Where Should I be Looking
Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 3:51 pm
Hi,
I was wondering if anybody would be willing to give their opinion on the types of graduate schools I should be looking at. I'll be graduating from a relatively unknown school (James Madison University) with a bachelor's in physics (and a minor in math). I have a 3.7 GPA both overall and in major classes. I have taken the general GRE and gotten a 560 Verbal, 790 Quantitative, and 5 on the writing section. I haven't taken the PGRE, but I expect to get somewhere in the mid to high 700's on it. As far as letters of recommendations go, I have plenty of professors who I have done research for who think very highly of me so I'm sure I can get good ones. As far as research experience goes -- I do research in granular physics with a professor at my school during the fall and spring (for three semesters now) and have dabbled with another professor here and there in nanotechnology research (for one semester now). Last summer I did a REU program in material physics at my school, and this summer I am working at Goddard Space Flight Center (and will probably be able to publish a paper with what I'm doing here -- although I'm not sure if it will be in time for grad school applications). I'm interested in going to a graduate school and working towards a PhD in astrophysics or particle physics.
My first question is this-- My first three semesters I slacked off big time, and got around a 3.3 GPA all three semesters. Since I realized I needed to get my act together I have gotten a 4.0 every semester since (so far that's 3 semester). Does anybody know if graduate schools will look more at the 4.0 in the later semesters and therefore think better of my overall gpa, or if they only care that the overall gpa is a 3.7 regardless of how it came about? Will they see the improvement and consider it good, or see it as getting a late start or not care at all?
Second -- I'm currently looking at schools like University of Maryland, University of Arizona, and Columbia with schools like Penn State as back ups. Should I be setting my bar higher or lower than this? Should I bother applying to top ten schools at all, or is my profile not strong enough to bother with it?
Lastly -- Its been tough for me to decide between whether I want to go to grad school for something in particle physics or something in astrophysics. I've done research in astrophysics before, but I don't have any experience in particle physics or instrumentation (which is the main interest I have for particle physics) at the moment. I'm thinking of getting involved with a particle physics group at my university this coming semester, but I won't have much under my belt before applications are sent in for grad school. So my question is this -- Is it too late to change my focus my senior year of undergrad? Should I just stick with a observational astrophysics track or will the experience I have in that field be able to hold some weight for getting into schools for particle physics? I know research is a big deal for getting into graduate schools, I just don't know if research in other fields of physics carries much weight.
Thanks for any advice you can share. I really appreciate it.
I was wondering if anybody would be willing to give their opinion on the types of graduate schools I should be looking at. I'll be graduating from a relatively unknown school (James Madison University) with a bachelor's in physics (and a minor in math). I have a 3.7 GPA both overall and in major classes. I have taken the general GRE and gotten a 560 Verbal, 790 Quantitative, and 5 on the writing section. I haven't taken the PGRE, but I expect to get somewhere in the mid to high 700's on it. As far as letters of recommendations go, I have plenty of professors who I have done research for who think very highly of me so I'm sure I can get good ones. As far as research experience goes -- I do research in granular physics with a professor at my school during the fall and spring (for three semesters now) and have dabbled with another professor here and there in nanotechnology research (for one semester now). Last summer I did a REU program in material physics at my school, and this summer I am working at Goddard Space Flight Center (and will probably be able to publish a paper with what I'm doing here -- although I'm not sure if it will be in time for grad school applications). I'm interested in going to a graduate school and working towards a PhD in astrophysics or particle physics.
My first question is this-- My first three semesters I slacked off big time, and got around a 3.3 GPA all three semesters. Since I realized I needed to get my act together I have gotten a 4.0 every semester since (so far that's 3 semester). Does anybody know if graduate schools will look more at the 4.0 in the later semesters and therefore think better of my overall gpa, or if they only care that the overall gpa is a 3.7 regardless of how it came about? Will they see the improvement and consider it good, or see it as getting a late start or not care at all?
Second -- I'm currently looking at schools like University of Maryland, University of Arizona, and Columbia with schools like Penn State as back ups. Should I be setting my bar higher or lower than this? Should I bother applying to top ten schools at all, or is my profile not strong enough to bother with it?
Lastly -- Its been tough for me to decide between whether I want to go to grad school for something in particle physics or something in astrophysics. I've done research in astrophysics before, but I don't have any experience in particle physics or instrumentation (which is the main interest I have for particle physics) at the moment. I'm thinking of getting involved with a particle physics group at my university this coming semester, but I won't have much under my belt before applications are sent in for grad school. So my question is this -- Is it too late to change my focus my senior year of undergrad? Should I just stick with a observational astrophysics track or will the experience I have in that field be able to hold some weight for getting into schools for particle physics? I know research is a big deal for getting into graduate schools, I just don't know if research in other fields of physics carries much weight.
Thanks for any advice you can share. I really appreciate it.