Listing Grad school responses (Admits & Rejects)...

  • 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.

artist
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2006 3:20 am

Post by artist » Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:20 pm

To those who got accepted by top schools: Please consider rejecting your offers and recommending me for those positions instead. You are all such overachievers you will obviously succeed no matter what school you go to. Going somewhere shitty is the least you could do for me.

When I get tenure somewhere, I'd be glad to express my gratitude for you by granting you a six month postdoc position beneath me.

P.S. It would help if you got some of your professors to write fake letters of recommendation for me too.

braindrain
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:23 am

Princeton

Post by braindrain » Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:49 pm

To say the Princeton area is laidback is an understatement. Its basically dead - a no-horse town (not even a one-horse town), plus New Jersey is the most ragged on state in the country (something to do with the stench in the part of New Jersey close to NYC). But the Princeton part of New Jersey is quite beautiful. They had fields of pumpkin patches and something I never saw before - fields of fireflies (if you watch them light up they are supposed to have some synchronization.) I would wager a guess however that it has the snootiest undergraduates in the country. The school was one of the last to cave regarding certain shameful historical things, like not letting in women, african americans, and not getting rid of quotas on Jews as early as the other schools did - long time ago though. And eating clubs makes for cliques and a class system. I wouldn't even call it a town. Is a town that is 2 blocks long a town? They may roll up the sidewalks after 8 pm.

BUT, from what people say, its a real environment of learning and an academic paradise. Real scholarly professors. I guess if you like the small town thing, it should be great.

I'm a city mouse myself. Maybe it was dumb for me to take geography into such great consideration, but 5 years is 5 years. BUT, once we are studying/hibernating, geography probably won't matter too much.

slee
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Dec 02, 2006 7:10 pm

Post by slee » Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:27 pm

hi physicsed, thanks for your reassurance! i was beginning to feel a bit puzzled. good luck to you, i'm sure you will find a place. but again, apologies to all.

braindrain, i see what you mean about the princeton area. but i like the quiet of the town, there is juuust enough to do. and nyc is a train ride away. the u of maryland also has some nice fireflies, i stayed on fraternity row for a summer and they have a nice big field that lit up at night.

as for snootiest undergrads, i was also a bit alarmed by the eating clubs and such when i heard of them. but, harvard is still also unarguably bad about this...i guess i will see which i prefer if i end up at princeton! as for those other unsavory aspects, hopefully they are things of the past...what's done is done, no?

baksiidaa
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:35 pm

Post by baksiidaa » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:28 pm

Just got the Harvard rejection letter. That's it for me.

Stanford - Rejected
Harvard - Rejected
Univ of Washington - Accepted

artschoolapplicant
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:44 pm

Post by artschoolapplicant » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:09 am

---
Sorry. i'm paranoid right now about posting stats...will do in a few weeks.
Last edited by artschoolapplicant on Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

ebgphy
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 5:55 pm

Post by ebgphy » Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:52 am

Hi all, i just want to ask that, at most universities web site they say: "you will be notified by e-mail when/ if you admitted"...does it mean i will hear nothing if i am not admitted, should i send e-mail or phone to learn their decisions....applied 10 schools but heard nothing...and tired of loking at my e-mail and application pages...and this week (spring break) is there a possibility of hearing an answer??

j
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:01 pm

Post by j » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:08 pm

@ebgphy:

It may be a good idea to start calling schools. Within the last week I called a few schools I hadn't heard from and got some information. Sometimes they're stingy and won't tell you anything, but I was given two or three responses directly over the phone - 2 waitlists, one rejection. So it could definitely pay off to call.

artschoolapplicant
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:44 pm

Post by artschoolapplicant » Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:12 pm

@ebgphy:

I would email the department admissions contact first. It's non-invasive and usually garners a response.

JackSkellington
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 10:26 pm

Post by JackSkellington » Tue Mar 13, 2007 2:29 pm

Guess who's going to Harvard......



