Schools Transferring to College for Physics Degree - 65 Characters

  • Thread starter Thread starter leftyguitarjo
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    College
AI Thread Summary
Attending a small local college for two years due to financial constraints can be a strategic choice for students aiming to transfer to a larger institution for a bachelor's degree in physics. The University of Maryland and UNC-Chapel Hill are highlighted as strong options for their physics programs, with both institutions offering good prospects for graduate school admissions, particularly if students maintain a high GPA, achieve strong GRE scores, and engage in undergraduate research. While MIT is a desirable target, the competitive nature of its transfer admissions—recently at 6%—suggests that students should prepare meticulously for their applications, focusing on essays and recommendations. Financial considerations and the potential for transfer credit should also guide the decision-making process when selecting a transfer school.
leftyguitarjo
Messages
52
Reaction score
0
I am attending a small local college for 2 years, due to limited financial resources. After two years, if all goes as planned, I will transfer to a larger school to acertain my bachlor's degree in physics.

What are some notable school when it comes to physics? My best bet would be the University of Maryland, bit I would like to go to North Carolina or MIT.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
leftyguitarjo said:
I am attending a small local college for 2 years, due to limited financial resources. After two years, if all goes as planned, I will transfer to a larger school to acertain my bachlor's degree in physics.

What are some notable school when it comes to physics? My best bet would be the University of Maryland, bit I would like to go to North Carolina or MIT.

Find a good state or local university. I'm on the very same track you are. After this semester, I only have three more courses to take before I transfer, and I'll be a little over halfway finished with a BS in Physics.
 
leftyguitarjo said:
I am attending a small local college for 2 years, due to limited financial resources. After two years, if all goes as planned, I will transfer to a larger school to acertain my bachlor's degree in physics.

What are some notable school when it comes to physics? My best bet would be the University of Maryland, bit I would like to go to North Carolina or MIT.

If you were unable to land an academic scholarship to a four year state school, you are unlikely to get into MIT for undergrad, much less pay for it. You also don't have a very good chance of MIT accepting much transfer credit.

University of Maryland and UNC-Chapel Hill are both fine schools with good Physics departments. Great grades, recommendations, and GRE scores from either would put you in a good position for graduate school in Physics at MIT. Choosing between them probably shoud depend on transfer (of credit already earned) and financial considerations (in-state tuition).

Completing a BS in Physics at Maryland or Chapel Hill with at least a 3.8 GPA, GRE scores above the 80th percentile, and involvement in undergraduate research with good recommendations will probably lead to both acceptance and a research assistantship to some of the best PhD programs in the country: MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, etc. Any GPA above 3.5 gives you an outside chance at the top 10 programs, and gives you a good chance at a lot of the top 50 departments. The GPA range from 3.0-3.5 is really the slippery slope when it comes to grad school admission. You will get in somewhere, but then it comes down to a lot of intangibles.

Michael Courtney
 
Hey,

leftyguitarjo said:
I am attending a small local college for 2 years, due to limited financial resources. After two years, if all goes as planned, I will transfer to a larger school to acertain my bachlor's degree in physics.

What are some notable school when it comes to physics? My best bet would be the University of Maryland, bit I would like to go to North Carolina or MIT.

I would just add to make sure you take advantage of the opportunities your college offers to help broaden your horizons and delve deeper into your major. Additionally, I'd also like to suggest that you prepare well ahead to apply to your schools. Particularly MIT, since their transfer acceptance rate this past year was 6% (17/269), and so is very competitive even more so than freshmen admissions. I would suggest you extensively plan your application and spend a lot of time on polishing the essay.



-PFStudent
 
Last edited:
I graduated with a BSc in Physics in 2020. Since there were limited opportunities in my country (mostly teaching), I decided to improve my programming skills and began working in IT, first as a software engineer and later as a quality assurance engineer, where I’ve now spent about 3 years. While this career path has provided financial stability, I’ve realized that my excitement and passion aren’t really there, unlike what I felt when studying or doing research in physics. Working in IT...
Hi everyone! I'm a senior majoring in physics, math, and music, and I'm currently in the process applying for theoretical and computational biophysics (primarily thru physics departments) Ph.D. programs. I have a 4.0 from a basically unknown school in the American South, two REUs (T50 and T25) in computational biophysics and two semesters of research in optics (one purely experimental, one comp/exp) at my home institution (since there aren't any biophysics profs at my school), but no...

Similar threads

Back
Top