Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Given the stuff about high-scoring international candidates, I wanted to know for a few really tense friends about how realistic are the chances of people getting 600-900 (keeping a big range to accommodate various cases) to get into the really good Grad Schools. What all would be needed for leverage, besides obviously a need for an extraordinary or excellent feedback from the Recommenders?

Do send in your views.

mjgm wrote:Given the stuff about high-scoring international candidates, I wanted to know for a few really tense friends about how realistic are the chances of people getting 600-900 (keeping a big range to accommodate various cases) to get into the really good Grad Schools. What all would be needed for leverage, besides obviously a need for an extraordinary or excellent feedback from the Recommenders?

Do send in your views.

Depends on how you define "really good grad schools".

blighter wrote:

mjgm wrote:Given the stuff about high-scoring international candidates, I wanted to know for a few really tense friends about how realistic are the chances of people getting 600-900 (keeping a big range to accommodate various cases) to get into the really good Grad Schools. What all would be needed for leverage, besides obviously a need for an extraordinary or excellent feedback from the Recommenders?

Do send in your views.

Depends on how you define "really good grad schools".

Let's go for the very best, say. MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell and Caltech for a start.

mjgm wrote:

blighter wrote:

mjgm wrote:Given the stuff about high-scoring international candidates, I wanted to know for a few really tense friends about how realistic are the chances of people getting 600-900 (keeping a big range to accommodate various cases) to get into the really good Grad Schools. What all would be needed for leverage, besides obviously a need for an extraordinary or excellent feedback from the Recommenders?

Do send in your views.

Depends on how you define "really good grad schools".

Let's go for the very best, say. MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell and Caltech for a start.

Nope. I know tons of people from my school with 990 who didn't get in. They had near perfect GPA's as well. I also know people who did get in, but they are far fewer in number.

Depends on how you define "really good grad schools".[/quote]


Let's go for the very best, say. MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell and Caltech for a start.[/quote]

Nope. I know tons of people from my school with 990 who didn't get in. They had near perfect GPA's as well. I also know people who did get in, but they are far fewer in number.[/quote]

Ha ha...even I do. But I also know few who got in with 770! In MIT, if I am not wrong. How should we take those cases?!

Say a person has a GPA: 4, is in the top 2-5% all time recommendation from a well-known recommender and has half a dozen research projects/publications. Just a hypothetical case, say. What is his/her chance with say 800-900?

Basically I want to know how much can the GRE impede a person, given an unexpected score, if his/her profile is great. Am really concerned about some seniors and contemporaries who share this problem.

Of course if that person more than makes up for his GRE in research, then sure, he has a chance. But the thing with the top 10 schools is that you really can't make completely deterministic statements. Especially when it comes to international students.

Ok blighter. Thank you for the response.

There is a sample bias for the cases I've seen. Everyone from my university seems to score 990 or close to that. They don't seem to have great outcomes in spite of that. So I really wouldn't know what happens to the people who lie outside of this.

blighter wrote:There is a sample bias for the cases I've seen. Everyone from my university seems to score 990 or close to that. They don't seem to have great outcomes in spite of that. So I really wouldn't know what happens to the people who lie outside of this.

Right. True.

I personaly know three people from my country who were admitted to some top schools in the last five years. None of them scored 990 on the PGRE. However, the lowest score was 900 (admitted to Cornell).
The other two scored 940 and 970, and were admitted to quite a few schoold, and eventually chose to attend MIT and Stanford, respectively.
It is likely worth mentioning that all of them had an M.Sc in physics, and they come from a country with abnormally highly regarded schools (at least with respect to "official" rankings).

Arbitrary wrote:I personaly know three people from my country who were admitted to some top schools in the last five years. None of them scored 990 on the PGRE. However, the lowest score was 900 (admitted to Cornell).
The other two scored 940 and 970, and were admitted to quite a few schoold, and eventually chose to attend MIT and Stanford, respectively.
It is likely worth mentioning that all of them had an M.Sc in physics, and they come from a country with abnormally highly regarded schools (at least with respect to "official" rankings).

So suppose a guy is good and his profile shows that but his PGRE does not, what can possibly compensate? That was my question.

mjgm wrote: Ha ha...even I do. But I also know few who got in with 770! In MIT, if I am not wrong. How should we take those cases?!

I don't know of any of these cases and none of the physics profiles here show that. Why don't you ask the people you know who got in with a 770 what they did differently? That would seem more beneficial than random dudes on physicsgre. There is little reason to continuously keep making threads here looking for what you want to hear because my opinion will not change. There are too many good candidates from international schools with high PGRE scores and unless you have moved mountains with your research, you're probably out of luck.

-Riley

mjgm wrote:Say a person has a GPA: 4, is in the top 2-5% all time recommendation from a well-known recommender and has half a dozen research projects/publications. Just a hypothetical case, say. What is his/her chance with say 800-900?

What can we really say about the chances? Would you really believe any of us if we said "20%" or "60%" or "80%"...how can we know these numbers??!

I think the only real important question is "Is this profile good enough for it to be worth this person's time in preparing an application for the top programs?". And for this profile, I would say yes, I think the person with the above described profile should definitely apply to any school where they find a good fit.

TakeruK wrote:What can we really say about the chances? Would you really believe any of us if we said "20%" or "60%" or "80%"...how can we know these numbers??!

WE'RE PHYSICISTS! Don't we take the past and the present to figure out the future? Truth is, nobody wants to take the time to figure out this information.

-Riley

WhoaNonstop wrote:

TakeruK wrote:What can we really say about the chances? Would you really believe any of us if we said "20%" or "60%" or "80%"...how can we know these numbers??!

WE'RE PHYSICISTS! Don't we take the past and the present to figure out the future? Truth is, nobody wants to take the time to figure out this information.

-Riley

Yeah. Good Riley. Fine. Did not want a quantitative description. You'd have to be more than a seer for that probably.