What would b"safe schools" and "good schools&

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maxwell200
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:12 pm

What would b"safe schools" and "good schools&

Post by maxwell200 » Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:34 pm

Well, I guess as application time is looming I need help figuring out which tyoes of schools would be safe schools and which types would be schools I have a "good chance" but not "gauranteed.

My over all gpa is 3.3, my physics gpa is 3.6; I'm expecting my physics grades to rise to A- average by the time I graduate. Specificially, half my physics major grades were A or A-, the other half B+'s. Quantum mechanics was the one advanced physics course that brought me down for my major gpa, plus I had an unusually hard combe of classes. I had one quarter where I was doing quantum, E/M and biochemistry and research one quarter, another where I was doing quantum, E/M, upper level microbiology, a fourth class and research in one quarter. In fact, all quarters where I did not get all A's in my physics classes were quarters where I was taking physics concurrently with upper level chemistry and microbiology classes. Partially because of this, partially becuase I have a tougher time staying mentally organized than others, and for other reasons my physics gpa is not quite where I wanted it to be. Obviously, I am pretty disappointed with my physics grades, esp quantum, and do feel I had the ability to do a lot better. It was at Ohio State University undergrad, which i do believe is recognized for being increasingly tough in physics and other areas.

As for research, again I am unfortunately not very strong in that area either. I started research during my autumn of my junior, and plan on continuing the smae project through my senior year with a possible publication/recommendation from a very highly repsected professor in his field of particle physics.

Now, I would like to think I'm not completely out of touch with reality. I'm aware that fro me getting into a school like stanford, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, etc would basically be like winning the lottery, regardless of how well I do on my physics gre. However, the grad studies chair in physics said, when i asked him abvout my grades, he said,

"Your grads look good. Based on these grades I would say you would have a
good chance of being accepted into a strong physics graduate program of
the level of OSU or possibly higher...your grades look very good".

I would hope thaty serves as good news, but I don't really know. I was wondering if anyone could help me determine, as dependent on my physics gre score, my chances of getting into these types of schools:

Rice University
Penn State
Rutgers State
University of Minnesota
University of Rochester
Texas A&M
University of Arizona
University of Virginia
New York University
Brown University
Georgia Tech
Stony Brook
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Texas-Austin
Ohio State University
Michigan State

Basically, I wanted to know if anyone could tell which of these schools would be schools I have a good chance of getting into and which would be "safe schools" and which would be more difficult for me to get into. Again, I have not taken the physics gre and don't really know how well I'll end up doing.

Thanks for any help you can provide.



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