Physics GRE Discussion Forums

ibbgs wrote:just out of curiosity, where do you want to go grae313 now that you got in everywhere

Well, I'm abstaining from actively trying to pick in my mind at the moment. I want to visit all the top contenders and speak with the faculty, and see what impressions I come away with. At this point I think Cornell and Berkeley are front-runners. If Berkeley awards me this fellowship I'm nominated for, I won't have to TA, but I can if I want to for some extra money that will put me at over $31k/year , and it will also pay my RA though to my fifth year which, like an outside fellowship, would pretty much give me pick of the labs. This is incredible as far as I'm concerned, and if I end up getting that fellowship it is going to be hard to go anywhere else. Santa Barbara is right behind Cornell and Berkeley. Stanford made me a shabby financial offer, and I'm not as in to their research as I am for the other three schools, so they are in fourth. I'm really just spoiled rotten with options right now. It is just amazing.

grae313 wrote:

VT wrote:Congratulations for Harvard acceptance, grae313! (It is pretty obvious that you will get into Harvard also). GREAT WORK! Good luck.

lol, thank you, VT. I almost feel kind of shitty about it, I mean it is just getting ridiculous now. Especially when people with better test scores than me aren't getting in

You must have wrote one hell of an essay!

jdhooghe wrote:You must have wrote one hell of an essay!

well, since you mentioned it I'm actually very proud of my SOP. I may post it after this is all done with, but I'm worried about people in years to come plagiarizing it. I wonder if grad schools use turnitin.com?

What are the differences between the Berkeley and Stanford financial offers (without the fellowship), if I can ask? I would have expected Stanford's to be better based on the resources of the two schools.

Not to mention a double major with pretty amazing(guessing here) marks and research experience to boot! You kicked some serious ass as an undergraduate.

does anybody happen to go to stanford/harvard undergrad and could ask some prof there when their grad visiting days are? those schools' silence is preventing me from planning my other trips...assholes

kwxl wrote:What are the differences between the Berkeley and Stanford financial offers (without the fellowship), if I can ask? I would have expected Stanford's to be better based on the resources of the two schools.

stanford offered me a standard 9-month RA worth a bit under 21k, with the option to secure a summer position for a little more. if I am not awarded berkeley's university fellowship, I will receive a mixture of TA/fellowship for around 25-26k (I don't know the exact breakdown of how much is TA and how much is fellowship). Cornell is offering 27.5k (22.5 from TA), and RAs are supposed to pay more than TAs. So either the applied physics program at stanford is under-funded, or they are really not that excited about having me there as a student. Yale's TA offer pays over 26k for 9 months (with only 10 hours a week of work), and even UCSB is offering me around 26k.

grae, the Stanford offer is about standard for what I've received and from a lot of the posts I've read. I think it's more that the other schools are making you great offers, while Stanford is making you a good offer. Although, throw in the cost of living for Ithaca vs. the Bay and SoCal, and that Cornell offer looks even better.

doom wrote:grae, the Stanford offer is about standard for what I've received and from a lot of the posts I've read. I think it's more that the other schools are making you great offers, while Stanford is making you a good offer. Although, throw in the cost of living for Ithaca vs. the Bay and SoCal, and that Cornell offer looks even better.

ok, well I don't feel quite as snubbed then but yeah, according to these cost of living websites, I'd need around 51k to maintain the same standard of living in the bay area that I would have with 27.5k in Ithaca pretty ridiculous. for what I pay for rent for a 2 bed 2 bath condo that I share with two others here in the south bay, I could rent an entire 3 bedroom apartment in Ithaca. HA!

hmm, I thought that Stanford's offer of 2,418 per month RA was pretty darn good.
Berkeley also gave me a bunch of random stuff including fellowships, ta's, and/or ra's, which add up to a lot of money but seem like a ridiculous amount of work.
UCSB didn't explicitly tell me what my offer was, they just said an RA was ~27k and a TA was ~17k. I guess I'd have to get a group and find out which I have.

... I just hop NSF or NDSEG are nice enough to throw some cash my way...

I just got into Columbia Applied Physics with a 5 year finaid package at $28k/year! My first acceptance! I am SO excited!

Haven't logged in for awhile. Congrats on Columbia, mathlete. Congrats to everyone as well, especially grae313--just WOW.

