate MS level courses in GR(yeah, cause I loved it the first time around) and Relativistic Cosmology.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: To cover up some deficiencies in the required basic physics courses(as they were not in my curriculum), I did loads of self-study, and as a testament to that, collected many certificates from online physics courses(MOOCs). Can code in C, C++, MATLAB, Python

Applying to Where:

All for high energy astrophysics, cosmic rays, DM, DE and/or gravitational wave physics as per availability
(in no particular order)

University of Arizona -- Astronomy --Rejected
Penn State -- Astronomy and Astrophysics --Rejected
Purdue -- Physics -- rejected(upon inquiry)
Washington University in St. Louis -- Physics -- wait listed -- and now rejected
University of Florida -- Physics -- Rejected upon enquiry
University of Utah -- Physics & Astronomy --Rejected on 8th May !!!!
West Virginia University -- Physics & Astronomy -- wait listed -- Accepted -- Full tuition waiver plus stipend ! -- Will Attend ! :D :D :D
Louisiana State University -- Physics & Astronomy -- wait listed
Syracuse University -- Physics -- Rejected - 17th April
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee -- Physics -- Rejected upon inquiry
Last edited by Ne10 on Fri May 08, 2015 10:15 am, edited 12 times in total.

adeel
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 4:44 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by adeel » Sun Feb 08, 2015 5:45 am

Undergrad Institution: Best university in Pakistan
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.6
Overall GPA: 3.6
Length of Degree: 2 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: International, Pakistani

GRE Scores : 306
Q: 163 (86 percentile)
V: 143 (18 percentile)
W: 2.5 (07 percentile)
P: 990 (94 percentile)


TOEFL Total: 92

Research Experience: Two year long research experience in Condensed Matter Physics Theory

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Awarded Certificate of achievement for introducing an experiment in M.Sc

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Work 3 semesters as TA.

Applying to Where:

US

UIUC Physics Rejected
Penn State Physics Rejected
UCSC Physics Rejected
University of Florida Physics Rejected
Purdue Physics Accepted! 18k as TA. Going to purdue
University of Nebraska Physics Accepted! 22k as TA. Declined
Colorado State University Physics decline application
Last edited by adeel on Mon Aug 03, 2015 3:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

cytao
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2015 11:12 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by cytao » Sun Feb 08, 2015 11:00 am

Undergrad Institution: Best school in my homeland
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): no, but majored in EE for my first two years
GPA in Major: 3.93
Overall GPA: 3.86
Length of Degree: BS 4 years, MS 2 years
Position in Class: BS: ~ <10/7X, MS: near top
Type of Student: International female

GRE Scores :
Q: 167 (94%)
V: 156 (71%)
W: 3.0 (15%)
P: 940 (90%)


TOEFL Total: R27/L30/S23/W27, total 107

Research Experience: was in Hep-ex group for 3 years during undergraduate and graduate studies. One 2nd author publication, one 1st author under internal review and lots of talks in the subgroup of CMS in LHC. Switched to soft condensed matter half an year ago as a full-time RA. Only one presentation at APS-DFD.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Presidential award x2 (one in EE, one in physics), Dean's List, entrance scholarship in graduate school

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: high school math/physics tutor ~ 1 year, 1-semester TA for General Physics and Intro. to Particle Physics

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Excellent coding and computing skills. Abundant experiences in scouting and volunteer works (oversea service team leader/club founder, environmental education volunteer, academic sector leader in student association .etc)

Special Bonus Points: Took a decent amount of advanced courses in HEP....(but none in CM); almost completed the core courses at EE

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Female. Extremely strong LORs (?)

Applying to Where: basically interested in pattern formation in fluids and granular materials, not interested in biophysics

Harvard - Applied Physics
Cornell - Physics
University of Chicago - Physics accepted 1/30 - 1/2 TA
University of Michigan - Physics interviewed via skype 1/21, accepted 1/28 - fellowship & 1/4 TA

hotpotato
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2015 9:14 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by hotpotato » Sun Feb 08, 2015 9:56 pm

Undergrad Institution: Large UC, good-ok reputation in physics
Major(s):Physics, Applied Math
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.88
Overall GPA: 3.87
Length of Degree: 5 Years
Position in Class: Topish probably
Type of Student: Half minority technically (male).

GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 159
V: 159
W: 3.0
P: 640



Research Experience: 3 years in the same research group in Relativistic Heavy Ion stuff. One summer spent at Brookhaven National Lab on site of experiment. Two posters at two DNP fall annual meetings.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Departmental Scholarship award, MARC U* Trainee Research Fellowship Program, deans list most quarters

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: eh, not really.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: nope, don't think so.

Special Bonus Points: nothing really here either. Maybe one connection via a recommender but nothing solid.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where: all in HEP-ex, no special order (I applied to a lot of schools i know lol. Dem fee waivers for special programs doe).

