Australian student applying for Fall '09

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noospace
Posts: 46
Joined: Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:14 pm

Australian student applying for Fall '09

Post by noospace » Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:47 pm

Hi all,

I'm an Australian Honours student planning to take the GRE this year to apply for a PhD program in the states in Fall '09 and I'd like to some honest opinions about my chances.

My ambition is to get accepted into a top school in particle theory which includes all the usual suspects: MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, Stanford, Cornell etc. (Btw I'd be interested in any recommendations for this field)

My undergraduate grades from the University of Sydney are pretty good High distinction average (not sure what this translates to in terms of GPA, however) and I'm planning to ace my honours this year at the University of Melbourne :).

As far as research experience goes, I've been doing supervised research in plasma theory since freshman (3 years) resulting in a publication in Phys. Lett. A. I've got another paper soon to be published in Phys. Rev. and possibly one more which might get published in 2009. I am the principal author of all of these. I also have 9 conference proceedings.

I have given two conference presentations as an undergrad (one in first year for which I won the best student presentation which competed against PhD students) and another in third year.

My thesis topic for honours is in braneworld models, but I haven't started any of that yet.

If I am to be accepted into any of these places, what should I be aiming for in Verbal/Quantitative (out of 800?) and Physics subject (out of 99?)

Thanks in advance.

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butsurigakusha
Posts: 293
Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:05 pm

Re: Australian student applying for Fall '09

Post by butsurigakusha » Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:07 pm

Be sure to check the profile thread as more acceptances come in to get a feel for what it takes.

As far as target score, probably shoot for at least 850 or so on the physics. Get near 800 on the quantitative 600+ on the verbal, and you will be fine.



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