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My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 5:55 pm
by walczyk
edit: I wonder if this post has hurt my chances?

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:00 pm
by Minovsky
I would be interested to know how your statement of purpose is received. Writing something so technical that it required a dozen references seems like an odd thing to do.
Harvard Physics: Admissions FAQs wrote: Given my academic background, what are my odds of acceptance?

The physics department's admissions committee reviews each candidate's entire application, including statement of purpose, transcript, experience, GRE scores, and letters of recommendation -- the statement of purpose and letters of recommendation being especially important. Beyond that, the department cannot determine in advance the likelihood of success in any particular case.
Try looking at some of the posted profiles (also post your own for the benefit of other 'odd-balls').

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:21 pm
by photonic
For future reference, have a faculty member or a maybe a graduate student from your school look over your statement before sending it out. Personal statements don't usually have references, although it will look good if it shows you know what you're talking about and/or really know what you want to go into. Having a professor you know look it over might be useful just to make sure you don't make any mistakes. Also keep in mind that the people reading your statement are not necessarily going to be people in your field of research and you want to keep it accessible and to paint a good picture of yourself

Keep in mind that getting into a top school is competitive for everyone, and it depends on what you mean by top.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 11, 2013 11:17 pm
by walczyk
I really wish I had asked someone to read it, I was really winging it. Would anyone be willing to read it here? *redacted*

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 5:44 pm
by Minovsky
My views may differ from that of admissions committees, but your PS strikes me as being unnecessarily technical. I don't think that they care about the detailed semantics of how your program works. It's supposed to be an essay about why you want to go to graduate school for physics, not a research publication. It's not something you're going to publish; you can get away with mentioning the "Ising model" without referencing the literature. I feel as though there is too much emphasis on physics and not enough emphasis on you. The people reading your essay already know about the relationship between QFT and SM. What they want to know more about is you. Your last two sentences should be what motivates the entire essay, instead of being something just tacked on at the end. My 2ยข.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:38 pm
by deathinacan
Are you only applying to top 20 schools? A 3.31 gpa probably won't kill your chances, but it would be a good idea to also apply to a few safety schools. I have a 3.46 gpa and I'm applying to a couple in the top 50-80 range.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:59 pm
by bfollinprm
Yeah...I'd rewrite that SoP and remove the references, at the very least. You need to more clearly state your future goals, not review your past work. It should be built around your research experience, however, so it's not like you're totally off-base.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 2:42 pm
by TakeruK
I think references are only useful in a SOP when you want to really direct the reader to a specific paper. For example, if you are planning to expand on the work of a certain paper, then you might want to cite it. Usually, this might be something you were involved with in the past. But you don't have to cite papers like in a course essay or a journal article -- if you feel the need to make a citation to explain something, you are likely getting too technical.

It might be too late, but for others looking for help on a SOP, I would echo the above suggestions to show it to faculty members or older graduate students. I would probably never propose a research topic without running it by a faculty member at the applying-to-grad-school stage.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 8:53 pm
by Throwaway1
As others have mentioned before me, rework your statement of purpose to reflect more on your motivation for pursuing a graduate degree in a prospective field. Your statement should also be tailored to specific graduate programs and should not be a general statement of your research experience that you send to every program. In fact, some programs allow you to submit a separate word document that permits you to describe past research experience. That's where you can get technical to your heart's desire, since I view that really just as a bonus.

The description of your research is an important part of a statement, however. When describing your project, you carry yourself very well. But aim for a more general description of your research, it simply should not be so technical and should never require references.

If it helps, this is how I structured my statement of purpose:

Research experience 1 first sparked my interest in basic science research. Doing A, B, and C in experience 1 informs my motivation to do X.

Research experience 2 is what I'm currently up to. Experience 2 has solidified my interest in X through my research in D, E, and F. Here I expand on the research in #2 because it is more relevant to the type of program I'm applying to than experience #1. I provide a brief research background, what we have found so far, and where the work is headed. (brief, brief, brief just a sentence or two on each).

Why this program? Because X, Y, Z at blah blah blah strongly parallels my scientific interests. Also, because of program specific features.