UCSB - Rejected via e-mail 2/24
UCLA - Rejected via e-mail 2/27
UCSD - Rejected via e-mail 3/10
Berkeley - Rejected via e-mail to check website 3/12
Cornell - Rejected via e-mail 2/17
University of Chicago - Rejected via e-mail 3/3
Princeton - Rejected via e-mail 2/19
Harvard - Rejected via website 3/2
MIT - Rejected via e-mail 2/18
CalTech - Rejected via e-mail 2/23
BU - Rejected via e-mail 3/19
Carnegie Mellon - Waitlisted, invited out to visit day 3/5 - Rejected via e-mail 4/15
UPenn - Accepted via e-mail 2/6 - 29k/12 months TA
Stanford - Rejected via e-mail 2/17
NYU - Rejected via e-mail 2/27
U of Rochester - Accepted via e-mail 1/30 - 25k/12 months TA + health
UCI - Accepted via e-mail 2/10 - 5.5k/ quarter TA
UCR - Accepted via e-mail 2/10 - 23k/12 months TA, fellowship 1st year
Rutgers - Rejected via e-mail 4/17
Yale - Rejected via e-mail to check website 2/16
Columbia - Rejected via e-mail to check website 3/27
Brown - Rejected via e-mail 3/2
UC Santa Cruz - Accepted via e-mail 2/20
University of Illinois at Chicago - Accepted via e-mail 2/5 - 16k/9 months TA
Last edited by hotpotato on Sun Apr 19, 2015 7:09 pm, edited 13 times in total.

reachmenon240
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2015 2:12 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by reachmenon240 » Mon Feb 09, 2015 8:32 pm

Undergrad Institution: Jadavpur University (India) - No reputation in physics
Major(s): Civil Engineering
Minor(s): No concept of a minor
GPA in Major: 6.36/10
Overall GPA: 6.36/10 (God awful!) :lol: :P
Length of Degree: 5 years
Position in Class: struggling
Type of Student: International male

Grad Institution: University of Illinois at Chicago
Major(s): Physics (MS)
Overall GPA: 4.0
Length of Degree: 2 years
Position in Class: top of the class for every course taken

GRE Scores : revised
Q: 166
V: 156
W: 3.5
P: 910 (September 2014) :shock:
860 (November 2012) :(

Research Experience: Two semesters and one summer doing research in biophysics at UIC, specifically cholesterol
transport in model membranes with one poster at SKIN conference. One summer at the Indian
Statistical Institute studying quantum entanglement.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Paul M. Raccah Award for highest score on Ph.D. qualifying exams at UIC

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: TA for three semesters for freshman physics courses in classical mechanics and E&M

Special Bonus Points: Strong letters of recommendation. My recommenders have some connections at Harvard, UC Davis
and the University of Maryland.

Applying to Where:

Harvard - Physics - Biophysics - Rejected via phone call 02/18/2015
Stanford - Physics - Biophysics - Rejected via email on 02/17/2015
University of Maryland, College Park - Physics - Biophysics - Rejected via email on 02/09/2015
UC Davis - Physics - Biophysics - Accepted via phone call on 02/11/2015! Offer details to come. 8) 8)
NYU - Physics - Biophysics - Rejected via email on 02/25/2015. Like I care. :P
University of Arizona - Physics - Biophysics - Accepted via email on 02/17/2015! 15.5 K for 9 months plus 7.9 K for summer

Additional Remark: I think my chances are rather slim given that I am an international with a poor undergraduate GPA, but I still felt compelled to give it another shot. :)
Moral of the story: All good things come to lazy assholes! :D :D :mrgreen: :mrgreen: 8)
Last edited by reachmenon240 on Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:19 am, edited 4 times in total.

juliano lorenso
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:50 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by juliano lorenso » Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:16 pm

Undergrad Institution: Big State University .. Fair Reputation in Physics
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Mathematics and Astronomy
GPA in Major: 3.95
Overall GPA: 3.50
Position in Class: near top
Type of Student: US citizen - white

GRE Scores : revised
Q: 156 - 64% :shock:
V: 150 - 41% :shock:
W: 4 - 56% :shock:
P: 610 - 31% :shock: :shock: :shock: (then how am I getting As in all my major courses?)


TOEFL Total: Not applicable

Research Experience: 1.5 year research at my University in the field of spectroscopy and astrophysicist

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Honors in Major - Undergrad thesis

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: LA for two semesters

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Presentations

Special Bonus Points: Good letters of recommendations, especially from my mentor

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

U Maryland - Astronomy - REJECTED 2/2
UC Boulder - ASP - REJECTED - 2/13
Washington - Physics - REJECTED 3/9
Johns Hopkins - Physics - REJECTED 4/10
Ohio State U - Physics - REJECTED 4/14
Stony Brook - Physics - REJECTED 2/19 for PhD - Accepted for Master but without funding
U Minnesota - Physics - REJECTED 2/13
U Minnesota - Astrophysics - REJECTED 3/10
Duke - Physics - REJECTED 2/11
Carnegie Mellon - Physics - REJECTED 4/1
Indiana U - Astronomy - REJECTED 2/4
UNC Chapel Hill - Physics - REJECTED 2/3
University of Pittsburgh - Physics - ACCEPTED 4/15 - 1st year TA 17k/9 months WILL ATTEND :D :D :D
University of Utah - Physics - ACCEPTED 2/24 - 1st year TA 17K/9 months Declined They invited me to visit the campus and they were very nice. It was really sad to decline their offer.
Tufts University - Physics - REJECTED 3/6
University of Wisconsin - Milawakee - Physics - ???
University of Iowa - Physics - REJECTED 4/1
University at Buffalo—​SUNY - Physics - ACCEPTED 2/18 - 1st year TA 16.5K/9 months Declined
Drexel University - Physics - REJECTED 5/5
Last edited by juliano lorenso on Fri May 22, 2015 8:16 am, edited 19 times in total.

remlap
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:19 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by remlap » Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:35 am

Good luck to future applicants!

