3-Year Physics B.S.: Benefit or Hindrance?
Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 3:25 am
Hello everyone,
As the title says, I'm curious as to how a graduate admissions committee would look at my application considering I will be graduating with a physics B.S. in three years (next semester, yay). One immediate consequence of finishing my B.S. in three years is the limited time I have to do undergraduate research and potentially cut my opportunities to give talks or publish a paper. I was able to do research during the second semester of my first year, but the first year of research turned out more to be a try into HEP-Ex, which in the end, I did not like. I'm now happily doing research in CME, but considering that I've basically only had a semester and a half of research in my current group (significantly stunted by PGRE studying), I simply did not have the time to accumulate enough research and results to give a talk/publish a paper.
A bonus however, to finishing in three years would be that graduate courses taken as a junior would probably look great on my application. I'm not saying that they wouldn't look great on any other application (except maybe for Masters students who should have taken those classes as requisites), but because of the shortened duration to take even the core physics courses, it would look particularly nice to take grad courses as a third-year student (and get A's).
Now I ask: what is your opinion on applying as a 3-year B.S. student? Will they simply consider me as another 4-year B.S. student who's merely taken advantage of high school credit to get ahead? Or will there be some hidden benefit that I've completely overlooked in analyzing this whole situation in applying to grad school?
This has been running on my mind for a while and it would be great to hear other opinions on this. Thanks!
P.S.: Here are my statistics if this bears any significance towards forming an opinion:
Undergrad Institution: Big State School, not well-known for physics - ranked 60ish on U.S. News
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Astronomy, Math
GPA in Major: 3.91
Overall GPA: 3.93
Length of Degree: 3 years
Position in Class: No. 2 (out of 60-ish)
Type of Student: Domestic Asian male
GRE Scores :
(revised)
Q: TBD tomorrow
V: TBD "
W: TBD "
P: 910 (86%)
As the title says, I'm curious as to how a graduate admissions committee would look at my application considering I will be graduating with a physics B.S. in three years (next semester, yay). One immediate consequence of finishing my B.S. in three years is the limited time I have to do undergraduate research and potentially cut my opportunities to give talks or publish a paper. I was able to do research during the second semester of my first year, but the first year of research turned out more to be a try into HEP-Ex, which in the end, I did not like. I'm now happily doing research in CME, but considering that I've basically only had a semester and a half of research in my current group (significantly stunted by PGRE studying), I simply did not have the time to accumulate enough research and results to give a talk/publish a paper.
A bonus however, to finishing in three years would be that graduate courses taken as a junior would probably look great on my application. I'm not saying that they wouldn't look great on any other application (except maybe for Masters students who should have taken those classes as requisites), but because of the shortened duration to take even the core physics courses, it would look particularly nice to take grad courses as a third-year student (and get A's).
Now I ask: what is your opinion on applying as a 3-year B.S. student? Will they simply consider me as another 4-year B.S. student who's merely taken advantage of high school credit to get ahead? Or will there be some hidden benefit that I've completely overlooked in analyzing this whole situation in applying to grad school?
This has been running on my mind for a while and it would be great to hear other opinions on this. Thanks!
P.S.: Here are my statistics if this bears any significance towards forming an opinion:
Undergrad Institution: Big State School, not well-known for physics - ranked 60ish on U.S. News
Major(s): Physics
Minor(s): Astronomy, Math
GPA in Major: 3.91
Overall GPA: 3.93
Length of Degree: 3 years
Position in Class: No. 2 (out of 60-ish)
Type of Student: Domestic Asian male
GRE Scores :
(revised)
Q: TBD tomorrow
V: TBD "
W: TBD "
P: 910 (86%)