Not me. :)

Totally unsurprised.

artschoolapplicant
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:44 pm

Post by artschoolapplicant » Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:39 pm

@jackskellington

How did you get the rejection? I've been waiting for mine.

nimbus
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:16 pm

question

Post by nimbus » Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:43 pm

@Jackskellington and baksiidaa
that letter from Harvard, was an email or postal?

nimbus
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:16 pm

Harvard rejec.....

Post by nimbus » Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:48 pm

@ artschoolapplicant
we´re in the same row

HEPdude
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:59 pm

Washington (Seattle) or Berkeley?

Post by HEPdude » Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:05 pm

Just got my Harvard rejection via the postal service yesterday (in response to people who were asking if the rejections were email or snail mail). Wasn't really a shocker.

I know some people have received acceptances from Washington (Seattle) and Berkeley, but has anyone gotten rejections from them yet?

It's funny how even waiting for rejections can be stressful.

ebgphy
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 5:55 pm

Post by ebgphy » Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:40 pm

Should one expect only rejections at this late date? i mean i heard from my friends who applied last year that good news come first and as the time closes to 15 april, you will get only rejections..is there any exceptions?

JackSkellington
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 10:26 pm

Post by JackSkellington » Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:44 pm

Look at the grad cafe- people list dates from schools there from this year and last. From what ive seen, its getting unlikely by now- but there are sporadic acceptances. Im not sure if the second wave is already mostly out. I thought I saw someone get into Berkeley last yr Mar 18th.

Harvard's rejection was smail.

radicaltyro
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:23 pm

Post by radicaltyro » Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:46 pm

I'm wondering where the Caltech rejections are. There are only 3 reported on the grad cafe so far. I also haven't heard from Berkeley...

nimbus
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:16 pm

Brandeis

Post by nimbus » Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:51 pm

Anyone applied to Brandeis U.? I haven´t heard about acceptances or rejections...including mine, of course

HEPdude
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:59 pm

Caltech rejection

Post by HEPdude » Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:09 pm

@radicaltyro

I got a rejection email from Caltech on March 6. If you haven't gotten one, maybe you're still in the running? Never hurts to email and ask for your application status.

Good luck!

schmit.paul
Posts: 161
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:48 pm

Post by schmit.paul » Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:59 am

Berkeley's the only one I haven't heard from yet. Just got back from a debauchery-filled trip to Mexico for spring break and came home to the rejection letter from Harvard physics and a new copy of arfken and weber in the mail. So my final stats are as such:

accepted:
Caltech (physics)
Princeton (plasma physics)
MIT (nuclear sci/engineering)
Columbia (applied physics)
UCLA (physics)

rejected:
MIT (physics)
Harvard (physics)
Stanford (physics)

and i'll assume I'll have a berkeley rejection soon enough.

The only schools I got into where I *didn't* emphasize plasma physics was Caltech, which leaves me wondering what did it for them that didn't do it for any of my other prospective HEP theory schools. I guess the moral I pulled from this entire process is that your research background as an undergrad certainly has an impact on your admissions results (i had a prestigious research fellowship in plasma physics, but nothing that remotely resembled HEP undergrad research...got accepted by all but one plasma program, rejected by all but one HEP program). I can say that my statements of purpose I wrote for the HEP theory programs I applied to (ie Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley, and i suppose to some extent Caltech) were fairly open-ended in terms of my declared research interests, which I thought might help ensure I didn't close too many potential doors prematurely, but perhaps I misjudged (my caltech SOP did mention a couple specific current research projects, perhaps to my benefit). Only one of my recommenders was directly involved in plasma physics research, and he's an experimental research scientist at MIT, not a professor...all of my other recommenders were in diff fields (one solid state experiment, one biophysics, and one HEP theory, all profs)...so it is highly unlikely that any of my successful admissions relied heavily on my recommenders being extremely notable or having specific ties to the relevant faculty at the grad schools (I won't venture to say that my rejections were due to a lack of enough connections with the faculty from those schools...that would be WAY too speculative and inappropriate). Hell, even the plasma physics program I thought I was most likely to get into (MIT Physics, since I spent the summer working in the MIT PSFC and getting to know the researchers), didnt accept me (due to an apparent lack of funding for a single plasma physics theory student within the department). So my advice to the next wave of prospective grad students filling out applications this coming cycle is to seek out extracurricular research opportunities (selective summer research programs are a major plus on an academic resume), take the time to really get to know your profs/research advisors and not worry so much about their particular connections (that is, unless they have phenomenal connections, in which case don't hesitate to utilize them!), and put in the necessary effort to do as well as you can for all the other aspects of your paper application (including GPA and GREs), because your success with regards to all of the procedural things will undoubtedly affect your potential pool of admissions offers, though there will always be a bell curve attached to each school's pool of admits (I have friends with solid GPAs but not more than average GRE scores that have done extremely well as far as admissions are concerned, which I think is phenomenal given the 4 years of solid effort each of these students has put into their field).

