The discussion centers on strategies for gaining admission to top graduate schools in physics for students coming from lesser-known universities. Participants explore various aspects such as research opportunities, the importance of university prestige, and planning a timeline for academic and extracurricular activities over four years.
Participants generally agree that hard work and proactive engagement in research and internships can lead to successful graduate school admissions, but there is no consensus on the impact of university prestige or the availability of research opportunities for international students.
Some participants mention the lack of guidance and information available to students from lesser-known institutions, which may affect their ability to navigate the graduate school application process effectively.
International students considering graduate school in physics, undergraduates from lesser-known universities, and individuals seeking advice on research opportunities and application strategies for graduate programs.
Phys12 said:That's absolutely true and I agree 100%. I watched a video a while back which researched the top universities' students vs. not-so-top universities' students and searched for how many publications they had. It turned out the top students at a lower ranked university had more publications than the mid-level or bottom level students at top universities. So I guess it really is important how competitive your peers are and it makes perfect sense to me that it'd be much better and more helpful if I could get an edge over others in that respect.
Oh no, in that particular research, they looked at only research institutes, there were no liberal arts colleges. And they were comparing SAT scores VS publications.Dishsoap said:Be careful that you are only comparing universities with a graduate program. A lot of not-so-top universities do not have graduate students, so it makes sense that undergraduates are coauthors on papers more frequently.