Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Hi friends,

I'm an international student.
My background is:

GPA: 3.7
Phys Gre: 820-900
Q: 780 (Mediocre)
V: <350 (Scandal)
A. writing: 3.5-5.0
2 years research experience
A published paper in Phys. Rev.


My questions are:

Do I have a good change to be admitted in an outstanding theoretical physics school (6th-15th in the rankings)

Should I retake the General Gre? What if I do not have time? (I still have to take an English proficiency exam)


Thank you for any effort

You could call up one of the departments at a 6-15th ranked school and ask them if they have a minimum suggested score for the verbal GRE, or what the average verbal GRE scores for the accepted international students were.

The rest of your application looks good, except perhaps your subject GRE, but just because the competition for the international students is so tough.

Thank you very much grae313.

I forgot to mention that I do not need any financial aid, I will pay tuitions. Does it make any difference?

I'm not sure, but you can always call up a department and ask them! My guess is it will help a little.

If you are an international student, the TOEFL can make up for the verbal score. Including copies of publications is always nice in an application. What kind of theory do you want to do?

780 is not mediocre. 780 is nearly perfect.

I think 780 might be considered mediocre among students who are seriously considering top 10 physics grad school. All of my friends in the physics department here who I have talked to got 800. But, getting 780 probably just means you made a mistake. I don't think anyone really cares, so it might as well be 800.

I think if you're considering a top 10 school and you score a 780 you haven't hurt your chances in the least. Admissions committees are made of actual flesh-and-blood human beings, not computers that sort through applications looking for perfect scores.

It's more likely that your shitty verbal score will hurt you rather than your nearly perfect quantitative score.

A 780 probably amounts to getting one question wrong... not hard to do if you make a simple mistake reading one of those silly pie charts or forgot that 5, 12, 13 is a pythagorean triple.

No sensilble person should frown on a 780... but if you score much less than that, I think that getting several questions wrong on middle school arithmetic could raise some red flags...

Dude, i got 740 .Now, what is that! Red or Green. ( or Yellow). (for top tiers!)

i'd say yellow, though different profs are likely to have different opinions, depending on how fast they're moving

(doppler shift)

Actually I just talked to my advisor about my score on the quantitative section (below 700, see my post for explanation).

I was pleasantly suprised to learn that the recommendation was not to take the test over again. The advice I was given was that my score was sufficient and that most schools use GPA to weed out candidates on the first run, then look carefully at your research, publications etc., then consider your physics GRE and then the general.

Caveat:

I am an American student. Standards for international students are higher.

I suppose you could also move toward your professors quickly, for the desired result.

As long as they're not running away...