<p>Thanks bovertine. I’ve got a few books on QM as well as a textbook that virtually covers the first three portions of calculus based physics. I’ve got a calculus book that goes all the way through a bit of differential equations and I’ve been learning a lot of this stuff on my own for quite a while. A lot of the higher level physics looks really tough, but at the same time I’m very interested in it. I like the mind-bending concepts behind math and physics, so it’s actually fun for me to learn about them.</p>
<p>And yeah, I think when I was looking at the US News thing (I know that’s not everything, but it’s a good measurement) for physics and UGA is ranked lower than the top 50, whereas GT is ranked something around the 20’s. Thing is that I really just want to make sure I’m getting equal opportunity by going to a place like UGA instead of a higher ranked school. I suppose GPA as well as GRE scores count just as much as research, and of course getting published isn’t something I can look to do as there’s no way to know when some researcher will make a discovery (or if I can even be a part of it), but I just can’t get rid of this nagging feeling that perhaps there’s something I don’t know about these undergrads getting into the top schools and what they did to do so.</p>