Undergrad Institution: Top 30-40 internationally
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Chemistry
GPA in Major: 94%
Overall GPA: 92%
Length of Degree: 4 + 2 years masters
Position in Class: Top 3 or so
Type of Student: International male
GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q: 168
V: 161
W: 4.5
P: 960

Research Experience: 2 first author PRBs, 4 conference presentations (1 undergraduate conference, 2 March Meetings, 1 more specialized conference)

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Standard good grades awards throughout degree

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: None

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: Very strong recommendations (I hope!)

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where: All for CMT

Stanford - Physics - Accepted Feb. 12
Berkeley - Physics - Accepted Feb. 23

MIT - Physics - Rejected Feb. 18
Harvard - Physics - Rejected Mar. 6
UCSB - Physics - Rejected Feb. 24
Columbia - Physics - Presumably rejected, don't really care
Last edited by remlap on Mon Mar 09, 2015 2:59 pm, edited 5 times in total.

phizzles
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 27, 2015 2:58 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by phizzles » Sat Feb 14, 2015 12:35 am

phizzles wrote:______________________________________________
Undergrad Institution: Big State, decent physics rep (I'll be more specific about everything after I get in more places...I am paranoid)
Major(s): Physics, Math
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: ~3.9
Overall GPA: ~3.8
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: top 10%
Type of Student: Domestic

GRE Scores :
Q: 170
V: 166
W: 5
P: ~900


Research Experience: 2 REUs, both at top 20 schools. Bounced around labs at home institution, writing a thesis in CM.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Sigma Pi Sigma, some random stuff

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: SPS board member, grader, TA, tutor

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Nah

Special Bonus Points: Recommenders have some connections to schools

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Can drink a gallon of milk in 45 min.

Applying to Where (All Physics, condensed matter experiment unless otherwise noted):

Berkeley
Cal Tech
Chicago
Columbia (Applied)
Cornell (Applied)- Accepted 2/11! First year fellowship 29k/9 months
Harvard
Johns Hopkins - Accepted 1/22! 25K/9 months TA + 8K summers
Maryland
Minnesota - Accepted 1/28! 24K/12 months, 2 year fellowship
MIT
Rutgers - Accepted 2/6! first year fellowship 29k/10 months, plus 4k Torrey Fellowship
Stanford (Applied, nanoscience and quantum engineering) - Accepted 1/31! 3k/month for three quarters, plus summer option
UCLA - Accepted 2/11! Funding info to come.
UCSB


Reflection:
So out of boredom I compiled the results of applicants who posted on this forum between 2011-2014 who are similar to me: students at big but well known state schools in the US with a physics gpa between 3.75-3.95, PGRE between 750-950, and at least one year of research (I excluded plasma physics and astro applicants because the programs are so different). There were 22 such cases. This isn't enough to make any real conclusions but it can at least serve as a bit of guidance for future applicants. I found that these students, on average, got into 33% of schools ranked 1-7 by US News, 51% of those ranked 9-16, and 90% of those ranked 18-30. There was very little, if any, correlation between gpa, gre, and research with better results (but this is such a small sample and there are so many other factors, that it's possible such a correlation exists but just isn't obvious). Only 2 people got into all schools they applied to. Only 2 people didn't get into any 1-16 ranked schools, and no one was rejected everywhere.

The take home message for future applicants with these or similar qualifications is to try and save up your money this next summer to apply to as many good schools as possible. You have a realistic chance anywhere, but if you only apply to 2 or 3 top schools you have a realistic chance of having to settle on somewhere else (not that that would be the end of the world). On the flip side, don't get too attached to any one school, because no acceptances are guaranteed.

Good luck to everyone, this year and in the future!

slepton
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:06 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by slepton » Sat Feb 14, 2015 4:16 pm

Undergrad Institution: Large state school, average physics dept.
Majors: Physics, Math
Minor: Electrical/Computer Engineering
GPA in Major: 4.0
Overall GPA: 4.0
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class: top
Type of Student: Domestic white male

GRE Scores :
Q: 170
V: 163
W: 5.0
P: 990


Research Experience: 1 year working on genetic algorithm optimization w/ biophysics professor at home institution, 1 summer at CERN working on detector software, 1 year doing particle detector simulations for a Fermilab experiment at home institution. No publications, but a couple posters/conference presentations and a presentation at a Fermilab collaboration meeting.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Top Sophomore/Junior physics student at home institution, multiple other academic awards and scholarships for math/physics.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 1 semester TAing, 3 years of math tutoring, 1 summer internship with a small contractor at NASA's JSC doing computer graphics and simulation.

Special Bonus Points: Few grad classes in math and particle/solid state physics. Quite a bit of experience with multiple computer languages. 2 recs from profs who were quite happy with my research, and one from a prof whom I've gotten 3 A+'s from in advanced physics courses.