Realize there are so many factors that weigh in during this process that there will only be so well that you will be able to prepare for it, and no one will be able to give you a definite answer regarding your potential for admissions...that is, unless you know members of some admissions committee personally. As, for instance, the aforementioned admissions results with slee and slee's friend (who are both undoubtedly qualified as successful undergraduates and strong potential researchers), there is a certain degree of "randomness" intrinsically associated with the admissions process (random is in quotes because it really isn't random internally, but merely appears random to those of us external to the admissions process, and can be caused by a number of considerations ranging from funding under/overabundance to project specificity or the lack thereof). Start planning your "attack" as early as possible to ensure you are a strong candidate, and do this in part by seeking out and exploiting every potential opportunity that exists at your undergraduate institution, and don't stop there---seek out research opportunities at other institutions as well (summer REUs are the industry standard). If my undergraduate experience has taught me anything, it's that you are not going to be spoonfed anything, and in many cases your class will not receive uniform instruction regarding how to succeed as an undergrad and get into a good grad program (for one, i know the profs at my undergrad institution would be terrified if each entering class of about 30-40 students rushed their doors at the beginning of each semester after one unsuspecting prof told his/her whole class that undergrad research is mandatory to get into good grad programs!). Hopefully my commentary will help motivate someone to plan ahead and take action early to ensure they are as marketable as possible when it comes to getting into their preferred graduate programs, or at least dispell some of the paranoia attached to a few unsettling aspects of the graduate admissions process.
Last edited by schmit.paul on Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

artschoolapplicant
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:44 pm

Post by artschoolapplicant » Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:13 pm

I would add something to schmit_paul's piece: don't freak out if you're not the sort of applicant or not the person who can or does get into a top ten school.
I was on a train the other day and really randomly happened to sit next to a man who was scribbling some equations next to a graph. The guy was a princeton physics professor.
I said "oh, I just got rejected from your program."
He said, "don't worry, so did I." (He went to Vancouver for grad school...still a nice school, I know.)

jall
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:20 pm

Caltech

Post by jall » Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:58 pm

I don't know anything about Caltech too...

Until now:

MIT - Rejected
Stanford - Rejected
UChicago - Rejected
Caltech - ?

(I'm International)

braindrain
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:23 am

Post by braindrain » Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:07 pm

Congratulations schmit.paul. You did really well. You sounded sad about your rejections though. I guess physics people more than most want to know how things work and not knowing how the system really works is just frustrating.

I think lots of us learned lessons (and paid to learn them too which hurts) that we didn't know before by going through this process. I think lots of those lessons are from the schools not revealing as much as they really could if they wanted to. I heard about the health/sciences and technology admissions at MIT and how they reject 80 people a year who apply to the MIT biomedical engineering group because they didn't do their hw and find out that bme at MIT is really an environmental group rather than classical bme - so all rejections and the students are blamed. If MIT knows this, why didn't they make it more obvious to the student the distinctions in emphasis. To have that little regard for people who work hard for their application money is unethical to say the least.