Hi all,

I have a question pertaining to taking acceptances. I have been accepted to Harvard APh, Stanford APh and UCF Ph-CREOL, and likely accepted at Caltech APh because of the interview. Harvard was my first choice and I am 99.99% sure that I want to go there. Should I:
1) email the other schools right away and turn them down so they can take other people.
2) wait until at least the official snail-mail package comes from Harvard and then turn the others down.
3) go to Stanford's open house just to be sure that I am making the right choice and then probably turn them down.

I was tempted to take option 3, but I am starting to think that this is not fair to people who may be waitlisted and really have their hearts set on Stanford. What would you guys recommend? I want to be curteous, but I also want to make sure I make the best choice.

@ ibbgs

Unnecessarily holding out until the last minute to turn down schools is one thing, but no one expects you to give up the opportunity to visit schools you might go to! You should do the visits if you can. Certainly wait until you get the official offer.

Ibbg,

I recommend you turn down the one you know for sure you wont be attending (Which seems to be UCF and CalTech) once you get offers (IN WRITING) of Harvard and Stanford. Then, visit both and decline one or the other as soon as possible, as people are probably are on that waitlist.

peder wrote:Ibbg,

I recommend you turn down the one you know for sure you wont be attending (Which seems to be UCF and CalTech) once you get offers (IN WRITING) of Harvard and Stanford. Then, visit both and decline one or the other as soon as possible, as people are probably are on that waitlist.

I concur! I should make a video that visits waitlisted prospective graduate students and while holding the crying sob, tell the audiance about how unfortunate these students are and for only a couple turn downs per person, we can help feed, clothe and educate them. I shall call it the United Flying Spaghetti Monster Fund for underprivaliged undergraduates...

@ibbgs: You've got to do what's right by you. I'll tell you what I'm doing. As soon as one school beats another, I will decline/withdraw from the other school. I'm in at University of Florida and UCSD. I'm fairly certain I don't want to go to Florida over UCSD. However, I don't have a financial package for UCSD, and indeed much less details about my conditions there. As soon as I can make what I feel is a reasonable comparison between the two - no more facts that could possibly tip the scales - I will make my choice.

There are of course some choices that aren't even choices. If I got accepted to Caltech, I would reject Florida 30 seconds later. Even taking out loans all over again to go to Caltech would be worth it over Florida. In a heartbeat. Although I would take it as a kindness if they didn't (yeah, I love Firefly) and gave me some funding anyway.

ibbgs and others:

Please, please, please. Once you know you will not be attending a school, e-mail them immediately and withdraw/decline. Grae--you've gotten into many, many, places---surely there are some that you know are at the bottom of the list, so why not withdraw from them today? We all have so many anxious people on waiting lists, and it's maddening to be unable to make an offer to someone who really wants to come because many students are holding onto large numbers of offers.

In fact, if you are accepted to school A, and you haven't heard from school B, but A is much higher on your list, please e-mail school B and withdraw. It saves lots of time and hassle for the admissions committees.

I do agree, however, that you do NOT have an offer until you have it via snail mail. And if there is any doubt, don't withdraw. But I see many people on this forum saying that they are into schools A,B,C,D,E,F and that D and E are at the bottom of their list. So why don't they decline D and E now?

I luvs Firefly too!

Thanks all for the replys, particularly admissionprof. I will decline UCF right away, and then I will wait for the official package from Harvard to reject Stanford. Caltech is actually my second choice, but because of their interviews, I have already been there to visit (I have also visited Harvard in November), so I should really be able to make my final decision once I hear from them, at which point I can promptly notify everyone else.

I just recieved admission to UC Boulder. This decision is becoming more and more difficult...

I got an email from Harvard physics today - accepted! No financial info yet, but the visit date is March 17-18 (conveniently right before MIT). Good luck to everyone else!

yeah i got the harvard acceptance today too. does harvard even offer fellowships or does everybody just get a TA?

Add me to the Harvard list. Got accepted into UC Santa Cruz by email today as well.

What does this 'recommended for admission' stuff mean? Am I in or out!?

phys007 wrote:Add me to the Harvard list.

Add me to that list, too. I thought every first year at Harvard gets a 1 year fellowship? (don't quote me on it though)
I guess now that I have heard from everywhere I should probably post my profile...

yeah you're right geomar, i just read harvard's website about financial info and we all get a "Purcell Fellowship" for the first 10 months. cool!

Congrats to the newest members of "Hahvuhd"! And yes, you should definitely post your profile, geomar!

doom wrote:Congrats to the newest members of "Hahvuhd"! And yes, you should definitely post your profile, geomar!