Applying to Where (all hep-ex):

University of Chicago Accepted 1/30 via email to check website. $2550/mo TA + summer RA - Declined
UCSB Accepted 1/30 via email. $30000/12mo fellowship - Will Attend!
Caltech Accepted 2/12 via email. $30600/12mo Graduate Research Assistantship - Declined
MIT Rejected 2/18 via email.
Yale Accepted 2/26 via email to check website. $32500/12mo TA+summer RA - Declined
Wisconsin-Madison Accepted 1/23 via email. $15000/9mo TA + $5000 summer RA + $15000 1st year fellowships - Declined
Washington-Seattle Accepted 1/14 via email. $1956/mo TA + $2500 - Declined
Boston University Accepted 2/11 via email. $31000/12mo TA - Declined
Last edited by slepton on Tue Apr 14, 2015 9:14 pm, edited 7 times in total.

mhutcheson
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:47 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by mhutcheson » Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:27 pm

Undergrad Institution: Agnes Scott College- tiny, women's, liberal arts college. Not known for physics or science AT ALL but known for producing top graduates in a number of fields
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Mathematics and Spanish
GPA in Major: 3.77
Overall GPA: 3.81
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top 10%
Type of Student: Domestic white female

GRE Scores : revised
Q: 153 (59%)
V: 153 (52%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 580 (25%) ABYSMAL, I KNOW


Research Experience:
Elsewhere: Summer of research at CERN in low engery atomic physics (2014) Summer of research at University of Michigan in high energy particle physics (2013)
At home institution: 1.5 years in astronomical exoplanetary detection (helped confirm discovery of 7 exoplanets), 1 year in computational radio astronomy, 1 year of simulation work in medical physics (uses Geant4 for simulations so kind of particle physics-y)
Publications: 1 publication (though only conference preceeding) for Michigan work in HEP data acquisition systems. Not first author
Conferences: 7 conferences for physics, presented at all of them

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Goldwater Scholarship Honorable Mention; Dean's List all undergrad semesters (except 1? can't remember); NSF Fellowship (but not all schools knew I had it before they rejected me)

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: During first two years- astronomy tutor and lab assistant, now primary physics tutor for introductory courses, public outreach job giving observatory tours to school groups, SPS President

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Gave two hour long public lectures for my work in exoplanetary detection

Special Bonus Points: Suuuuper big connection from Michigan, my advisor in HEP really helped me through the application process and wrote me excellent letters. My professors at home institution, becuse it is so small, also wrote incredible letters of rec and recommended me highly. Also, woman in physics and also a liberal arts graduate (diversity!)

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Applied for NSF Graduate Fellowship. Also, because ASC is a liberal arts school our physics courses aren't as rigorous so I'm lacking in coursework but I think my statements really stood out because I'm not a generic applicant and that liberal arts education teaches you how to write! Just goes to show you even if you BOMB the PGRE you can still get into Harvard!

Applying to Where: (all for high energy particle)

Michigan - Physics - Accepted 01/28 --Will Attend!
Cornell - Physics - Rejected
Maryland - Physics - Rejected
Harvard - Physics - Accepted 02/17 --Declined
Yale - Physics - Rejected 02/16
Washington - Physics - Rejected
UC Davis - Physics -Rejected
Last edited by mhutcheson on Tue Jul 14, 2015 9:32 am, edited 9 times in total.

blackmass
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Jul 17, 2014 2:01 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by blackmass » Wed Feb 18, 2015 12:48 am

Undergrad Institution: Large state school with a reputation for physics research
Major(s): Astrophysics
Minor(s): Mathematics
GPA in Major: 3.93
Overall GPA: 3.85
Length of Degree: 4.5 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: Domestic female

GRE Scores :
Q: 157 (67%)
V: 159 (83%)
W: 5 (93%)
P: 680 (47%)

Research Experience: Three years of research at my home institution. This included a lengthy research project with observing time, as well as instrumentation work for various astronomy projects. One summer at an international astronomy research institute.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Space Grant, Undergraduate Research Award

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Treasurer for SPS. Telescope operator at campus observatory. Telescope operator for large scale telescope.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: One of my letter writers is well known, particularly at some of the institutions I've applied to. We also have collaborators at several schools I've applie dto as well.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

University of Arizona - Astronomy Accepted
University of Iowa - Physics and Astronomy Accepted
UW Madison - Astronomy Accepted
Harvard - Astronomy Accepted
University of Washington -- Astronomy Interviewed -- Offered spot in physics department -- Rejected from astro
UC Santa Barbara - Astronomy Contacted letter writer -- Rejected
University of Virginia -- Astronomy Interviewed -- Rejected
University of Maryland -- Astronomy Unofficial waitlist -- Rejected
Boston University -- Astronomy Unofficial waitlist -- Rejected
UCLA - Astronomy Rejected 2/5
CU Boulder - Astronomy Rejected 2/13
Caltech - Astronomy Rejected 2/17
UC Berkeley - Astronomy Rejected 2/19
Arizona State - Astronomy Rejected

I think the biggest downfall of my application was definitely my GRE scores. I think I would have been a competitive applicant otherwise, and I'd be willing to bet that many of my rejections from places like Caltech and UC Berkeley were due to insufficient GRE scores. That being said, I do think that more and more universities are beginning to place less emphasis on GRE scores and are instead vastly more interested in your research experience. Connections are definitely not enough. Pay attention to how many grad students the advisor you're interested in working with already has -- they might not be able to justify taking on more students. If possible, attend the AAS winter meeting. I talked to a substantial number of professors and admission committee members at the meeting which may have helped seal the deal in some cases.

All in all, I think research is KEY. From what I've gathered, stellar GRE scores and a high GPA on their own will not get you into grad school. You need to have research experience for physics/astro programs. If you have all three, I'd say you're very competitive and have a very good shot of getting into top programs. But again, as long as you have research experience, I would suggest applying to a wide range of schools. Just my two cents.
Last edited by blackmass on Fri Aug 07, 2015 3:24 pm, edited 4 times in total.

