Formulating Questions for Graduate Admissions Chairs

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Grant
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Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 7:55 pm

Formulating Questions for Graduate Admissions Chairs

Post by Grant » Mon Dec 03, 2012 12:02 pm

At some point before the next wave of applicants, I would like to compile a list of questions for physics graduate admissions chairs (or department chairs) and then post the responses on physicsgre.com.

I thought it would be a good idea to ask you all to help me think of good questions to ask. I realize it is a probably too late for these questions to help you all, but future generations of physicsgre.com visitors should benefit immensely from our efforts.

Below are some questions I quickly jotted down. Please suggest other questions as well as improvements to the questions below.

1. How do you use the GRE Subject Test in Physics in your selection process?

2. Do you have any advice for applicants with their personal statement?

3. What are your thoughts on the U.S.News & World Report rankings system?

4. What are some common mistakes applicants make that they can easily avoid?

5. Which are the most and least important out of the physics GRE, general GRE, GPA, research experience, personal statement, and letters of recommendation?

6. Do graduate schools talk with each other about applicants?

7. Have you ever heard of physicsgre.com before receiving this list of questions?

bfollinprm
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Joined: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:44 am

Re: Formulating Questions for Graduate Admissions Chairs

Post by bfollinprm » Mon Dec 03, 2012 1:00 pm

First, I'd recommend keeping the total list to something <= 10 if you want timely responses, so no need to incorporate any of these to your final list.

Some suggestions:

What do you recommend students who wish to pursue physics from engineering/math/etc do to improve their chances of admission and success in grad school?

What do you think is the most important consideration when choosing a graduate school?

What can late-bloomers with less than stellar undergraduate records do to improve their chances of admission to a graduate program?

Grant
site admin
Posts: 193
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 7:55 pm

Re: Formulating Questions for Graduate Admissions Chairs

Post by Grant » Mon Dec 03, 2012 1:22 pm

bfollinprm wrote:First, I'd recommend keeping the total list to something <= 10 if you want timely responses, so no need to incorporate any of these to your final list.

Some suggestions:

What do you recommend students who wish to pursue physics from engineering/math/etc do to improve their chances of admission and success in grad school?

What do you think is the most important consideration when choosing a graduate school?

What can late-bloomers with less than stellar undergraduate records do to improve their chances of admission to a graduate program?
Thanks, these are good questions. Having <= 10 quality questions would not too burdensome for them to respond which could help with the response rate. However, I plan to explain how much free exposure they will get on physicsgre.com and will provide some traffic numbers to back it up so I think I can make a good case for them to take the time to answer a decent number questions. Also, I plan to set it up and make it clear that it is fine to skip questions that don't apply to them (or that they prefer not to answer).

I plan to have two different ways to browse the responses. One would be to be browse by school to see all the questions/responses that a particular school answered, and the other would be to browse by question to see all the responses to a particular question. Schools can answer as many questions as they want, but the more they answer the more free exposure they get. With this approach we could ask questions that may or may not apply to all schools.

QuantumLancer
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu May 21, 2015 7:15 pm

Re: Formulating Questions for Graduate Admissions Chairs

Post by QuantumLancer » Mon Jul 06, 2015 11:50 pm

I just want to say that this is a great list of questions and an awesome resource when communicating with a graduate program. Keep up the awesome work!



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