<p>So I asked this on the Princeton forum and got pretty cool replies. I was wondering if you folks here can match them or even do better than them. In general (or in your case), what did you do, when did you do it, how did you do it and where did you come from before you got into Caltech?
any general replies are very welcome.</p>
<p>Started research as soon as possible, did well in my classes, loved what I did.</p>
<p>thank you for the reply, I would PM you but I guess many people would like it if we were out front, if you are willing to answer a couple of questions it would help,
- where did you get your undergrad Deg and in what? how long… etc
- your- GRE score and GPA?
- when you say as soon as possible, do you think the summer of freshmen year is too late?
- Did you ever get in touch with the professor? How did you make your self stand out?</p>
<p>I studied engineering physics as an undergraduate at Cornell with a GPA of 3.95. I did pretty well on the GREs, 800 math/670 verbal/4.5 writing and 950/990 on the physics subject test. I only did research for one summer, though more research would be recommended.</p>
<p>The recommended path to getting into a top PhD program consists of having a high GPA along with a lot of research experience. A high GPA shows that you are a serious student who understands the subject you are studying. Research experience and a strong letter of recommendation from your research adviser show that you can contribute as a researcher.</p>
<p>I was at Carnegie Mellon, graduated a semester early. GRE was something like 730M/620V/5.5AW, which all translated to about 80-85 percentile. I think my GPA was in the 3.6-3.7 range. Had a lot of research experience, one of them culminating in a paper (though I was third author out of a bunch in a fairly obscure journal nobody outside my specific subfield would have read).</p>
<p>Not a Caltech student, but I thought I’d say: the path differs for different fields. Those that are heavily lab-based tend to be more forgiving about GPA and require extremely serious research experience and good letters from mentors to get accepted to the top programs. </p>
<p>More theoretical fields tend to be very unforgiving if your academic stats like school performance are low, because the classroom work is truly foundational and related to whatever you’ll do when you read research papers and try to solve some theoretical problem. But still, the correlation is not exact - trying to get a 4.0 instead of a 3.9 is not ideal, and instead, one should be engaging in serious subjects and convince the graduate program that one understands and has aptitude for the kind of work that graduate school will require. These types of programs are a lot more forgiving about lack of having done original research projects. Of course, the most competitive of all of them will tend to demand everything inhumanly possible, and there will be applicants who deliver that!</p>
<p>I will edit this though, and add that it’s not that someone who has a 3.5 GPA in a theoretical field cannot be as strong as someone with a 3.9, because it may just be that they spent all their time on things other than doing the homework and studying for the exams perfectly. The reason it is important to worry about these things is more that the school needs the best indicator it can get, and the skills learned in advanced classes are pretty directly applicable, so putting in some extra effort to write up polished solutions every week does a lot to put on record that you can do it. Someone might just be more interested in doing his/her own research instead, but the issue is that they may not produce something that immediately makes up for their lack in the more standard measures…until after graduate school admissions is over. Or, perhaps the school may choose to look at students with the basic measures already there, and only after filling some spots look at such somewhat extreme cases.</p>
<p>I am a parent, but I have seen a few paths with good results. Some kids find a field and a lab they like, and go straight to top grad schools. Others plan on a 9th
Nth semester, so can have time to apply to grad schools, interview, and not be dealing with final exams. others shift fields, stay on at cal tech to work in a lab, get involved in research, papers, improve quality of LORs, t
Hen apply to grad schools. In each scenario, outcomes were great.</p>
<p>Wow, very interesting to see this, do you see any students not from well known schools? Like Penn State and Rutgers?</p>
<p>At the open houses for top 10 graduate schools in physics, there were a decent number of students from large state universities and the like. They largely seemed to have good grades and an above average amount of research experience.</p>
<p>I help out with the prospective student weekend every year at my school, and I’ve seen students from all sorts of universities. My group actually has a new student from a small, religious college I had never even heard of before. You see plenty of students from state schools, and occasionally some from satellites.</p>
<p>If you’re not at a big research school your best bet would be to try and get REUs over the summer at more well known schools, and win some scholarships from national organizations if possible (if other people think you’re good enough it’ll be easier for the departments you’re applying to to believe you’re good enough).</p>
<p>Bumpsssssss</p>
<p>I came from a large state school. I had a 3.9 with like GRE 770Q 590V</p>
<p>My name was on a published paper and another one in press. Showing that you can be productive in research is very powerful. I started my research summer after my sophomore year and worked in a lab full time for a year before I came to caltech.</p>