BradleyBoy
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 1:45 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by BradleyBoy » Wed Feb 18, 2015 1:55 am

Undergrad Institution: Lil tiny LAC, no rep
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: >3.9
Overall GPA: > 3.9
Length of Degree: 4
Position in Class:
Type of Student: Domestic White Male

GRE Scores :
Q: > 160
V: > 160
W: 4.0
P: ~650 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Research Experience:

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points:

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where: CME/Nanoscience/Applied

UNC Chapel Hill - Physics Accepted 1/27
RPI - Physics Accepted 2/5 Declined
Northwestern - Applied Physics Accepted 2/6
U Michigan - Applied Physics Accepted 2/6
Colorado School of Mines - Applied Physics Accepted 2/6 Declined
UC Merced - Physics Accepted 2/6 Declined

Chicago - Molecular Engineering Wait List 2/12

UC Davis - Physics
UC Santa Cruz - Physics Denied
Georgia Tech - Physics
Last edited by BradleyBoy on Mon Mar 02, 2015 2:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Mediocre
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon May 05, 2014 8:38 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by Mediocre » Wed Feb 18, 2015 2:40 am

Undergrad Institution: Large Public University, Top 25 in Physics
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Mathematics
GPA in Major: 3.44
Overall GPA: 3.34
Length of Degree: 4 Years
Position in Class: No Idea
Type of Student: Domestic White Male

GRE Scores :
Q: 168
V: 164
W: 5.0
P: 810

Research Experience: No publications. Few months working in a biochemistry lab doing biophysical tests (originally a biophysics major). 1.5 years doing fluids/low temperature physics research. Around 6 months doing research in an EE lab developing medical devices (wanted to test the waters in engineering).

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Award for undergraduate research given at a Undergraduate Science Poster Presentation.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: High School/SAT tutor for 2.5 years. Paid for some portion of my research experience.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Not really.

Special Bonus Points: Not particularly.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: GPA is bad mostly because of my first 3 semesters of college. My upper division GPA is around a 3.8 in math and physics. This was noted very briefly (short paragraph) on SOP.

Applying to Where:

All CME and Physics. Also mentioned Complex Systems (fluids) or AMO at some schools if those areas contained some faculty I was interested in. Listed in rough order of preference.

Cornell - Rejected 2/17
University of Chicago - Rejected 3/3
UCSB - Rejected 2/24

Michigan - Ann Arbor - Accepted 2/4. Will Attend!
Maryland - College Park - Rejected 2/16
Ohio State - Accepted 2/10
Duke - Accepted 2/7
UC Davis - Accepted 2/13
UC Irvine - Accepted 2/3
University of Arizona - Accepted 2/16
UC Riverside - Accepted 2/13

University of Massachusetts - No Response. Application Withdrawn.

Considering my low numbers because of freshman foolishness, I am pleasantly surprised with the result! I hope my application can be some beacon of hope for less than perfect applicants browsing the forum. Good luck to everyone!
Last edited by Mediocre on Fri Mar 27, 2015 1:15 pm, edited 3 times in total.

heisenbergh23
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2014 10:56 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by heisenbergh23 » Wed Feb 18, 2015 6:53 am

Undergrad Institution: (Big State University... Not much famous for Physics)
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): N/A
GPA in Major: 3.9
Overall GPA: 3.85
Length of Degree: (Are you graduating after 3, 4, or 5 years?) 4
Position in Class: (No numbers needed, but are you top? near top? average? struggling?) Near Top
Type of Student: (Domestic/International, male/female, minority?) Internation

GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q: 169
V: 160
W: 4.5
P: 970


TOEFL Total: 113

Research Experience: (At your school or elsewhere? What field? How much time? Any publications (Mth author out of N?) or conference talks etc...) Two summer research at prominent universities (one is Ivy, another is a reputed university outside US), one year of research in my school, no publication, no talks.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Scholarships, a Medal in International Physics Olympiad, bla bla..

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Was tutor after high school..don't know if it actually matters
Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: I enjoy eating, especially delicious foods.

Special Bonus Points: Recommendation letters are probably strong.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Not that I remember.

Applying to Where:

Stanford - Physics - Astrophysics- Rejected
Yale - Physics - Astrophysics - Rejected
UChicago - Physics - Astrophysics - Rejected
Carnegie Mellon - Physics - Astrophysics - Rejected
UPitt - Physics - Astrophysics -Waitlisted-->Rejected
Penn State - Physics - Astrophysics - Rejected
Ohio State - Physics - Astrophysics -Waitlisted--> Rejected

______________________________________________
Life is hard. I thought my application was quite strong. The only thing that was lacking was publication (so, the take home message is that if you don't have a publication, don't ever think of any school as a safety). My professors were actually advising me to apply to more top tier schools. Even sh*ts like UPitt and Carnegie Mellon haven't replied yet. I thought I am actually overqualified for Yale (what do they think of themselves, they are Ivy league, I know that, but what else?). Actually, applying to Yale was a mistake - I should have applied to more schools whose focus is more on hard core (not sure if that word is relevant) research like UTexas and some UCs. Well, since Penn State and Ohio State have already started sending out offers, I think my chances this year is close to nil. Thinking of going to some remote part of the world and teaching English, Science and Mathematics. May be I will be able to transform life of some..at least I got a privilege of undergraduate education. Let's see where I will take myself!
Last edited by heisenbergh23 on Mon Aug 03, 2015 7:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

sifodeas
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Nov 28, 2014 8:47 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by sifodeas » Thu Feb 19, 2015 2:58 am