Describe research interests. Read up on what faculty are doing in a specific program and describe your scientific motivation for being interested in their work.

Point out key program features. This is another part that you tailor for each individual program. Why does this particular program stand out to you? Why is it a good fit for your career goals? Well program X has A, B, and C and so on.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 3:16 pm
by walczyk
Thank you all for the informative suggestions. You are right, I had gotten some advice about writing a SoP from a blog that said technical is better. I had written a much more personal SoP last year and stepped away from it thinking it was silly. I would like some input if I should contact schools and ask to append or replace my SoP with my previous one. Here is a text copy: *redacted*

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:18 pm
by bfollinprm
That reads like a statement of lack of purpose. The thesis I got from skimming it is that you're applying to grad school in physics on a whim, because you saw a connection between interesting symbols in string theory and math you encountered in algebraic geometry. Not the message you want to send. You want to state a clear interest in physics, which you discovered at some point in the past and will be unwavering for the rest of your life. You should give some (non-technical) idea of the type of questions you want to pursue (what about physics delights you?), and how the particular department you're applying to can further your investigation of those questions.

As an example, I wrote about my interest in questions where the answer was buried and hard to find--the joy I had in applying 'Holmesian' deduction to tease out a truth from small clues hidden in data. I described the experiences in my life that led me to that interest. I noted that the subfields of cosmology and particle physics revolved around such questions (due to the difficulty in creating controlled experiments at the relevant scales of either discipline) and that this motivated my interest in further pursuing physics in these fields, and finished by noting the faculty and research groups at the particular university whose research delved into such questions and thus attracted me to the program.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:26 am
by walczyk
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I'm going to have to rewrite it in the next two days and contact the university's I applied to, hopefully they will let me append my personal statement.

edit: Wow, this earlier paper is pretty horrendous. I will have to re-write most all of it.

Is the intro paragraph pointless? I tried to write something that was an example of my ability to think critically, as opposed to describing an experience.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 11:36 pm
by bfollinprm
yeah, that first paragraph is a total waste of valuable space.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 12:53 am
by Meteorshower
Try to think from an admissions committees perspective and the main question you should ask yourself is "why should we care?" for everything you write.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 8:33 pm
by walczyk
Hi everyone, thank you all so much for looking at my work. I think I will rewrite the intro (again), but I think I did most of it right this time. I would really appreciate feedback yet again, because I seem to not be very good at this writing business! *redacted* Thank you all again.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 9:59 pm
by Tom Joad
Isn't this all a moot point? I mean, even if the university allowed you to swap in a new statement of purpose, haven't the admission committees already started to review applications by now?

In any case, I personally liked the original far better then the other two. The only issues were the references, which most were unnecessary anyway, and removing the parts where you were lecturing to the reader without saying anything about yourself or the university.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 10:52 pm
by bfollinprm
I'm still missing the answer to the question "Why Maryland?" when reading your SoP. What specific to that university makes it a good fit for your future pursuits? Does someone in the department work on one of the two problems you mentioned?

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:16 pm
by walczyk
Tom Joad wrote:Isn't this all a moot point? I mean, even if the university allowed you to swap in a new statement of purpose, haven't the admission committees already started to review applications by now?

