I know this is annoying, but...
Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:29 am
So, I know the reasonable answer to "Hey, look at my stats and tell me what you think!" is "Go read some profiles," but I've been doing that and really all it's done so far is terrify me. If someone wouldn't mind looking me over and giving me some advice on where I have a realistic shot of going, I'd appreciate it immensely.
I go to a generic state school. I transferred here in Fall 2009 from a community college, where I took some Gen. Ed. classes before figuring out what I wanted to do. Before that I did one semester at another university, but I mostly just smoked a lot of weed there; I'm pretty sure my GPA was 0.0. I didn't start my physics major until after I transferred here. My GPA at my current school is 3.95. Apart from an A- in Physics 1 ( ), I've gotten As in all the physics courses I've taken. I haven't taken E&M or QM yet, but I've taken Mechanics, Thermo, Stat Mech, Nuclear & Particle, and a graduate Math Methods course. Last summer I got paid to learn about how my school's particle accelerator runs, but I never actually participated in any research. For part of last year and continuing this summer, I've been working on research in plasmon resonances in nanoparticles and nanoshells. This is my only research experience. I haven't taken any GREs yet. My school has "Distinguished Professors" who can choose a person every year to receive a full tuition waiver and the professor I had for Mechanics and Math Methods awarded it to me for next year. Other than that, I haven't received any notable awards. I can probably get two solid letters and one "eh" letter. I'd like to go into condensed matter theory.
Basically, I am wondering: where should I be shooting for? From obsessively combing through profiles it seems reasonably likely I could get into schools in the 20-50 range, with some fluke or act of god possibly propelling my into a top 20 school. The problem is that I don't really have any reasonable way of deciding among the schools at that level, given that all I really have to go on is departmental websites and USNWR. I talked to my advisor, but he but he is works in nuclear astrophysics so he didn't really know what to tell me. He suggested I talk to condensed matter theorists in our department, and that I take a list of schools I'm interested in so I can go over it with them, but I don't even know how I'd start such a list! The best I can come up with is "Welp, I'd rather live in New York than Iowa, so I wanna go to NYU."
I am really, really anxious about this whole process. I am terrified of what is going to happen. I am supposed to start applying to schools next month and I don't even know where I am going to be applying. Sometimes I feel like crawling into an old tree stump and hibernating until admission deadlines pass so I can just say "Well, I didn't get in anywhere. Time to go work at Starbucks."
I go to a generic state school. I transferred here in Fall 2009 from a community college, where I took some Gen. Ed. classes before figuring out what I wanted to do. Before that I did one semester at another university, but I mostly just smoked a lot of weed there; I'm pretty sure my GPA was 0.0. I didn't start my physics major until after I transferred here. My GPA at my current school is 3.95. Apart from an A- in Physics 1 ( ), I've gotten As in all the physics courses I've taken. I haven't taken E&M or QM yet, but I've taken Mechanics, Thermo, Stat Mech, Nuclear & Particle, and a graduate Math Methods course. Last summer I got paid to learn about how my school's particle accelerator runs, but I never actually participated in any research. For part of last year and continuing this summer, I've been working on research in plasmon resonances in nanoparticles and nanoshells. This is my only research experience. I haven't taken any GREs yet. My school has "Distinguished Professors" who can choose a person every year to receive a full tuition waiver and the professor I had for Mechanics and Math Methods awarded it to me for next year. Other than that, I haven't received any notable awards. I can probably get two solid letters and one "eh" letter. I'd like to go into condensed matter theory.
Basically, I am wondering: where should I be shooting for? From obsessively combing through profiles it seems reasonably likely I could get into schools in the 20-50 range, with some fluke or act of god possibly propelling my into a top 20 school. The problem is that I don't really have any reasonable way of deciding among the schools at that level, given that all I really have to go on is departmental websites and USNWR. I talked to my advisor, but he but he is works in nuclear astrophysics so he didn't really know what to tell me. He suggested I talk to condensed matter theorists in our department, and that I take a list of schools I'm interested in so I can go over it with them, but I don't even know how I'd start such a list! The best I can come up with is "Welp, I'd rather live in New York than Iowa, so I wanna go to NYU."
I am really, really anxious about this whole process. I am terrified of what is going to happen. I am supposed to start applying to schools next month and I don't even know where I am going to be applying. Sometimes I feel like crawling into an old tree stump and hibernating until admission deadlines pass so I can just say "Well, I didn't get in anywhere. Time to go work at Starbucks."