Undergrad Institution: Medium-Sized US Private School - No Physics Reputation
Major(s): Physics, Mathematics
Minor(s): Computer Science
GPA in Major: 3.8
Overall GPA: 3.73
Length of Degree: 4 Years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: Domestic White Male

GRE Scores : Revised
Q: 170 (98th)
V: 163 (92nd)
W: 4.5 (80th)
P: 710 (54th)

Research Experience:

My Undergrad Institution
3 Years Condensed Matter Physics (Experimental + Computational)
1 Year General Relativity (Computational)
1 Year Quantum Computing (Experimental)

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:

Dean's List (Three Semesters)
Excellence in Computer Science Award
Excellence in Mathematics Award
Two STEM Scholarships
Two Silver Medals in the University Physics Competition
10th Place in A State-Wide Mathematics Competition
Successful Entry in the Mathematical Competition in Modeling
20 Points (86th Percentile) on the Putnam Competition

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

1 Year as SPS Vice President of Technological Affairs
2 Years as SPS President
1 Year as Vice President of the Mathematics and Computer Science Club
1 Year Control and Data Handling in Satellite Project
3 Years as Tutor for Physics & Mathematics through University
3 Years as Tutor for Computer Science through Mathematics and Computer Science Department
2 Years as Teaching Assistant for Introductory Physics Labs

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

I have a couple repos on GitHub that have some exposure.

Special Bonus Points:

One of my recommenders seems to know people everywhere (GR).

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Member of Omicron Delta Kappa (probably doesn't matter).
I exclusively professed interest in working on computational or computer science related research.

Applying to Where:

UC Davis - Physics & Astronomy - CM(T)/GR(T) - Accepted 2/16 via e-mail correspondence - $23368 annual stipend and $800 in fees
UC Riverside - Physics & Astronomy - CM(T)/GR(T) - Accepted 2/16 vie e-mail correspondence - $23675 annual stipend and $1045 in fees
LSU - Physics & Astronomy - CM(T)/GR(T)/QI(T) - Accepted 2/6 via e-mail correspondence - $22000 annual stipend and waived tuition
UConn - Physics & Astronomy- CM(T)/GR(T) - Accepted 2/19 via e-mail correspondence - Awaiting financial information
Dartmouth - Physics & Astronomy- CM(T)/GR(T)
Washington University in Saint Louis - Physics & Astronomy - CM(T)/GR(T)
University of New Mexico - Physics & Astronomy - CM(T)/QI(T)
University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee - Physics & Astronomy - CM(T)/GR(T)
UC Boulder - Physics & Astronomy - CM(T)/GR(T)

tqn
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 10:53 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by tqn » Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:41 pm

Undergrad Institution: Unknown state school
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): n/a
GPA in Major: 3.92
Overall GPA: 3.96
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Probably top
Type of Student: International

GRE Scores :
Q: 166
V: 155
W: 4.0
P: 840

Research Experience: 2 years at home institution doing high energy physics analysis. 2 summers abroad doing dark matter search and accelerator simulation.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Several awards for top students at home institution. No publication.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Math & Physics tutor for 2 years.

Special Bonus Points: Perhaps strong letters of recommendation. The first one from our research group PI who always supports me. The second one from a professor at a university in Japan but has strong connection with top schools in the U.S., whom I worked with over the summer. I did not work with the professor who wrote the third letter, but took two classes with him, one of which was graduate-level.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: 2 grad-level courses. Well-crafted SOP.

Applying to Where:
(All for HEP-ex)

Berkeley - Rejected 3/12
Caltech - Accepted 2/12 - Will attend!
Columbia - Accepted 2/19

Cornell - Rejected 2/25
Harvard - Rejected 3/2
MIT - Rejected 2/18
Princeton - Rejected 2/18
Stanford - Rejected 2/17
UChicago - Rejected 3/3
UCLA - Rejected 2/27

UMaryland - Accepted 2/10
UMichigan - Accepted 1/14
UIUC - Accepted 2/9

Yale - Rejected 2/16

Some words to future applicants:
1. Study for the Physics GRE seriously. I underestimated it at first and had only one or two weekends to prepare for it. As a result, it becomes the weakest part of my application. The average scores for most schools in top 7 are between 900 and 950.
2. Spend your summers doing research elsewhere other than your home institution. You'll get exposure to different research cultures, recognize your bad habits, and establish connections with potential future colleagues.
3. Apply to as many places as you can, especially to schools higher than your anticipated match. For most top schools, other than several outstanding applicants who immediately got admission without a second thought, the committees have to choose around 40 out of 100 applications with very similar profiles. Luck plays a role.
4. This forum is an excellent resource where you can find applicants with similar profiles and base on their results to make a proper list of schools to apply to. After everything is over, please post your own profile and results to help future applicants.
Last edited by tqn on Thu Apr 02, 2015 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

calcfreak
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2015 12:57 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by calcfreak » Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:20 pm

Undergrad Institution: Big state school, excellent physics rep
Major(s): Physics, Math, Computer Science
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 4.00
Overall GPA: 4.00
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Don't know (but given my gpa...)
Type of Student: Domestic male

GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 170
V: 170
W: 5
P: 970

Research Experience: 1 year hep-ex, almost 3 years AMO experimental.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Goldwater scholar.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: None besides research. Worked in Silicon Valley for a summer, don't think universities would care though.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: None that I know of

Special Bonus Points: (Such as connections, grad classes, famous recommenders, female or minority status etc...)
PI in the AMO lab is well known in his field, pretty sure he wrote a glowing recommendation. Other recs should be quite positive as well. No publications except for a hep-th co-authorship after high school. Taken graduate quantum up to QFT.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:
Applying to experimental AMO or QI.

