Astro student with 3.16 Overall GPA, 3.87 Upper Div GPA...
Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2018 7:19 pm
Hello, and thank you for taking the time to read my post (and perhaps lend me some advice).
I'm an astrophysics student who had a dismal start to college--I did poorly in my first institution, which led me to transfer out of it, spend a year in community college, and then transfer to the institution at which I am now. I got probably a 2.5 GPA at my first institution (where I studied for 2 years, it was a European university, though I'm a US student). I transferred to a local community college, where I retook most of the courses that caused me to have such a horrifyingly low GPA. I did well in them (A's, one B), and I have continued to improve since then. At my new institution, I've gotten A-'s and A's consistently for all of my upper division physics, astro, and math courses. My love for astrophysics (specifically observational, with focus in spectroscopy, stellar and that of larger scale structures and objects, i.e. AGNs, the ISM, etc.) has grown steadily over my rough academic journey, and I'd love to continue pursuing it as a PhD. I have three (hopefully) good letters from rather prominent researchers in my field, as I was lucky enough to connect with them in my search for research here. Do I have any chance at all at the top ten/twenty best grad schools? Also, I'm seriously struggling to find midrange schools that are working on my field of interest--my advisors are incredibly intelligent people and only seem to know about the best schools!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for taking the time to read my spiel.
I'm an astrophysics student who had a dismal start to college--I did poorly in my first institution, which led me to transfer out of it, spend a year in community college, and then transfer to the institution at which I am now. I got probably a 2.5 GPA at my first institution (where I studied for 2 years, it was a European university, though I'm a US student). I transferred to a local community college, where I retook most of the courses that caused me to have such a horrifyingly low GPA. I did well in them (A's, one B), and I have continued to improve since then. At my new institution, I've gotten A-'s and A's consistently for all of my upper division physics, astro, and math courses. My love for astrophysics (specifically observational, with focus in spectroscopy, stellar and that of larger scale structures and objects, i.e. AGNs, the ISM, etc.) has grown steadily over my rough academic journey, and I'd love to continue pursuing it as a PhD. I have three (hopefully) good letters from rather prominent researchers in my field, as I was lucky enough to connect with them in my search for research here. Do I have any chance at all at the top ten/twenty best grad schools? Also, I'm seriously struggling to find midrange schools that are working on my field of interest--my advisors are incredibly intelligent people and only seem to know about the best schools!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for taking the time to read my spiel.