taking the year off?
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:07 pm
so i've made a post similar to this so i've just pasted some info.
so basically i got Q:720, V:590, and writing 5.0 . PGRE; 680 (52%) . this is really the one that worries me. And the rest of my profile looks something like this:
degree, from small City College, length of degree: 4yrs.
Overall GPA;3.894
Physics GPA; 3.810 ( i think this is bad since, its lower than my overall)
Research Experience: 1 REU at the University of Minnesota, on dark matter stuff
Extra-circulars: `Vice-president of Physics Club (sophmore year), president (junior year) ,and i'm doing some tutoring for intermediate level physics classes this year. i'm also the undergrad representative on the department's executive board.
Work: I work at a stationary/copy place on Saturdays.
Schools I'm applying to (or least wanted to apply to)
UCB (just to keep it there) U of Michigan, U of Washington, Penn State, Rutgers, Stony Brook, U of Minnesota, Syracuse U.
I am saying on the personal statement that I want to do research in dark matter and/ or comic ray stuff. But I'm not indicating whether is theory or experiment.
Other stuff: i've got two awards from science department. one was specifically for physics. and if we include upcoming semester i will have taken 4 graduate classes. one was Math Methods (which makes my crappy math score an even bigger joke). one was for solid state, and the other two for two semester of Grad QM.
So I'm going to retake the physics GRE in april, hopefully get something like an 850. i guess i need something like that now. and i'm going to retake the GRE in June, and get my math up to a 770 at least, and my the verbal up to 650.
So the question really is, what should I do if I don't get into any of these schools next year. I really just want to graduate. It's not that I don't like my school, its more about I don't want to live at home anymore. Anyone know of any jobs I can try applying for? Should I look into trying to get lab jobs as some of the more prestigious colleges around me to bolster my app for next year? does anyone recommend applying in the Spring? I don't want to do this b/c I get the feeling that it is harder to get into b/c of less seats, and less funding. Well all recommendations are welcome and thanks for reading all of that. Good luck to everyone who's applying this year.
so basically i got Q:720, V:590, and writing 5.0 . PGRE; 680 (52%) . this is really the one that worries me. And the rest of my profile looks something like this:
degree, from small City College, length of degree: 4yrs.
Overall GPA;3.894
Physics GPA; 3.810 ( i think this is bad since, its lower than my overall)
Research Experience: 1 REU at the University of Minnesota, on dark matter stuff
Extra-circulars: `Vice-president of Physics Club (sophmore year), president (junior year) ,and i'm doing some tutoring for intermediate level physics classes this year. i'm also the undergrad representative on the department's executive board.
Work: I work at a stationary/copy place on Saturdays.
Schools I'm applying to (or least wanted to apply to)
UCB (just to keep it there) U of Michigan, U of Washington, Penn State, Rutgers, Stony Brook, U of Minnesota, Syracuse U.
I am saying on the personal statement that I want to do research in dark matter and/ or comic ray stuff. But I'm not indicating whether is theory or experiment.
Other stuff: i've got two awards from science department. one was specifically for physics. and if we include upcoming semester i will have taken 4 graduate classes. one was Math Methods (which makes my crappy math score an even bigger joke). one was for solid state, and the other two for two semester of Grad QM.
So I'm going to retake the physics GRE in april, hopefully get something like an 850. i guess i need something like that now. and i'm going to retake the GRE in June, and get my math up to a 770 at least, and my the verbal up to 650.
So the question really is, what should I do if I don't get into any of these schools next year. I really just want to graduate. It's not that I don't like my school, its more about I don't want to live at home anymore. Anyone know of any jobs I can try applying for? Should I look into trying to get lab jobs as some of the more prestigious colleges around me to bolster my app for next year? does anyone recommend applying in the Spring? I don't want to do this b/c I get the feeling that it is harder to get into b/c of less seats, and less funding. Well all recommendations are welcome and thanks for reading all of that. Good luck to everyone who's applying this year.