Applying to Where:

Harvard - Physics - Accepted
Stanford - Applied Physics - Accepted
MIT - Physics - Accepted
Maryland - Physics - Accepted
Berkeley - Physics - Accepted
UChicago - Physics - Accepted
UC Boulder - Physics - Accepted
Caltech - Physics - Accepted

Lesson learned: Getting into grad school might be a crapshoot, but you can stack the deck enough in your favor (even with no relevant publications).

ysh1
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:18 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by ysh1 » Sat Feb 21, 2015 6:45 pm

Undergrad Institution: Ivy
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 4.00+
Overall GPA: 4.00+
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: International male
GRE Scores : (revised)
Q: 170
V: 163
W: 4.0
P: 990

Research Experience:
- 3 years of research experience in CME (2.5 years in Transport & 0.5 year in Optics).
- Co-author in 2 publications (Nature Nanotechnology & APL Materials).

Awards/Honors/Recognition: Dean’s Lists

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points:
Strong recommendation letters (I think..)
[Letter 1]: Well-known in the field internationally. Did 4 projects together for 2 years and published 2 papers together. Took a class and received A+.
[Letter 2]: Well-known in the field. Took two classes and received A+ in both of them.
[Letter 3]: Young professor. 1 research project together. Took a class and received A+.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:
In the supplementary material, I attached a 10-page-long summary of 2 projects I succeeded & 3 projects I failed but still taught me something.

Applying to Where: Condensed Matter Experiment / Quantum Information

Harvard - Physics – ACCEPTED (2/17)
Stanford - Physics - ACCEPTED (2/10)
MIT – Physics – ACCEPTED (2/14)
Princeton - Physics – ACCEPTED (2/19)
UC Berkeley – Physics – ACCEPTED (2/10)
Yale - Physics – ACCEPTED (2/26)
Caltech – Physics – ACCEPTED (2/12)
Cornell – Physics – ACCEPTED (2/10)

U Chicago - Physics – REJECTED (3/3)
UIUC - Physics – ACCEPTED (1/23)


<Advice to those who are applying as experimental physics>
* As an experimentalist, it is extremely crucial that you “ACE” every undergrad physics course rather than just taking tons of grad courses. (Of course, this may not apply to theorists)
* Working with one established PI for a long time helps. You can possibly publish something, or at least get a good rec-letter.
* In supplementary material, show that you can actually understand and define what you did in the lab. Do not just say "I have first author papers, so I am super-smart."
Last edited by ysh1 on Tue Mar 03, 2015 4:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

sashab
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:50 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by sashab » Sun Feb 22, 2015 5:43 am

Undergrad Institution: Stanford University
Major(s): Physics with concentration in astrophysics; mathematics
Minor(s):
GPA in Major: 3.86 (physics), 3.90 (math)
Overall GPA: 3.90
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Somewhere in op 15%
Type of Student: male; some hispanic heritage

GRE Scores : revised
Q: 168 (95th percentile)
V: 168 (98th percentile)
W: 5 (93rd percentile)
P: 910 (91st percentile)

Research Experience: Bioinformatics research summer after freshman year at Translational Genomics Research Institute; 3 years of astrophysics research at Stanford from summer following sophomore year through graduation. Presented a poster at 2013 American Astronomical Society Conference, and published results senior year (1st author of 2). Took up volunteer work at the Astrogeology Division of the US Geological Survey and Lowell Observatory after graduation.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Physics honors, academic distinction (graduated in top 15%), Physics Department Jeff Willick Memorial Award

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Resident tutor senior year, TA for three classes (received very good reviews)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Mmm..I feel I wrote a strong statement of purpose.

Special Bonus Points: I took two grad courses, and I petitioned the math department to offer a class on Riemannian geometry that didn't exist before. I also have some hispanic heritage, if that's a factor.

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: I elected to take a year off after graduation. I've been doing some research. Whether this is a significant factor, I'm not sure.

Applying to Where:

University of Washington - Physics - Astrophysics - Accepted via email 1/9/2015
University of Maryland - Physics - Astrophysics - Accepted via email 1/13/2015
University of Arizona - Astronomy - Compact Objects or Neutrino Physics - Accepted 1/24/2015 via phone (that date may be off by a few days; I don't recall)
University of California Berkeley - Astronomy - Compact Objects - Skype interview 1/16/2015; Accepted 1/26/2015
Dartmouth - Physics and Astronomy - Astrophysics - Accepted 2/12/2015
Harvard - Physics - Astrophysics - Accepted 2/17/2015
MIT - Physics - Astrophysics - Accepted 2/14/2015
Columbia - Physics - Astrophysics
Princeton - Astrophysical Sciences - Compact Objects - Waitlisted 2/6/2015
Boston University - Physics - Astrophysics - Informed via email on 2/11/2015 that I was approved for admission, but documents were missing. Still working on getting them.
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lagrangian
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Feb 22, 2015 7:01 pm

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by lagrangian » Sun Feb 22, 2015 8:22 pm

Undergrad Institution: Ivy
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Mathematics
GPA in Major: 4.00+
Overall GPA: 3.95
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: International Male

