KineticKid

I've been out of school for 5 years now...and I'm heading into graduate-level PHYSICS this fall! Yikes! I plan on spending the summer brushing up on math and physics in preparation for fall classes and Comps in 1.5 years. No work for me (yes, I admit it's a luxury to not work this summer). Just study, study, study.

First Review: Very Good / Excellent Second Review: Excellent / Excellent Third Review: Very Good / Excellent

I was thinking about this earlier tonight: Since different committees judge different groups of applicants, perhaps the "arbitrariness" comes from the fact that each group might judge differently? That is, perhaps it's useless to compare a math person's application to that of a computer science person since the different committees might have their own merit criteria? Re: GRE scores. I was totally disappointed that they didn't look at GRE scores this year, too. I have the same general GRE score as you (1570) and a great physics GRE score, too. In fact, I was counting on my GRE scores to "offset" my less-than-perfect GPA (I still graduated with honors...but I definitely didn't get a 4.0).

To some degree it's arbitrary, but not entirely. When I was crafting my proposal, I really STUDIED the successful proposals to see just what worked. And when I was fine-tuning my essays, I made sure emphasize broader impacts, etc., explicitly. I was very methodical about the whole process, and it worked (and this was the first year I applied!).

I got the fellowship! I will be entering grad school this fall in physics. This was the first year I applied. I can't wait to read the reviews when they come out in a few days...

I'll try to be brief. I'm a female in physics applying to grad school this year. I took 4+ years between by Bachelor's degree and now to raise my kid, so I've been out of physics for a little while (though I've been tutoring, taking classes here and there, and doing some research to keep up my skills). The research project that I've been working on the past year is only marginally related to physics: it's biological modeling (more applied math than bio). Now, I have ZERO interest in biology--I actually want to do theoretical statistical mechanics--but this modeling project seemed to be a good way to augment my numerical/programming skills, as well as maintain my math skills (PDEs, etc.). Also, since I wasn't currently in a grad program, I had a very, very difficult time finding someone who would let me join his/her research team. I couldn't be choosy, so I accepted this bio modeling project. The results of this work have been good; we just submitted a paper, which I hope will be accepted for publication before grad school apps are due. Besides grad school, I'm also applying for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. The project I want to propose for the NSF GRF isn't actually what I want to ultimately study in grad school; it's another bio modeling project, one I think I could do very, very well (like, not just good, but also done using a different approach from current methodologies). Do you think proposing this bio modeling project is risky? Or should I go for a very physics-y physics sort of thing?

I'll agree with you there!

My two scores were reported on separate lines. I had to add them up myself. And, yes, the scores were reported individually on the official ETS report: 800 Verbal, 770 Quantitative, 5.0 Essay Writing.

I took the General GRE this past September. My experimental section was an essay one, not a quant or verbal. Personally, I felt the verbal section was easier than any practice test I took. Of course, I had a strategy: race through the antonyms and sentence completions--which I almost always got correct in practice--and spend significant portions of my time on the three reading passages. I did just that and got 800. However, I completely blew the quant. I didn't keep track of the number of data information problems I had seen and so I thought I had plenty of time to finish the section. Nope. I ended up with 9 problems remaining and only 5 minutes left to do them in. I totally effed it up, running out of time and selecting my favorite letter for the last few problems. I ended up with a 770 instead of the 800 I should have gotten.

Thanks for your response. I've looked into Open University at CSUN--mostly because I know a math prof there--but I really, really don't want to put off applying to grad school any longer. I certainly don't want to wait another year or two, especially since I've now spent the past 4+ years out of school. At this rate, I'll be super lucky to finish my PhD before I'm 40. In addition, babysitting costs $15/hour. Factoring in commute time--I live in West L.A., not the Valley--and it would cost me over $150/week in babysitting just to take one 3-unit course. Oh, and we'd have to get a second car and pay for the gas to drive all the way up there. As I was saying before, we're living on just my husband's meager post doc salary--in Los Angeles, no less!--so taking courses is expensive, even though the tuition itself may be cheap.

Hi. I'm a non-traditional student applying to grad school in physics (by non-traditional, I mean that I graduated from college years ago, worked a few years, then returned to school to get my bachelor's in physics. I got my physics degree in 2006). I graduated with my BS and married a newly-minted physics PhD shortly thereafter (he was the theorist in our lab...how dorky is that?). For pragmatic reasons, I waited to see where he would do his post doc before I made my decision regarding where to apply to grad school (he didn't get his offers until after grad school apps were due). We moved to California for his post doc; not too long after that I found out I was pregnant (I was 29). Since childcare is prohibitively expensive here ($1,500 and up per month), especially on a post doc or grad student salary, we made the very pragmatic decision that I would do the stay-at-home mom thing--taking courses when I could, etc.--and then apply to grad school when our kid was old enough for preschool... Which is now. My issue is that I'm having a very hard time getting three LORs. The prof with whom I did my senior project is now at a university in Europe and impossible to get in touch with. Another professor, with whom I had done significant research, RETIRED and has been traveling (keep in mind, nearly 5 years have elapsed since I was an undergrad). I could try to finagle a letter out of one or two other folks that I had good relationships with, but it might be a stretch to get GOOD letters from them, if you know what I mean, since I didn't really do any research with them. That said, I know I will get a phenomenal letter from a local prof with whom I've been doing research this past year. This is the one good letter I can count on. I could also get a stellar letter from a former employer--a non-science job, though--but I don't know how well that would sit with admissions committees. What do you think? It would seem to me that two great letters, even if one is a non-scientist, would be better than just one great letter and two ho-hum ones. In case you're wondering, I only did so-so as an undergrad (3.5+ overall GPA, 3.75 Upper Division GPA, 1570/1600 General GRE scores with 5.0 essay writing score, 730 Physics GRE), so I really, really need good letters in order to compensate for my relatively low GPA and physics GRE score. Thanks in advance!