<p>Keep in mind that I am an international student and that, because of my research experience, I want to do particle or cosmology theory. The remaining wildcards are, of course, the strength of the letters of recommendation. And whether I can get this... false vacuum decay article published before the application deadlines.</p>
<p>Research experience: 1 year in particle cosmology theory (no publication yet)</p>
<p>ECs: Student newspaper (3 years, head editor for 1)
Departmental assembly membership (2 years)
Tutoring (1 year, planning on continuing)</p>
<p>I knew that everyone who wants to do any of that stuff will have high GPAs, high GRE scores and research experience. And perhaps taking advanced coursework as an undergraduate as well. (The US equivalent of what I did amounted to take graduate-level quantum mechanics as a junior and graduate-level statistical mechanics as a senior) And that I can't ask for reach-match-safety sort of chances; after all, what I'm asking for is whether my list is realistic. So here's my list of schools:</p>
<p>Will definitely apply to:</p>
<p>UPenn
Tufts
William and Mary
UMinn
Ohio State
Tulane
Arizona State
U Kentucky
U Rochester</p>
<p>Test score and GPA wise, except for my PGRE (my huge weakness) I was pretty similar to you. However, I had a ton of research experience and a first author theory paper accepted to PRL when I applied. I also had a lot of graduate coursework, really outstanding letters, and a very prestigious award from my school. I applied for condensed matter theory and in the end chose between Harvard, Stanford, and Chicago.</p>
<p>In physics grad school admissions research experience and letters are by far the most important factors. If these are really great they can outweigh other weaknesses in your application. The opposite is not true. My own personal experience supports this. Despite my low GRE score (which I do think kept me out of a few places which I wouldn’t have chosen over Harvard anyway) I was offered fellowships at Harvard and Chicago (the top places usually have acceptance rates around 10-15%) that were only offered to the top 5 or 6 applicants. My letters and research were definitely responsible for this.</p>
<p>Since your test scores are strong I don’t think they will keep you out of anywhere. It really will depend on how strong you are compared to other students at your school, letters and research. What kind of reputation does your undergrad institution have overall and in physics? This seems to have some importance as I did notice a large portion of the students at open houses were from places with top physics programs, (Stanford, Illinois, UCSB, etc). I think this probably ties into research and letters.</p>
<p>To put my remarks into context, I have been doing graduate admissions for the physics program at Illinois Tech for the past 8 years or so. EC’s won’t matter at all. Your GRE scores are fine and your GPA too. Since you have a year of research experience, you will be competitive at pretty much any of the schools you list as long as you get strong, personal letters from faculty who know you well. I have noticed that faculty from institutions outside the U.S. often write short generic letters and that doesn’t help. Make sure they write comprehensive letters.</p>
<p>@Poeme The applicant pool often includes a bunch of East Asian kids many schools are quite suspicious about. They are suspicious about them because they realized in years past that they often outscored local kids, but it turned out that they didn’t quite know as much, and that short generic letters often accompanied such applications. That could account for part of 10-15% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>@Catria, I know that. There is a lot of cheating that goes on in places like China and Korea for the PGRE so they don’t really trust scores from there sometimes. Anyway, analyzing acceptance rates is irrelevant, I included them because some people take them into account like they do for undergrad. What’s important is what I said was important above, especially about research and letters.</p>
<p>I have double-checked Kentucky and it turns out that it was too heavy on QCD, which I didn’t like. So I cross Kentucky off my list. However, I now confirm that Yale and Vanderbilt are on my list.</p>
<p>As an international student you are applying to too many state schools. State schools generally have much less funding for international students than private schools.</p>
<p>Also, if you think or have been told you have a chance of getting into a school like Penn or Yale, why are you applying to all those lower ranked schools? If you can get into schools of that caliber (your professors should be able to give you a more realistic idea) you should apply to more schools like that ands have maybe two safeties in the top 50.</p>
<p>Arizona State, Ohio State, Minnesota appeared on my list because of contacts my professors have.</p>
<p>Then again, my PI advised me to apply broadly… given the intense competition in my branch, I definitely am not pinning all my hopes on Yale, UPenn or Vanderbilt. Or perhaps replace W&M with Dartmouth…</p>
<p>Ranking is not everything in graduate school. You need to find a program which has the kind of research that you are interested in and has faculty you would be wiling to work with. Your career after graduate school depends a lot of who your advisor is. I would hazard to guess that my university, Illinois Tech, is not considered one of the “top” physics programs in the U.S. but my graduate students have all done very well for themselves after finishing their Ph.D. degrees.</p>