Thanks, and done. Now I am going to try in vain to attend all the open houses.
Its going to be really hard to make a final selection: I think it would be pretty silly to turn down any school just based on reputation without visiting. Plus, I only applied to schools I really really really liked.
But I think I need to take a few off the list soon, perhaps names in a hat?

How about you turn down UCSB... It's a crummy place...

Wow, you batted 100%. That's awesome.

Speaking of UCSB...

*does a little dance*

Congrats!

i really want to start planning my visits to grad schools and make sure that i don't conflict with the one i've yet to hear back from... is there anything wrong with emailing a school (before hearing about admission status) and asking them when their open house is?? it seems pretty innocent but i wouldn't want to piss people off.

dlenmn wrote:How about you turn down UCSB... It's a crummy place...

Not a chance! I can't wait until I visit!

dlenmn wrote:Wow, you batted 100%. That's awesome.

Yeah, I'm pretty darn surprised. Hopefully others get some of my luck.

nvanmeter wrote:i really want to start planning my visits to grad schools and make sure that i don't conflict with the one i've yet to hear back from... is there anything wrong with emailing a school (before hearing about admission status) and asking them when their open house is?? it seems pretty innocent but i wouldn't want to piss people off.

I've tried this twice (Stony Brook and Boston U) and have not received a response either time. I'm not sure if the grad offices are just swamped with emails, or if this is somehow an inappropriate question. I agree, it's very frustrating trying to plan visits without a full knowledge of where you'll be accepted and when their visit dates fall.

I generally try to operate exclusively by email, but this may be a case where it's appropriate to get on the blower -- it's hard to ignore a phone call

Congratulations to everyone admitted to Harvard!!

I noticed that everyone reporting admission to Harvard physics is in condensed matter. Do you think this is a coincidence, or that only the CM people have emailed their admittees thus far? (trying to hold onto some hope here....) Seems too strange to be a coincidence, though it could be? Is there still a chance for everyone without word yet?

kwxl wrote:Congratulations to everyone admitted to Harvard!!

I noticed that everyone reporting admission to Harvard physics is in condensed matter. Do you think this is a coincidence, or that only the CM people have emailed their admittees thus far? (trying to hold onto some hope here....) Seems too strange to be a coincidence, though it could be? Is there still a chance for everyone without word yet?

I'm not sure but it could just be that we have a very small statistical sample and CM is the largest subfield of physics.

i don't know. check last year's threads and see if every harvard acceptance comes on the same day or if it comes in waves. do acceptances really work by subfield anyway though? MIT told me that their High Energy/Nuclear Theory group gave me my fellowship and I applied in Condensed Matter Theory, so i really don't get how this stuff works...

Another good place to look is thegradcafe.com.

It appears last year, it was really just one day at the end of Feb when people got acceptances. Rejections followed ~2 weeks later. Between the two events, only one person seems to have gotten in (it happend not long after the day when the other acceptances went out).

Thanks for the info; I see what you are saying also. maybe there is a little hope, just a little...

I got into Harvard for theoretical cosmology today...so I'm not sure how the department theory holds.

omg was totally freaking out for not being able to check my e-mail for a couple of days, but there it was, harvard! and uchicago snail mail... for the record, i'm HEP.

congrats.

no hope then, for the rest of us... (except for the other schools!!)

I got into a nuisance called Brown. Does not make me happy. I am pissed with Michigan.

What a wild and crazy ride!

This afternoon I emailed UMBC to ask about the status of my application, and promptly got a reply that I was not admitted. I was feeling totally down about that rejection, because I thought of all the schools I was applying to, I had the best chances of getting to the Applied Physics program there. I somehow convinced myself to expect an acceptance from them. So to get the rejection was killer, I then promptly completely convinced myself that I wasn't going to get in anywhere. I certainly didn't expect to get an acceptance from Lehigh, because of their emphasis on previous research experience, which I arguably had none! So imagine my complete surprise and elation when I get an acceptance email from them literally minutes later! Plus it came with a nice TA offer!

Oh my gosh, I'm dizzy and I want to get off.

congrats marten. I got into Pitt too. Not interested though. I want to sue MIT for not sending me a rejection letter.

Got in to Brown today. Yay options!

UCLA!!! Score! Congrats to the Harvard people!

...a little disappointed that there aren't more Firefly fans out there? How 'bout Serenity?

"This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and... then... explode."

"We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode!"

Sounds vaguely like waiting for grad school letters, yes?

Lehigh too. With a fellowship. My damn junk mail filter ate it -- it's a good thing I check it once a day!