In any case, I personally liked the original far better then the other two. The only issues were the references, which most were unnecessary anyway, and removing the parts where you were lecturing to the reader without saying anything about yourself or the university.
Yeah I'm still debating about sending this last revision to other schools, but Maryland asked specific questions to be answer for its SoP:
UMD Admissions wrote: What are your reasons for undertaking graduate study at the University of Maryland? Indicate, if appropriate, any specific areas of research interest. You may wish to discuss past work in your intended field and allied fields, your plans for a professional career, or how you developed your interest in or knowledge of your chosen subject.
What life experiences you have had that you feel have prepared you to pursue a graduate degree at a large, diverse institution such as the University of Maryland? Among the items you might care to include would be your financial, community and family background, whether you are the first person in your family to pursue a higher education, or any other factors that you feel would contribute to the diversity of our academic community. You may also wish to give the graduate admissions committee some examples of your determination to pursue your goals, your initiative and ability to develop ideas, and /or your capacity for working through problems independently.
I had first heard not to be personal and instead talk about research, so that's what I tried to do. It ended up sounding like I just explaining stuff; I was trying to show by example that I actually did understand the solution in detail. It is very advanced mathematically so I just wanted to show that. That said, I think this last revision goes too far the other way, because it is addressing UMD's questions. Definitely pretty late, it may not make a difference for most schools but its only been a couple of days for most schools.
bfollinprm wrote:I'm still missing the answer to the question "Why Maryland?" when reading your SoP. What specific to that university makes it a good fit for your future pursuits? Does someone in the department work on one of the two problems you mentioned?
I know that UMD does do a lot of condensed matter theory, but I definitely didn't pick out any particular elements of their program. Is there a review of programs somewhere? I think I completely forgot there are books out about that I think. I wasn't sure how to find detailed information. I looked at the professors personal pages, and well I guess it was intimidating, but I am actually undecided whether I want to do condensed matter theory, or learn more QFT instead. Maybe I could do both, but have my research be in condensed matter? I really wasn't sure how to approach it, so I didn't want to box myself into a direction. To my knowledge no professor works in granular physics (the second one), but I am not interested in going in that direction. They are supposed to be examples of what I find interesting, but I am not interested enough in granular physics to study it directly. I am really just interested in approximating different granules with something else that you can write its group symmetries for, so you can analyze the collisions between two granules algebraically for whatever orientation of each granule. I am interested in the math behind that, and it's something I'd want to figure out, but I don't want it to direct my future research. I guess I should think of a succinct way to say I don't want to focus on that?

I guess my logic was mentioning that their physics department is strong in condensed matter was worth it, because they know that already, I would be saying it to imply that I looked at their program. I was hoping they'd assume I looked at their department already because I am expressing my respect for the strength of the program etc. Regardless, is the stuff that is there that I wrote, is it passable? Is it bad overall, or better/worse tnan the technical one?

Edit: Hoping you see this before it's really late, but would it be worth it to add a section that referred to details on their department? I may stay up and personalize it to each school and contact them tomorrow.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:02 am
by bfollinprm
walczyk wrote:
Tom Joad wrote:Isn't this all a moot point? I mean, even if the university allowed you to swap in a new statement of purpose, haven't the admission committees already started to review applications by now?

In any case, I personally liked the original far better then the other two. The only issues were the references, which most were unnecessary anyway, and removing the parts where you were lecturing to the reader without saying anything about yourself or the university.
Yeah I'm still debating about sending this last revision to other schools, but Maryland asked specific questions to be answer for its SoP:
UMD Admissions wrote: What are your reasons for undertaking graduate study at the University of Maryland? Indicate, if appropriate, any specific areas of research interest. You may wish to discuss past work in your intended field and allied fields, your plans for a professional career, or how you developed your interest in or knowledge of your chosen subject.
What life experiences you have had that you feel have prepared you to pursue a graduate degree at a large, diverse institution such as the University of Maryland? Among the items you might care to include would be your financial, community and family background, whether you are the first person in your family to pursue a higher education, or any other factors that you feel would contribute to the diversity of our academic community. You may also wish to give the graduate admissions committee some examples of your determination to pursue your goals, your initiative and ability to develop ideas, and /or your capacity for working through problems independently.
I had first heard not to be personal and instead talk about research, so that's what I tried to do. It ended up sounding like I just explaining stuff; I was trying to show by example that I actually did understand the solution in detail. It is very advanced mathematically so I just wanted to show that. That said, I think this last revision goes too far the other way, because it is addressing UMD's questions. Definitely pretty late, it may not make a difference for most schools but its only been a couple of days for most schools.
bfollinprm wrote:I'm still missing the answer to the question "Why Maryland?" when reading your SoP. What specific to that university makes it a good fit for your future pursuits? Does someone in the department work on one of the two problems you mentioned?
I know that UMD does do a lot of condensed matter theory, but I definitely didn't pick out any particular elements of their program. Is there a review of programs somewhere? I think I completely forgot there are books out about that I think. I wasn't sure how to find detailed information. I looked at the professors personal pages, and well I guess it was intimidating, but I am actually undecided whether I want to do condensed matter theory, or learn more QFT instead. Maybe I could do both, but have my research be in condensed matter? I really wasn't sure how to approach it, so I didn't want to box myself into a direction. To my knowledge no professor works in granular physics (the second one), but I am not interested in going in that direction. They are supposed to be examples of what I find interesting, but I am not interested enough in granular physics to study it directly. I am really just interested in approximating different granules with something else that you can write its group symmetries for, so you can analyze the collisions between two granules algebraically for whatever orientation of each granule. I am interested in the math behind that, and it's something I'd want to figure out, but I don't want it to direct my future research. I guess I should think of a succinct way to say I don't want to focus on that?
If it isn't what you want to do research on, it's very distracting that you put it in your SoP. Be more general if you must, but focus your interests on your research interests. You wont have time for side projects, your advisor will want you to be focused on your thesis work.