<p>Finally, for graduate school, whether the university is public or private is irrelevant. If they want to admit you and support you for a Ph.D. they will do so.</p>
<p>Now with a new list of schools (to show that it is worthwhile to double-check every school on a first list):</p>
<p>UPenn
Tufts
Vanderbilt
UMinn
Ohio State
Carnegie Mellon
Dartmouth
Penn State
Harvard
Princeton</p>
<p>But really, Harvard and Princeton are throw-ins suggested to me by some professor emeritus in my field at my current school. Perhaps I could have stood a chance when that emeritus last took students. Perhaps 3 publics at that level are too many publics to have for me as an international… yet I put in Vanderbilt, Dartmouth and Tufts because I felt these were on the easier side (and I just can’t talk about Tufts without mentioning Vilenkin) and also to hedge my bets in case I have no publications when apps are due.</p>
<p>It’s perhaps all because of how I see the impact of a publication on my chances at the likes of Penn, Harvard and Princeton that I feel compelled to look for schools that could, at first glance, be a little low-ranked. After all, It is OK to aim high, I just need the right backups for the long run.</p>
<p>I think that both you and @Poeme have a misconception about the funding for an International student. Public and Private physics Ph.D. programs both need Teaching Assistantships and if they decide to take you, you will have support. It is not a question of having more or less financial aid, just whether you have a good enough application to be considered for funding. From what you say, you are an international student at a university in your home country. You will have several hurdles in getting admitted with an assistantship. The first is to get past the first cut and the second is to be considered for a TA position. Your GPA is good but does not stand out for the most selective schools. Your test scores are good though and specifically your GRE Verbal and TOEFL are consistent with each other and indicate that your English language skills are strong. This would give you an edge over other international candidates with similar academic records. </p>
<p>You mentioned that an emeritus professor at your university knows faculty at some prominent schools. If he/she does, then get an introduction. Having your application noticed can help a lot and if you follow that up with some dialog, that can also work well. In know that I pay attention to our former Ph.D. students who recommend students and conversely, there are universities who will take my personal recommendation for a student very seriously.</p>
<p>I think I have an idea where my own misconceptions came from: TA positions come with tuition waivers. It is the cost of these very tuition waivers that made these very misconceptions appear in the first place. Maybe I thought out-of-state applicants would be disadvantaged for this reason but with no further disadvantage beyond that.</p>
<p>For the record, here are my TOEFL subscores: Reading: 28, Listening: 30, Speaking: 26, Writing: 26 and I feel like there is no reason for these scores not to be an accurate reflection of my language skills.</p>
<p>@xraymancs, I know the issue is not getting funding once you are there, the issue is being accepted in the first place. For example, the UCs (most notably UCSB) take very few international students. They justify this by the fact that the UCs receive a large portion of their funding from California tax dollars and the NSF as well as the fact that international students cost more. The funding issues in the UCs are affecting domestic applicants as well.</p>
<p>It gives you a huge advantage to have letters from people who are well known in the field. I think it was incredibly helpful that my letter writers knew a lot of people at the schools I was applying to. The two professors in my specific subfield who wrote my letters pretty much knew everyone I had mentioned in my statements.</p>
<p>I did not personally contact any professors when I applied to schools accept for two who had given colloquium at my school (I did get accepted to both of their schools). One of my professors told me not to waste time emailing them because he never reads those emails and he kind of sees them as showing that you are not confident the admissions committee will notice your application. He also said he only feels comfortable introducing students to people he knows very well (as in beyond an acquaintance).</p>
<p>I think the best bet is to do a lot of research about the people you want to work for and mention them in your statements. Your application may be read by them specifically. </p>
<p>I know that at Penn, a professor may be forwarded applications from around ~30-50 people who mention them. They will probably throw out 2/3s after the first read and look more closely at the rest. The involvement of individual professors depends on the school though.</p>
<p>After a visit to that emeritus’ office, I came to the conclusion that it’s not worth throwing an application to Harvard or Princeton; maybe Brown instead?</p>
<p>One prof of interest at Brown for now: Lowe.</p>
<p>And one last question: how much would my application be hurt if I don’t publish (even a pre-print) by application deadlines?</p>
<p>Keep in mind that I am in a thesis masters, and that I am in theoretical particle physics (more precisely, as Trodden at UPenn would say, particle cosmology)… </p>
<p>I would be just fine with an authorship at this point, regardless of the order.</p>