yet another admission chances question...

  • This has become our largest and most active forum because the physics GRE is just one aspect of getting accepted into a graduate physics program.
  • There are applications, personal statements, letters of recommendation, visiting schools, anxiety of waiting for acceptances, deciding between schools, finding out where others are going, etc.

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jb
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 5:53 pm

yet another admission chances question...

Post by jb » Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:47 pm

I'm going into my senior year at a big public university with a pretty good physics department (very highly ranked graduate program). I'm applying to places this fall for phd programs, and with a low gpa I wanted to see what people thought of getting admitted into decent programs. My major gpa is a 3.3, but I have really good research experience on an international collaboration experiment at a particle accelerator (this is extremely relevant because I want to study high energy physics) and an english major in addition to physics. Im studying a lot for the pgre, so Im hoping to get a good score.

With a low major gpa of 3.3, is it possible to get into some decent programs? Im not sure where these rank because outside of the obvious Harvards and Standfords its hard to get a sense of rankings, but some schools on my list include: Temple University, Northeastern, BU (probably my top choice and a reach), Tufts, Drexel, Brandeis, NYU (reach), Rutgers, Carnegie Mellon. Any thoughts on my chances would be appreciated.

Mataka
Posts: 160
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2009 10:05 am

Re: yet another admission chances question...

Post by Mataka » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:09 pm

It's hard to tell with what you tell us. Look at the profile section, and if that doesn't help well, try to build a profile using the template of the profile section, then with that we might be able to make an "accurate" judgment.

jb
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 5:53 pm

Re: yet another admission chances question...

Post by jb » Tue Jul 14, 2009 6:35 pm

I havent taken any of the gre's yet, but my physics gpa is a 3.3, english gpa is a 3.5, and I have research experience with a professor on an experiment at the fermilab accelerator. I know its hard to tell without any gre scores, but is my gpa a dealbreaker for most of those schools? From what Im seeing on here almost all of the profiles have gpas >3.7.

nathan12343
Posts: 249
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:34 am

Re: yet another admission chances question...

Post by nathan12343 » Tue Jul 14, 2009 7:34 pm

GPA isn't everything. You can prove that you know your stuff by doing very well on the PGRE, e.g. better than 850 or so.

Start studying now and those kinds of scores are perfectly reasonable.



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