I guess my logic was mentioning that their physics department is strong in condensed matter was worth it, because they know that already, I would be saying it to imply that I looked at their program. I was hoping they'd assume I looked at their department already because I am expressing my respect for the strength of the program etc. Regardless, is the stuff that is there that I wrote, is it passable? Is it bad overall, or better/worse tnan the technical one?

Edit: Hoping you see this before it's really late, but would it be worth it to add a section that referred to details on their department? I may stay up and personalize it to each school and contact them tomorrow.
Yes, definitely personalize by department. And CMT is quantum field theory, and arguably of more interesting varieties than particle theory (which is mostly just the standard model fields).

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 6:07 am
by walczyk
Last question, but do you think that making a distinction between QFT and CMT will come off bad? I really don't know much of it at all, I didn't want to sound like I knew more than I actually do.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:02 pm
by bfollinprm
The distinction is ok, but realize you are going to head school to do, not learn. So really qft splits into hep, cmt, and gut research. Simple 'qft' is no longer an active area of research in physics, feynman cleared that one up.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:16 pm
by walczyk
bfollinprm wrote:The distinction is ok, but realize you are going to head school to do, not learn. So really qft splits into hep, cmt, and gut research. Simple 'qft' is no longer an active area of research in physics, feynman cleared that one up.
Students who apply for hep and gut research, do they already know a lot of QFT? I went to a liberal arts college and didn't learn any of that.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:34 pm
by TakeruK
walczyk wrote:
bfollinprm wrote:The distinction is ok, but realize you are going to head school to do, not learn. So really qft splits into hep, cmt, and gut research. Simple 'qft' is no longer an active area of research in physics, feynman cleared that one up.
Students who apply for hep and gut research, do they already know a lot of QFT? I went to a liberal arts college and didn't learn any of that.
I would say that QFT is definitely graduate level work. It's not normally part of the undergrad Physics curriculum (at least not in Canada and probably North America) and it's usually a core course in a Physics PhD program in many schools I've looked at in Canada and the US. Of course, there will be some students who did take graduate courses during their undergrad careers though!

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:35 pm
by twistor
I really wish I had asked someone to read it, I was really winging it. Would anyone be willing to read it here? http://pastebin.com/5m4yYCKC
I just read some of this. It's highly technical and frankly it's boring. It reads like the background material for a paper. A SOP does not need citations. You need to state your personal reasons for wanting to go to graduate school. Lose the citations and make it more personal.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:36 pm
by bfollinprm
Sure, you will learn QFT in the process of getting your PhD. But that isn't a reason to get a PhD. A PhD is about research, not classes. If you just want to learn more physics, the appropriate thing to be applying for is a masters program, and if your SoP implies that you're going to grad school to learn already established physical theories, it will look odd to an admissions committee for a PhD program, which instead expects you to express an interest in working on original fields (which could involve using QFT to solve open questions, but can't be just 'I want to learn QFT').

