Astronomy/Astrophysics PhD applications.

[AhoyLeakyPirate]

Hi everyone. I wanted to see if anyone has heard from any of the US schools in Physics, Astronomy or Astrophysics PhD programs. 

[OmniWheel]

Hey! I’ve gotten accepted to North Carolina State and UMass Amherst physics PhD’s. My research focus for apps has been astrophysics/cosmology theory, and physics education. I had an interview at UHawaii for the Institute for Astronomy PhD program, and they said they’d have results around 1/25.

Still waiting to hear back from many schools.

Edited January 20, 2021 by OmniWheel

[AhoyLeakyPirate]

4 hours ago, OmniWheel said:

Hey! I’ve gotten accepted to North Carolina State and UMass Amherst physics PhD’s. My research focus for apps has been astrophysics/cosmology theory, and physics education. I had an interview at UHawaii for the Institute for Astronomy PhD program, and they said they’d have results around 1/25.

Still waiting to hear back from many schools.

Hi, congratulations ! I had also applied to UHawaii but I have not recieved any information the interview. I guess that means they probably have not considered mine. When did they write to you for the interview? I only received email regarding the procedure of how the decisions are going to be made. 

[OmniWheel]

6 minutes ago, AhoyLeakyPirate said:

Hi, congratulations ! I had also applied to UHawaii but I have not recieved any information the interview. I guess that means they probably have not considered mine. When did they write to you for the interview? I only received email regarding the procedure of how the decisions are going to be made. 

Monday, January 11th by email. I’m sorry they haven’t contacted you.

They told me +200 people applied, and they interviewed around 60, so it was very competitive this year.

[AhoyLeakyPirate]

24 minutes ago, OmniWheel said:

Monday, January 11th by email. I’m sorry they haven’t contacted you.

They told me +200 people applied, and they interviewed around 60, so it was very competitive this year.

Hi, no worries. I am still going to wait it out. Could you tell me a bit about the interview and what they asked so I could prepare for potential future ones? I'm nervous as I don't really know what to expect (is it informal, or they expect me to remember some theorems..). Any tips are helpful. Hopefully you get into your dream school !

[OmniWheel]

I would not worry about theorems/test problems. If you’ve gotten an interview, they’ve already seen your transcript and resume, and they know you’ve taken physics classes and succeeded to some degree. They’re not trying to test how good you are at physics.
 

My interview was with a single professor on the admissions committee. The gist of my interview was “Why graduate school? Why do you want to come here? What do you want to research/what are you interested in?” I’d imagine these are fairly standard for most programs.
 

Then there were some character questions like “When was a time you overcame failure.” I don’t think you can really prepare for these, since they can often be unique to the interviewer or program. They’re mostly there for the interviewer to get a better understanding of who you are as a person.

 

A lot of the time was me asking questions about the program. If you get an interview, you should definitely prepare some questions to ask them.

17 minutes ago, AhoyLeakyPirate said:

Hi, no worries. I am still going to wait it out. Could you tell me a bit about the interview and what they asked so I could prepare for potential future ones? I'm nervous as I don't really know what to expect (is it informal, or they expect me to remember some theorems..). Any tips are helpful. Hopefully you get into your dream school !

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by OmniWheel

[AhoyLeakyPirate]

Okay, this is similar to what I was thinking and had for my internship questions. Yes I am currently preparing set of questionnaire for possible interviews tailored to individual universities. Have you applied for any other schools ? I have attached a list of ones I have applied to below. I will be updating status of them as I hear back.

Edited January 21, 2021 by AhoyLeakyPirate