<p>Although I'm entering college for the first time next year, graduate school is far off, but I am just trying to put things in perspective. </p>
<p>Currently, I plan to major in Physics and go to graduate school after that (for astrophysics, or astronomy, or something along those lines).</p>
<p>For grad schools, I am really shooting high. I really want to end up at MIT or Princeton or something along those lines, since those are the top schools in the nation for Physics. </p>
<p>What exactly are grad schools going to look for? GPA? ECs? Research?</p>
<p>You can see my other topic on choosing which college to attend next year, but which one would give me the edge: Colgate, Gettysburg, or Rutgers? Would it be better to be the top physics student at Gettysburg or in the middle at Rutgers?</p>
<p>I really don't have any knowledge on graduate school admissions, can someone give me an idea of what to look out for?</p>
<p>I don't think EC's matter. When you're going to grad school, you're going there to turn out a Ph.D. thesis, and nobody cares if you've done community service, they need to know if you can handle the academic material and can do good research. Thus GPA, research experience, and professor recommendations are extremely important for grad school. EC's, not so much.</p>
<p>Grad school admissions are different from college admissions. The people admitting you are going to be working closely with you for several years; some of them will be supervising your dissertation research and one or two of them will be helping you extensively when you are on the job market. You (and your classmates) will be their primary resource for research and teaching assistance. If you are any good, the department will also be funding you. Obviously, they want to admit winners. </p>
<p>Competition for places in the best departments is VERY intense. My husband ran the grad admissions in economics at his large university this year, and they had 700 applicants for about 40 spaces. You will be competing against the best of the best, including a large number of international students who tend to have extremely good math skills and, because they desperately want an American degree to escape from China, India, or wherever, superb work habits. These guys (they seem mostly to be guys) are FAR more motivated than the average American undergrad. </p>
<p>So, it goes without saying that good grades and high GRE scores are important. Essential, actually. Grad schools don't really care about admitting nice well-rounded people with lots of impressive college activities -- they want intense, extremely focused individuals who will finish their dissertation on time and get a great academic placement that will be a credit to the department. What you want in your application file is a letter of recommendation along the following lines: "I have been working with physics students for 20 years, and Fandangoya ranks in the top 10% of them. He is more highly qualified than the last five students you accepted from my college over the last three years."<br>
If you are serious about aiming high in grad school, you need to attend whichever college has the best track record at getting students into top-ranked physics PhD programs. Some small liberal arts colleges actually do a much better job at this task than do larger research universities, where many of the best professors have little contact with undergrads.</p>
<p>The issue with large research universities mentioned by claremarie is why you do research as an undergrad, IMO this is the best way to get in contact with professors and the best way for them to have a good impression of you and know what you can do, in order for them to write a great recommendation letter.</p>
<p>Well I know physics majors from Gettysburg have gone onto Stanford, MIT, Brown, and other schools of that calibur. So am I to assume that their physics department is very good at getting their majors into great grad schools?</p>
<p>Fandangoya,
I'd suggest you take your specific inquires to testmagicforum.com, where you can chat with those applying to various PhD programs. You should also ask the physics department at each of the schools you are considering to provide you with data on their grad school track record -- how many students apply, how many are accepted (with and without funding), and what programs they ultimately attend.</p>
<p>Fandan...you might find as you continue your research/studies that you are drawn to one specific sort of research. This research topic might be being done at a school you are not as familiar with.</p>
<p>I think sax's point is that Fandangoya's research interests in 4 years might be different from the research actually done at Princeton or MIT and that's why he/she should not make the placement rate into those schools the main criteria when deciding which college to attend.</p>
<p>Yea, I understand that I will go will ever the reseach interests me. I just used Princeton and MIT as examples. My main point is that I want to end up at a school in the Tier 1 of postgraduate physics studies.</p>
<p>but hey, suppose 2 applicants have outstanding grades, scores, research activities and recs. Wouldn't they pick the one who has some extracurricular activities too? And also, how important are essays for grad schools? Do they count as much as for college admissions?</p>
<p>spitfire - They do care about your "personal statement", which is the only essay you submit. This is your opportunity to show them why their program is right for you, (and you are right for it :)) which is why investigating individual programs is so important.
No, they don't care about ECs, except for those that directly impact your field of study, ie. research.</p>
<p>I personally think your "fit" with the program and your letters of recommendation are what they base 90% of their decisions on, providing your course work, grades and scores are all acceptable.</p>