What Are My Chances of Getting Into Princeton?

[imalkaj]

Hi,

I am a final year undergraduate majoring in engineering (Materials Engineering) at a university in Sri Lanka which consists of the students who have obtained the highest marks for their advanced level exam.

My GPA during the first year was 3.1 and over the past three years I have managed to increase it upto 3.82 (in a scale of 4.2). I have remained the first ranked student in my department for the past 3 semesters and has been chosen for the Deans list due to my GPA being in excess of 3.8 in all of them.

I wish to pursue graduate studies in high energy thoretical physics. Can someone tell me what my chances are for getting accepted into a school such as Princeton? Some of the subjects that I have followed for my undergraduate major and which seems to be of relevance to Physics are as follows:

Electrical and Magnetic properties of materials
Mechanics of machines
Engineering thermodynamics
Fluid Mechanics

I have also carried out a research project on fabricating a composite material for capacitor applications which I presented at a conference in Sri Lanka.

 

[mgb_phys]

A theoretical physicist would typically have either a maths degree or a physics degree taking only maths courses.
You would probably have to do something like Cambridge part III maths (http://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/postgrad/casm/) to be considered - this is a pretty tough course even for people with an ugrad maths degree.

 

[Locrian]

imalkaj,

I am curious as to your choice to change fields at this time in your career. You will be giving up a great deal of work in a field that has hugely better job prospects than the one you are switching to. The courses you list are only slightly relevant to high energy physics (though your academic skills will be useful), and you will be retaking at least a few undergraduate classes. What brought you to this decision?