Here's a question that nobody yet discussed related to schmit.paul. The question is does applying to more than one department help or hurt your chances? It's possible in schmit.paul's situation, two MIT departments are not going to compete with each other for any candidate. If you ever had a job in a company, sometimes, people don't want to step on each other's toes so to speak so the more aggressive or earlier manager offering a job wins. So, did applying to engineering hurt his chances in physics? How does that relate to other programs? If you apply to multiple departments are you looking less interested in one them? Aren't they just collecting double the application fee?


I'm sorry, but I just don't believe MIT ran out of money. I know rjharris heard it. But, its MIT. Maybe its just the easiest thing to tell people or maybe the profs. were saturated. The pipeline should always have people in it. How else would the profs. get their research done? It doesn't seem to make sense to shut that pipeline down for a year. There is something suspicious about that and collecting application fees on top of it.

There are good and bad with REU programs. I found that a graduate student supervising you which is often the case is a waste of time, a post-doc supervising you has a 50-50% chance of being good, a young professor is good scientifically but an administrative nightmare as they don't always know the right logistical things to do, and a more seasoned scientist the best (but good luck getting those positions). In one REU program I was in, the graduate student decided not to work with me because I didn't fork over my research results from a previous project at a place he wanted to apply for a post-doc position. It was horrible. That had to be the worst of it. I found the senior scientists the best because you also learn how to do science and a bit about how to be part of the scientific establishment. Other people had recommended to me that the better way to get publications was to do research during the summer at your own institution so that you can continue during the year and putting in more time like that will lead to a publication. Are publications our goal at this point? It doesn't seem to have mattered in the admissions process too much but maybe that was just my experience.

artschoolapplicant
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:44 pm

Post by artschoolapplicant » Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:53 am

Want to get the undivided attention of a seasoned professor of physics in an REU?

Tip: Go to a small liberal arts college. (Graduate and postdocs don't exist, yet by some divine beneficence, research happens.)

schmit.paul
Posts: 161
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:48 pm

Post by schmit.paul » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:12 am

artschoolapplicant- good comment, and I like the quote. Though there is a lot of academic interchange between the top schools when it comes to filling faculty positions, it certainly isn't impossible for someone from any institution to snag a position at one of the top universities, though that possibility is certainly going to be heavily influenced by the person's personal ability as a researcher/instructor and publication history (but hey, isn't that what job selection should concern at every university anyway?).

braindrain- very valid question. I have every reason to believe the prof with whom I am familiar on the MIT plasma physics faculty was not yanking my chain when he told me "The problem is that theory at PSFC has no money, and with your stated commitment to theory there was nothing I could do." It does strike me as odd that the NSE department did believe they'd have sufficient funding to take me on given my declared commitment to theory, though they are a smaller department with many fewer admits, and I got the impression from them that my ability to do theory was dependent on a number of factors and certainly was not immediately guaranteed. In that respect, Princeton made a much more attractive offer, and I'll be turning down MIT's offer shortly. In fact, I was told by the director of the theory group at the MIT PSFC that in the past the physics department has turned down candidates (without even looking at their applications) who were later admitted by NSE, after which the physics department caught wind and retracted their rejection and made an admissions proposition in place of it. So there is some spirit of competition between departments, and if anything this fact only further reinforced for me the notion that money is a major factor in MIT's admissions decisions, and they have openly admitted that if they have no funding for a new student in a particular field, they sometimes won't even look at the application. Makes you wish they could automate the process and prevent you from being able to select that field/option on your graduate application if there is no declared intention to admit new students in that area.

And yeah, braindrain, the rejections suck, but I'm not necessarily feeling hurt or anything. I felt that coming out of a no-better-than-top-60 physics program would leave me fighting an uphill battle most of the way, and I'm very thankful for the offers I've received. At this point it may be fortuitous that I don't have too many HEP distractions pulling me away from plasma physics, because I really feel like given my background and the tone of the program at Princeton that that is where I'll best be able to make my impact as a scientist, and hopefully the intellectual freedom they grant their handful of students will allow me to continue educating myself in quantum theory and particle physics, so that at the very minimum I can at least be an enthusiastic, informed bystander, or perhaps make some small original contribution to the field later in life after my career has been established.

