How are you guys going about checking for completness

  • 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.

Post Reply
1420 Peach
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 3:24 pm

How are you guys going about checking for completness

Post by 1420 Peach » Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:05 pm

Ok, being the worrying/need-to-know as I'm sure many of you are, I would like to know the status of my application. Some programs post online if it is complete (thanks Cornell, you rock) some tell you not to check (MIT,get with it) and some don't say anything.

How are you guys approaching this?

Any tricks to find who to contact if they don't list it in the conformation e-mail?

User avatar
fermiboy
Posts: 437
Joined: Fri Nov 16, 2007 7:41 pm

Post by fermiboy » Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:52 pm

I check for completeness with the relation

\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} dx |x> <x| = 1

for some arbitrary ket |x>.

User avatar
twistor
Posts: 1529
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:47 pm

Post by twistor » Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:53 pm

I prefer the completeness axiom.

User avatar
quizivex
Posts: 1031
Joined: Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:13 am

Post by quizivex » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:27 pm

@ 1420 Peach

You just had to know this was going to happen when you chose that title for your post :lol: . My favorite way to check for completeness is to take an arbitrary monotonic bounded sequence of application items, find its limit and check that this limit exists in our application or its union with our supplementary materials.

Some schools do this computation for you, but each one has a different method. Those who use embark use the online notification system. Others are happy to take calls and confirm completeness over the phone. Others send you automatic e-mails such as MIT and Stanford, though if you saw zxcv's post, Stanford doesn't seem to be living up to its promise.

If any schools haven't given you the confirmation you wanted, then I'd say call the department (or the grad school, if they're the ones who handle materials), and ask "What should I do if I haven't received confirmation?" rather than "Do you have my materials?" since some schools don't want to hear the latter.

cancelled20080417
Posts: 482
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:30 pm

Post by cancelled20080417 » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:33 pm

quizivex, there is a counterexample!
I used the later one and every schools replied me telling me that my application was complete in all those places I applied to!

User avatar
twistor
Posts: 1529
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:47 pm

Post by twistor » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:18 am

I sent several angry emails when UChicago did not update their page to reflect that I had sent in copies of a talk I gave. When I talked to them about it they said, "We don't know what your problem is because your application is complete..." So I explained to them and they said they would look into it, which of course they never did.

schandre
Posts: 55
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2007 3:43 pm

Post by schandre » Thu Jan 17, 2008 11:17 am

I sent e-mails asking whether all my supporting materials were received by the grad school committees. Most grad schools were fast to reply, however one apparently doesn't have its e-mails read every month or simply doesn't care at all to answer them. The worst is that this school's application procedure isn't online.
One of the schools replied saying they didn't receive any of my recommendation letters, while another school, to which the letters were mailed on the same day, received them on the first week of the year. I wonder if I should be worried or just assume the mailmen in ***** are just lazy.

I wish I could also have thought of a good joke to post here, instead of this pointless and boring reply.

schandre
Posts: 55
Joined: Fri Nov 09, 2007 3:43 pm

Post by schandre » Thu Jan 17, 2008 12:15 pm

A few minutes after I left the message above I got an e-mail from the University I said that didn't care to answer their e-mails telling me they got all my application material and they'll start reviewing the applications on February 1st. They even bothered to tell me more than I asked for. Shame on me.



Post Reply