<p>Hello, I am a junior in high school (but I take full time college classes) and I recently toured the UW physics department. At the end I was talking with some of the professors and one (who had been an admissions officer at UCB) said that if you have above a 3.8 cum GPA (for your undergrad coursework) and good GRE scores/sufficient research you are guaranteed a spot at a top 10 grad school for physics.</p>
<p>Is this true?</p>
<p>And is this also true for math grad schools? </p>
<p>I don't want to try and get a phd in something from an unknown grad school because I don't want to be working at Mcdonalds paying off my student loans for 30 years.</p>
<p>Several misconceptions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You are NEVER guaranteed a spot in one of the most selective (note I am not saying “top”) programs. They have so many applicants that many outstanding students won’t get in. I would say that you could certainly be admitted to several of the highly selective programs for sure. </p></li>
<li><p>You don’t have to get a Ph.D. from a “top” 10 program to find a job. Your advisor and area of research is just as important. Pretty much every one of my Ph.D. students (physics from Illinois Institute of Technology) has a job in the field that they choose. The training that you get as a Ph.D. is versatile and permits you to work in lots of fields.</p></li>
<li><p>You should not take out student loans for a Ph.D. If you are not supported by the university, don’t go. Any debt you take on should be for your B.S. and it sounds like you are getting a leg up on that by taking classes at university already. Choose the university that you can afford which will give you the best opportunity to do research with faculty and graduate students on funded projects. Getting good letters of reference and having strong research experience is a big help in admissions.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you very much xraymancs!</p>
<p>I have a couple more questions:</p>
<p>How important is the “prestige,” of your under grad university for admissions to grad school? I am really considering both University of Washington (relatively cheap in state tuition and if i swing it right i could double major w/o debt) and UC Berkeley (expensive). I know that choosing colleges is a personalized process but what thoughts do you have on less-prestigious and cheaper college(with possibly a double major) vs. more expensive but also more prestigious with regards to grad school admissions?</p>
<p>Does #2 apply for jobs in academia as well? From what I read it sound like it can be a pretty cut throat market.</p>
<h1>3 Oh yeah now I remember that prof saying that. <em>smacks himself in the head</em>.</h1>
<p>Undergrad prestige doesn’t matter as much as opportunities. Most people have never heard of my ugrad school - but I’m in a top 10 school now. However, my ugrad school provided me a lot of opportunities to conduct research - 3.5 years worth (1.5 in 1 lab, 2 in another, plus a summer). Also, from what I understand, UW is a research powerhouse and MUCH more well known than where I went to ugrad. I say - save your money. </p>
<p>As far as academia goes, prestige sort of matters, but not in the way you would think. Who you worked with, rather than where you went, seems to make a bigger difference. The SUPERSTAR in the specific field I used to want to go into was part of a program ranked ~25 by US News. So not a bad ranking program, but not the big name. But you look at the guy’s publication record - top notch. You look at the lab alumni - and they are all in prestigious positions in industry or high-ranking universities. That mattered. The superstar at my ugrad (world-renown guy) went to a >30 ranked grad school. Don’t let your ego hold you back from taking the best stepping stone to the next destination of your career.</p>
<p>@Chembro is absolutely correct. UW is a very good school in physics and because of its strong graduate program, you can find opportunities for research there and still not put yourself into a lot of debt. </p>
<p>Undergraduate physics curricula are more or less the same all over the country so the courses (and probably the textbooks too) are all very similar. For best preparation though, you should choose a program that has a full year of upper division Classical Dynamics, Electrodynamics and Quantum Mechanics. Take Quantum Mechanics as a Junior before you take the Physics GRE and you will be as prepared as you possibly can.</p>
<p>Graduate programs look at grades, rigor of the program, research experience, GRE scores and letters of reference. The university where you get your B.S. is not as important. Our undergraduates have gotten into Cal Tech, MIT, Harvard, UIUC, Cornell, Columbia, and other very strong programs but it is never a guarantee. The guy who has a perfect 4.0 and gets into Cornell does not get into Columbia and vice versa.</p>