Congrats to everyone on all of the fantastic admissions! And to anyone strongly considering the Princeton program, I will most likely see you out there in the fall (unless Caltech can pull the upset and blow me away next week). Enjoy the rest of your spring break

carlos.faham
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:46 pm

Post by carlos.faham » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:14 am

@braindrain: You're right, programs fail to communicate effectively what they're all about and what they're looking for. It'll save people a lot of time and money if some programs straightforwardly stated these facts. Some of their webpages are just depressing; you really would expect more from top programs.

However, I do not agree about your thoughts on MIT's lack of funding. My summer research mentor is currently the plasma admissions chair, and he personally stated that there was no money for plasma theory (I do believe that, MIT's PSFC is not very strong in theory). The admissions chair, Prof. Rajagopal, also told me personally that this year was exceptionally tight since there was an over-acceptance of students last year (more people accepted the offer than they expected). I don't think that there's something *fishy* about it.

That grad student was a real **** man, and yeah, pubs are really not a goal at this point.

Congrats on your stats and acceptances braindrain.

carlos.faham
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:46 pm

Post by carlos.faham » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:16 am

@paul: ha, beat me by 2 mins. I guess it feels like posting here after a G3 concert and an awesome Suns-Mavs game, doesn't it?

schmit.paul
Posts: 161
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:48 pm

Post by schmit.paul » Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:18 pm

nothing like 4 straight hours of lightning fast guitar, 2 hours of red hot basketball leading to the most satisfying win ever, followed up by.....what? talking on a physics message board? i need to start getting my ass to bed earlier...

JWC
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:44 pm

For who is applying to STANFORD, Physics Department

Post by JWC » Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:31 pm

It is a little funny to let you guys know about this letter.

I just got rejection from Stanford with the letter as following:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305-4060

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

March 9, 2007

Mr. XXXXX
355 Church Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
China

Dear Mr. XXXX,
............
Professor XXXXXX (everyone know who he is)
Chair Physics Department, Graduate Admissions Committee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not understand what the hell this Professor is, since he wrote for me the letter with my adress in USA but the country in CHINA.

I checked the website, he is a STRING THEORIST, he did his PhD in PRINCETON. I do not understand, how can he write the letter like this. Or he is theorist so he only know about MATH and he did not know what geography is? therefore he can move MI 48109 to CHINA.

IF you guys read the lecture notes from Professor Feynman that he wrote: MATH IS NOT A SCIENCE BUT THE GEOGRAPHY IS A SCIENCE. So you guys will see: IT IS QUITE TRUE, ISN'T IT!

SO WHAT YOU GUYS EXPECTED TO LEARN FROM THE STANFORD, WHICH THEY HAVE THE CHAIR GRADUATE ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE LIKE THIS.

anyon
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:26 pm

Post by anyon » Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:10 am

i think he just wrote one letter and then let his secretary edit the address and name. So, it must be the case that the guy before you are from china.

braindrain
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:23 am

Post by braindrain » Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:00 pm

@schmit.paul: if that's the case about MIT being competitve with another deparment, if you still want the physics option, why didn't you call them up and tell them you have 2 competiting offers and they have 1 week to make you an offer and it will be in their best interest. There is nothing to lose by it (other than being blackballed for life :) ). Regarding the money, sometimes they could: a) find a university wide fellowship, b) a professor may know of a student who is leaving, c) sometimes it is possible to find money (rare and they have to work at it, but possible) d) a grant may be awarded at any time e) the profs. could stop flying around in first class and buying themselves new laptops every year

I agree, they shouldn't be taking your money if they don't even open up the application or not let people apply for it.

schmit.paul
Posts: 161
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:48 pm

Post by schmit.paul » Fri Mar 16, 2007 4:27 pm

braindrain:

I didn't try bartering and weaseling around with them because from what I've seen, I think despite its ranking MIT would have been a rather frustrating place to pursue plasma theory...princeton made the much better financial offer and has exponentially more resources, especially on the theory side (the PPPL has 40 theorists working there out of about 400 total employees!), so in all honesty I'm actually glad that MIT made my choice easy. Still was a surprise the way it worked out, though.