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 7:44 pm
by walczyk
Well I sent them in, I changed it slightly adding that I would be interested in most research areas, but I didn't directly point out what I want to research. I was honest and said my background is magnetism in condensed matter but I am hesitant to say that it is what I want to pursue as a graduate student. Hopefully they will appreciate the honesty and see potential, not see a person without direction. Most schools were fine with me adding the personal statement, I haven't heard back from two schools.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 7:46 pm
by walczyk
twistor wrote:
I really wish I had asked someone to read it, I was really winging it. Would anyone be willing to read it here? *redacted*
I just read some of this. It's highly technical and frankly it's boring. It reads like the background material for a paper. A SOP does not need citations. You need to state your personal reasons for wanting to go to graduate school. Lose the citations and make it more personal.
Thanks for reading, I've heard that advice a lot, and I've rewrote it already. *redacted*

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 10:14 pm
by mnakusor
Reads nice bro. I am not an expert, but the writing seems to flow well. I also don't think you should be too concerned about it. Nobody can write a masterpiece in this format, if there is such a thing as a masterpiece of an SOP.

Also, good to know that physics is sometimes about shaking nuts.

All the best!

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:00 pm
by walczyk
mnakusor wrote:Reads nice bro. I am not an expert, but the writing seems to flow well. I also don't think you should be too concerned about it. Nobody can write a masterpiece in this format, if there is such a thing as a masterpiece of an SOP.

Also, good to know that physics is sometimes about shaking nuts.

All the best!
Thanks! I needed some optimism, I hope it all works out. I am wayyy less qualified than a lot of people on this forum, and the schools I've applied to are really good :/

Edit: Do you think it's a bad idea to post drafts of SoPs here? I don't think it's unethical or anything, but maybe universities would frown on it? I didn't see anyone else doing it so I removed links

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 10:18 am
by Tom Joad
Did they respond after you sent them the revised SOP? I'm curious as to whether they'll accept the change or not.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:49 pm
by walczyk
Tom Joad wrote:Did they respond after you sent them the revised SOP? I'm curious as to whether they'll accept the change or not.
Oh yeah, nobody had any problems with it. Although I haven't heard anything from two schools, because the relevant person was out of the office. I just called them and told them my original statement wasn't personal and I got advice that I should rewrite it, and I was wondering if I could append this to my application and they all just told me to email it in.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:22 pm
by Tom Joad
walczyk wrote:
Tom Joad wrote:Did they respond after you sent them the revised SOP? I'm curious as to whether they'll accept the change or not.
Oh yeah, nobody had any problems with it. Although I haven't heard anything from two schools, because the relevant person was out of the office. I just called them and told them my original statement wasn't personal and I got advice that I should rewrite it, and I was wondering if I could append this to my application and they all just told me to email it in.
That's surprising to me actually. It makes me wish I would have done the same to correct a grammatical error in one of my SOPs.

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:06 pm
by walczyk
I was hoping nobody would say no, applications are final. But it must not be much work to add it to an application, they don't have to pull folders out etc. The grammatical error sounds kind of small, they might have told you not to worry about it.
Cheers on the catch-22 avatar by the way. Snowdennn

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2013 9:50 am
by Tom Joad
walczyk wrote:I was hoping nobody would say no, applications are final. But it must not be much work to add it to an application, they don't have to pull folders out etc. The grammatical error sounds kind of small, they might have told you not to worry about it.
Cheers on the catch-22 avatar by the way. Snowdennn
It was on the last sentence, so I hope it doesn't leave a bad taste in their mouth after reading it. I'm not too paranoid, however, as I'm sure a small error will not break my application.
I'm glad you appreciate it! It's one of my two favorite books and yet I know hardly anyone who has read it.

Washington Irving
Irving Washington

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 2:07 am
by walczyk
Yeah it's a great book, it turned me on to reading Thomas Pynchon and sort of Kurt Vonnegut. I don't think physics departments care about being well rounded though :[

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 4:53 am
by Meteorshower
No offense, but I don't think liking Catch-22 automatically qualifies you as "well-rounded" :P

Re: My chances for getting into a top school?

Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 4:32 pm
by walczyk
Meteorshower wrote:No offense, but I don't think liking Catch-22 automatically qualifies you as "well-rounded" :P
Ha, I was referring to just reading a lot of books. I like philosophy (I've read Being & Time) and poetry. I think I'm very well rounded but I wasn't able to really say that in my SoP, it makes you look more spastic and unfocused.