GRE Scores : revised
Q: 170 (98%)
V: 165 (95%)
W: 4.5 (80%)
P: 960 (91%)

Research Experience: 1 summer in CME, resulted in 1 presentation. ~1 year in CMT, working on a theory project with a postdoc, no publication by the time of application but results will likely be published when I graduate. I will be 2nd or at least 3rd author.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's List. Named scholar at my institution.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: Took a few physics grad courses (Mech, E&M, QM, QFT), did well in one grad course in my junior year (the prof. was eager to write a really good rec. letter for me, though it's not a research-related one so it might not be too relevant). The other two rec. letters were from the profs I did research with, both are pretty big names in the field, and I believe wrote strong rec. letters. (like what 99% of people here say..lol)

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Although (or because) I had no publications by the time of application, I wrote a research summary of the theory project I'm currently working on, emphasizing what I actually did and learned while providing a reasonably comprehensive overview/motivation of the project.

Applying to Where: CMT

Harvard - Rejected 3/2
MIT - Rejected 2/18
Princeton - Rejected 2/19
UC Berkeley -
Yale - Accepted 2/26 8) life is unexpected that way.
UChicago - Rejected 3/3
Cornell - Rejected 2/25
Stanford - Rejected 2/17
Caltech - Rejected 2/23
Columbia -
UIUC - Accepted 2/17

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Looking back at my undergrad career and analyzing the posts uploaded in the forum (yes, I've studied admission profiles back from ~2012..creep much?), I have a few words of advice, especially for prospective theorists (this applies to those who are aiming for top 10-20 schools):

1. All other things being equal, theory is much harder to get in than experiment. I haven't seen many acceptances among theory applicants here, despite having fantastic stats. This has less to do with the discrepancy in the stats of applicants than the very nature of the field. There are fewer professors in theory, and as far as I know, each professor only takes in 1-2 grad students at the most each year. So, if you are uncertain whether you want to follow the footstep of Sheldon or Leonard (Big Bang Theory, anyone?), it would be wiser to apply to experiment (though your undergrad research experience will suffice for you to decide which one you prefer).

2. To stand a chance at doing theory, get good grades and PGRE (at least ~900). Although there are exceptional cases, these are rarer for applicants in theory than in experiment (where there seems to be more leeway; but they seem to value research experience more). Sure, PGRE may not reflect your physics ability, but if you can't even solve simplified optics/mechanics/e&m/qm problems (some say it's the time pressure, but you can score reasonably high even without doing all problems) how can you call yourself a theorist? Same for coursework. Try to get your fundamentals straight and know undergrad physics cold before even thinking of unifying GR and QM (i.e. don't become one of those "oh-I-read-the-elegant-universe-so-I-know-string-theory-and-D-branes" guy)

3. OK. Papers. Of course, having 1 or more first-author publication at respectable journals will help you stand out. However, having no publications doesn't mean it's the end of the world - far from it. I've seen several without any (but still with near-perfect scores and research experience) who got into top schools, where many with first-author pubs were rejected. In my opinion, these schools look for applicants who will be a good fit to their department, whether through the SOP, rec. letters, etc.

4. Chill. There are plenty of good places and professors where you can study theoretical physics. Studying Ads/CFT correspondence at Princeton may sound really cool, but that's just a part of your life. IMO, having fun and meeting/dating people (i.e. those who actually think "lagrangian" isn't a word) is equally important, if not more, than the actual academic work you do. So, work hard and play hard guys, and to those applying this year, good luck wherever you all end up!
Last edited by lagrangian on Tue Mar 03, 2015 7:05 pm, edited 5 times in total.

ridethespiral
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:31 am

Re: 2015 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results

Post by ridethespiral » Sun Feb 22, 2015 8:59 pm

Undergrad Institution: Irish University, one of if not the best in the country for physics/maths
Major(s): Degree in Theoretical Physics
Minor(s): Maths I suppose
GPA in Major: 91%
Overall GPA: 91%
Length of Degree: 4 years
Position in Class: Top
Type of Student: International

GRE Scores : (revised or old version?)
Q: 88%
V: 92%
W: 4.0 (56%)
P: 940 (90%)


Research Experience: All at home university. 3 month REU in DFT, 3 month project on quantum computation, and year long project on mathematical physics.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Awards for good grades
Prize chosen by heads of departments of physics and maths
Prestigious scholarship from home uni

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Helproom tutor in maths department
Grading of statistical physics and analytical mechanics assignments.

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: Chair of Maths society in uni
Founding member of pressure group for Ireland to join CERN.

Special Bonus Points: Since my degree was specialied from the start, many of the classes I've taken would be considered grad classes in the states (QFT, GR).

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

All CMT/HEP-TH

Cornell - Physics Accepted - $27k with $5k teaching award
Princeton - Physics - Rejected
Columbia - Physics - Rejected

Cambridge - MASt, Part III of Tripos Accepted Conditional on 1st Class Honours Turned down due to no funding offer.
Oxford MMathPhys in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics Accepted Conditional on 1st Class Honours Turned down due to no funding offer.
Perimeter - Perimeter Scholars International Rejected

Overall, delighted with Cornell. I had become disillusioned with the whole process and was planning to go Cambridge or Oxford,which is why I only applied to three places in the US, but it turned out pretty well.
Last edited by ridethespiral on Fri Sep 18, 2015 6:21 am, edited 2 times in total.



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