Bufalay
Posts: 51
Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 5:05 am

Post by Bufalay » Fri Mar 16, 2007 7:15 pm

@ Paul,

I agree...go suns.

radicaltyro
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:23 pm

Post by radicaltyro » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:15 pm

Just got my Caltech rejection :shock:. I thought I had a good chance since I did work on LIGO there last summer, continued with that research group to do my senior thesis, and have 2-3 publications with them in the pipeline, and of course had my mentor at Caltech write one of my references. I also got funding to go to Caltech over winter break to work with the research group. I even have connections with at least 1 person on their admissions committee. *sigh*

I was really hoping for their lovely weather, but I guess I'm going to Cornell. I just hope I don't freeze to death.

jall
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:20 pm

Caltech

Post by jall » Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:01 pm

Did you contact them for the decision? What did the letter say? Did they say anything about the reason of taking so much time to email you?

Is the entry on grad cafe about a caltech rejection yours?

I still don't have an answer...

radicaltyro
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:23 pm

Post by radicaltyro » Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:32 pm

@jall: I didn't contact them. The email was completely generic, but there was one interesting sentence
As you may know, we are able to act favorably upon only a small percentage of the thousands of applications we receive each year.
:shock:

It said nothing about them taking so long to inform me. Yeah, the entry just posted on the grad cafe is mine. If you didn't get the email, maybe you're still in the running. Perhaps they decided to send rejections to people at the bottom of the wait list.

tea
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:28 pm

Post by tea » Sat Mar 17, 2007 5:55 am

I got an acceptance email of MIT today, directly from a professor. But It's too late!!
I have already replied to Caltech.

baksiidaa
Posts: 22
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:35 pm

Post by baksiidaa » Sat Mar 17, 2007 2:43 pm

@tea

I believe you can withdraw an acceptance if it's before April 15th.

braindrain
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:23 am

Post by braindrain » Sat Mar 17, 2007 2:45 pm

@tea, you should definitely consider all the offers you get. Its 5 years of your life and your whole career that will be affected.

jall
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:20 pm

Post by jall » Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:10 pm

I received my rejection from Caltech today. 0/4 (ouch)

Rejected:
Stanford
MIT
UChicago
Caltech


Stats:
-I'm International
-5th (and final) year of my undergraduate degree (Because of Bologna process in Europe, I will have a M.Sc. at the end)
-I don't believe my university is a known one abroad. However, in my country, it is considered to be the best in engineering and sciences.

Prizes:
-two scholarships for being the best student in my year, in physics department.
-one scholarship for being the best physics student in the physics department (all 5 years together) (more than 200 undergraduate physics students)
-one honorable mention from the math department for having good grades in mathematics

Research:
In this year, I'm doing research with my advisor for my M.Sc. thesis. I'm studying modified theories of gravity. At least one paper in the summer.

Tests:
Gre Physics: 920
Gre General: q790, v310, a4.0
TOEFL: 107/120

Letters of Recomendation:
Letter 1 (My advisor): He knows people in those universities (except MIT).
Letter 2: Very well know in his field. Worked under his supervision last year (not research).
Letter 3: He lectured one course, and I did very well.

I believe all the letters were very good, because before asking for the letters, I talked to them to know if the letters were going to be strong.

Before applying to USA, I thought I was competitive...

It seems that I will continue in Europe.

braindrain
Posts: 158
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:23 am

Post by braindrain » Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:44 pm

@schmit.paul: 40 theorists sounds wonderful!! I don't think I've seen an environment with more then 4 theorists and even then, the rest of groups thought they were out of it and basically overhead. With 40 there certainly would never be a loss for at least people who know all the right math/comp techniques if nothing else and the best software to do this and that. But isn't the astophysics emphasis different that what you did in the summer having an energy emphasis, or do they have both? Having 360 experimentalists around for collaboration isn't bad either. That summer program should be really happy that they got one to go forward in that field thanks to them.

