Hey, I'm a senior year physics major and I'm looking to apply to groups in theoretical/computational physics (my prime choice is the non linear dynamics group at U Maryland). That said, my GPA is not great (3.29) - I don't really have a good reason for it, I just got a lot of B's in my core classes - my senior year electives are generally better. I have decent research experience: I'm working with a computational plasma group and have added relativistic particle sampling modules to existing plasma codes - I don't have a publication yet, and probably won't till the end of Spring. I also have independent class projects that my adviser thinks might impress the graduate committee (basically parallelized simulations - one of them is a raytraced Schwarzchild BH that does exact geodesic computations on CUDA. They're not really industry or research standard though, just code I put together for different CS classes). I also work part time as a system administrator for the university's supercomputer (Does this matter?). I wrote the PGRE in September and got a 990. I was wondering if you have any advice on how I can optimize my chances for getting into a decent graduate school. (Read: How do I convince the graduate committee that my GPA does not reflect my true potential?)
Thanks! (And please be brutally honest with your feedback)
EDIT: I am a bit wary about highlighting my class projects or supercomputer work simply because I get the impression that the kind of research that universities seem to recognize is the formal honours thesisy kind (which I can't get into because the university I'm in has a hard cutoff of 3.3 to even attempt to defend a thesis). Am I wrong about this? Have personal projects helped any of you significantly with graduate admissions?
Low GPA, decent research and perfect PGRE?
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Re: Low GPA, decent research and perfect PGRE?
A lot depends on your school I think. If it is known for harsh grading then maybe that will be considered by the schools where you apply. Incidentally I asked my program chair what matters more Physics GRE or the grades. He thought that Physics GRE matters more because it evens the playing field, because it gives a way to compare students in a neutral way. Someone who got A's in one university might actually have gotten a B+ for a similar performance in another etc. While that makes sense I still think grades are important personally because they reflect a continuous effort. My case is somewhat the opposite, great grades and an average Physics GRE.
What might help you is the research experience.
Short answer is I guess you never can tell what colleges think is the deciding factor for admission. Just hope that wherever you apply places Physics GRE high on that list.
What might help you is the research experience.
Short answer is I guess you never can tell what colleges think is the deciding factor for admission. Just hope that wherever you apply places Physics GRE high on that list.