Physics GRE Discussion Forums

so now i have everything i need to consider how my application is.
Since it's about time to finish up all the applications, i am feeling really nervous.
My PGRE score is not as good as I'd hoped. And I would like to hear other people's opinions on how likely my chance is on getting accepted somewhere. Do i need to be more realistic and find other schools that are less competitive?
More importantly, I'm trying to pick out 2 more safety schools. I've been thinking about this a lot, and yet to come up with a good back-ups. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

I've posted my profile in the profile thread.
to sum up,
my GPA is 3.67
major GPA is 3.84
PGRE is 720 (60%)
have two summer researches, and working on senior research at my school on black hole simulation.
Applying to astronomy program at:

UCSB (not any hope at this point)
UCSD
Columbia
UT Austin
UCSC
U Washington ( my no. 1 choice of school i want to go)
Ohio State
U Hawaii
Boston U


And I'm female, minority status. I don't know if this actually matters. Do the admission comittees really take account of gender and minority status when they look at the application? I've heard from here that they do, but some of the schools have the writing saying that they consider all applicants equally.

Apply to Harvard now.
Since you're female, add 100 points to your PGRE.
Since you're American, add another 100 points.
Since you're a non-Asian minority, add another 50 points.
Therefore, your effective PGRE score is extremely competitive!!

Only a few schools are so generous with women though (UT Austin is another one).

Don't give up hope yet! You have a strong application, and the PGRE isn't bad for a domestic applying to astronomy programs. If you take into account the fact that females tend to do worse on the PGRE and most admissions committees realize this, I doubt the PGRE will be a liability at all. I personally think you have plenty of safeties: Ohio State, Hawaii, and Boston U should be complete shoe ins. It seems like a good list to me, but you could always throw in an other reach school or something.

muonman wrote: Since you're American, add another 100 points.
).

I thought that Internationals (asians, in particular) had to subtract 100 frm their PGRE scores. Does this mean i have to come up with a 900 to match a domestic 700 ??

muonman wrote:Apply to Harvard now.
Since you're female, add 100 points to your PGRE.
Since you're American, add another 100 points.
Since you're a non-Asian minority, add another 50 points.
Therefore, your effective PGRE score is extremely competitive!!

Only a few schools are so generous with women though (UT Austin is another one).

Thank you for your comment. It's encouraging. But I really doubt I would have any chance with Harvard.
It's good to hear that about UT Austin though! I would be so thrill if they accaept me.

from your comment, why is Asian minority be differnt from other ethnic minorities? I'm just curious.

I honestly don't think the PGRE would hurt you much at Harvard. If anything, it would be the GPA that makes you loose points, but your major GPA is quite strong, so it's still definitely worth a shot! I say go for it.

secander2! wrote:Don't give up hope yet! You have a strong application, and the PGRE isn't bad for a domestic applying to astronomy programs. If you take into account the fact that females tend to do worse on the PGRE and most admissions committees realize this, I doubt the PGRE will be a liability at all. I personally think you have plenty of safeties: Ohio State, Hawaii, and Boston U should be complete shoe ins. It seems like a good list to me, but you could always throw in an other reach school or something.

Thank you Secander2! I might not even add anymore schools since I can't come up with one anyway. I just want to be sure to get accepted somewhere since not having anywhere to go is really not an option for me.

rohit wrote:

muonman wrote: Since you're American, add another 100 points.
).

I thought that Internationals (asians, in particular) had to subtract 100 frm their PGRE scores. Does this mean i have to come up with a 900 to match a domestic 700 ??

I think you would subtract ~100 from your PGER score to compare to domestic applicant, OR add 100 to domestic to compare to yours, not both.
but that's domestic/international comparison, I don't know about male/female.