Welcome to the East Coast! (We are completely covered by a sheet of ice right now!)

schmit.paul
Posts: 161
Joined: Sat Nov 04, 2006 7:48 pm

Post by schmit.paul » Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:19 am

Heh, yeah braindrain, I've lived in AZ my whole life and have never had to survive a *real* winter, but it's starting to look like NJ may be my final destination (tho I just contacted John Schwarz at Caltech about visiting him this week during the Information Days and got a response, and I'm pretty stoked about that!). Yeah, in terms of resources, 40 theorists is pretty amazing, I'm sure the PPPL accounts for a rather significant percentage of the country's total consituency of plasma physicists. Bear in mind some of the 400 employees are engineers and technicians, but I'm sure there are many more experimentalists there than theorists, all of whom would be wonderful resources.

The program i did in the summer was a research component of the US DoE National Undergraduate Fellowship, there were 18 students that received the fellowship, and we all dispersed amongst many different locations after spending a week together at the Princeton PPL getting a crash course in plasma physics (many went off to General Atomics, Los Alamos, or stayed at Princeton...one other student and I went to MIT's PSFC, which I requested). The general emphasis of the program was energy-based, as you said, particularly because it is a DoE-funded program. To my surprise, I was the only NUF student accepted to the Princeton program...I was expecting to see more familiar faces, though the other 5 students accepted were all extremely nice and down-to-earth. You're right that the plasma physics program is within Princeton's Astrophysical Sciences department, but that is sort of a bureaucratic detail more than anything else, that is the program all of the fusion scientists-in-training pass through. There were a couple plasma physics grad students I talked to last week when I visited that decided to go the space plasma physics route, and they now spend more of their time in the astrophysics building on the main Princeton campus than at the PPPL, but the PPPL itself is geared mostly toward fusion and basic plasma physics, and all of the student that go either direction are part of the same academic program. It sounded like they wouldn't discourage me from taking some high energy theory courses too if I wanted to, which I think is a major selling point to their program- tons of intellectual flexibility and the ability to carve out your own pathway for research rather than chasing around available grant money involving only a select number of predetermined projects.

Anyway, thx for the interest, I hope the decision will be clear for me after I visit pasadena at the end of this week.

Has anyone else nailed down where they are going yet (still may be too soon to tell, since some of us may not have had a chance to visit some of our programs yet)? This would almost be worth starting another thread for so we can all network prior to making the big move out to grad school.

ibanez
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:26 pm

spain

Post by ibanez » Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:54 am

hi
i posted my stats on another post ("question from spain"). So far:

accepted:
BU
NYU

rejected:
UC
UCSD
MIT
Cornell

waiting: (although not very hopefull)
UWashington
McGill

I spent last year as an exchange student in BU, but I knew I would come back eventually to finish my last year in Madrid. Now I realize that I will soon leave my country for good, the idea is somewhat disturbing but at the same time exciting. America is in many ways very different to Spain.
I just want to congratulate everybody here for their acheivements (some are really really impressive) and to put forward my feeling that we are all very privileged people and should never forget that.

good luck
luis

ebgphy
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 5:55 pm

Post by ebgphy » Sun Mar 18, 2007 1:42 pm

Congratulations Luis, just wanted learn as an un-previleged student (that's me) :lol: when did you hear from NYU and BU since I applied there but get no answer :oops:

ibanez
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:26 pm

Post by ibanez » Sun Mar 18, 2007 2:45 pm

BU and NYU replied around mid February

Ghagnastiac
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:55 am

Post by Ghagnastiac » Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:26 pm

Has anyone heard from Berkeley lately? I know that in early February, Donna Sakima infomred me that all decisions would be made by March 15th, but I haven't heard anything yet. Is this typical?

radicaltyro
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:23 pm

Post by radicaltyro » Sun Apr 01, 2007 8:06 pm

Finally got my Berkeley rejection.



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