Best use of free time for grad school application
Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2018 2:09 am
Hi All,
I have free time from now until the application deadline (15 Dec for most programs). I have taken my pGRE and gGRE and results were OK. I've also talked with my letter recommenders and they already agreed to write for me. I suppose the remaining parts are SoP and Resume.
Can I have some opinions on how should I spend wisely this free period?
For example:
How would you spend this period to find out your purpose in graduate study or craft a winning SoP?
How would you respond to the temptations of applying to slightly more worldly programs (instead of physics) that has become more available in the recent days?
We've applied physics for quite some time now, but recently I also find programs on geophysics, planetary science, ocean and atmospheric physics, environmental science, etc.
What do you think of these specialized programs that are easier to explain to your families or friends or even yourself, as you would need to continually answer why you enter grad school on this particular problem now and later on?
studying earthquakes or typhoons sound more understandable to the public than studying majorana fermions, for example...
I do not think I am writing my applications with the right mindset at the moment. I pretty much align my SoP with the research that the faculty member does in my destination university. Some universities' have their webpages outdated so I cannot do that for all my applications either.
My reasoning is that there is little use in applying to work on the problem you're interested in if there's no faculty member doing the same research as what you've wanted, or that you'll lose out to competition from other applicants as your undergrad research experiences do not match what you want to do in grad school (for example, my undergrad research was on CMP, but I won't be able to use that optimally to apply for HEP).
I am international Asian Male applicant, so I believe the competition is super strong for my profile here. Applying for the best 10 universities.
I know it is a long post, but please help if you could. Thanks.
I have free time from now until the application deadline (15 Dec for most programs). I have taken my pGRE and gGRE and results were OK. I've also talked with my letter recommenders and they already agreed to write for me. I suppose the remaining parts are SoP and Resume.
Can I have some opinions on how should I spend wisely this free period?
For example:
How would you spend this period to find out your purpose in graduate study or craft a winning SoP?
How would you respond to the temptations of applying to slightly more worldly programs (instead of physics) that has become more available in the recent days?
We've applied physics for quite some time now, but recently I also find programs on geophysics, planetary science, ocean and atmospheric physics, environmental science, etc.
What do you think of these specialized programs that are easier to explain to your families or friends or even yourself, as you would need to continually answer why you enter grad school on this particular problem now and later on?
studying earthquakes or typhoons sound more understandable to the public than studying majorana fermions, for example...
I do not think I am writing my applications with the right mindset at the moment. I pretty much align my SoP with the research that the faculty member does in my destination university. Some universities' have their webpages outdated so I cannot do that for all my applications either.
My reasoning is that there is little use in applying to work on the problem you're interested in if there's no faculty member doing the same research as what you've wanted, or that you'll lose out to competition from other applicants as your undergrad research experiences do not match what you want to do in grad school (for example, my undergrad research was on CMP, but I won't be able to use that optimally to apply for HEP).
I am international Asian Male applicant, so I believe the competition is super strong for my profile here. Applying for the best 10 universities.
I know it is a long post, but please help if you could. Thanks.