My profile: lost in the jungle of US theoretical physics
Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 9:06 am
I have looked at the profiles for 2009 and 2010, and I still can't work out which universities I should apply to, and its getting late!
The information is somehow not so useful, I dont really know what the profiles' letters of recommendation were like, the SOP, their CV/resume and the quality of their school will also count. None of their accounts really suit me, so I was hoping to try you guys out. People who are tired of these kinds of request may kindly ignore it, rather than flame-hating it down Thanks!
So here is my stuff
School: top 100 university in world, in northern europe
Degree: masters in engineering physics
Length of Degree: 4.5 years (hybrid bachelors-masters in my country, been in use for ages)
Overall GPA: different system but it equates to 3.70/4.00
Position in Class:top 3-4 but will not say on my transcript, we dont have rankings here
Type of Student: European male, handsome
Status: done, finished, completed
Second school: another top 100 university, also in northern europe, whose top ranked department is physics
Degree: masters in theoretical physics
Length of Degree: 2 years
Overall GPA: different system but it equates to 3.82/4.00
Position in Class: unknown, there are few students with many different specializations. Even within theory it is hard to say.
Status: havent gotten this degree yet, busy working on thesis
Letters of Rec: there will be 1 OK one from a pretty famous guy; and their will be one OK one from a regular (but good) researcher; and then a third one is from another researcher and will be somewhere between good to very good I guess (he knows me the best, too). Got a good SOP going too, I should imagine..
No research experience apart from masters thesis, which might be publishable in near future. Some scholarships.
Misc stuff that might help: for reasons I wont go into, my performance on the degree in engineering physics was really awesome and I have a letter explaining it. Anyone in my home country would immediately identify me as truly excellent.
GRE: to-be-announced
PGRE: 740 first time (62nd percentile), and 750 second time (65th percentile)
So you can all see the fly in the soup, we have two mediocre GRE physics scores. Coming from a country where no-one knows what the GRE or PGRE is, I hope they have some sense for this. But they do love those GRE scores..
So.... difficult question: where to apply for string theory, quantum gravity, mathematics in QFT etc? Very fundamental stuff, no experiments or phenomenology for me, thanks . I have already applied to the best of the best (i.e. all top 10 you can imagine in the US), but how are my chances?
Please comment, and feel free to recommend any universities that you think have excellent research in the listed areas, but perhaps arent so extremely competitive like Princeton, Berkeley etc... Especially if you know any universities whose last application date is today, the 15th dec. I have all material ready and I am ready to rock, please let me know!
The information is somehow not so useful, I dont really know what the profiles' letters of recommendation were like, the SOP, their CV/resume and the quality of their school will also count. None of their accounts really suit me, so I was hoping to try you guys out. People who are tired of these kinds of request may kindly ignore it, rather than flame-hating it down Thanks!
So here is my stuff
School: top 100 university in world, in northern europe
Degree: masters in engineering physics
Length of Degree: 4.5 years (hybrid bachelors-masters in my country, been in use for ages)
Overall GPA: different system but it equates to 3.70/4.00
Position in Class:top 3-4 but will not say on my transcript, we dont have rankings here
Type of Student: European male, handsome
Status: done, finished, completed
Second school: another top 100 university, also in northern europe, whose top ranked department is physics
Degree: masters in theoretical physics
Length of Degree: 2 years
Overall GPA: different system but it equates to 3.82/4.00
Position in Class: unknown, there are few students with many different specializations. Even within theory it is hard to say.
Status: havent gotten this degree yet, busy working on thesis
Letters of Rec: there will be 1 OK one from a pretty famous guy; and their will be one OK one from a regular (but good) researcher; and then a third one is from another researcher and will be somewhere between good to very good I guess (he knows me the best, too). Got a good SOP going too, I should imagine..
No research experience apart from masters thesis, which might be publishable in near future. Some scholarships.
Misc stuff that might help: for reasons I wont go into, my performance on the degree in engineering physics was really awesome and I have a letter explaining it. Anyone in my home country would immediately identify me as truly excellent.
GRE: to-be-announced
PGRE: 740 first time (62nd percentile), and 750 second time (65th percentile)
So you can all see the fly in the soup, we have two mediocre GRE physics scores. Coming from a country where no-one knows what the GRE or PGRE is, I hope they have some sense for this. But they do love those GRE scores..
So.... difficult question: where to apply for string theory, quantum gravity, mathematics in QFT etc? Very fundamental stuff, no experiments or phenomenology for me, thanks . I have already applied to the best of the best (i.e. all top 10 you can imagine in the US), but how are my chances?
Please comment, and feel free to recommend any universities that you think have excellent research in the listed areas, but perhaps arent so extremely competitive like Princeton, Berkeley etc... Especially if you know any universities whose last application date is today, the 15th dec. I have all material ready and I am ready to rock, please let me know!