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I posted this on Reddit and someone recommend I ask here:
Also, where can I go to get an idea of fields of research? I know unless I get a 90%+ on the physics GRE I don't have a shot doing Unification stuff. Like I said I really enjoyed QM and Relativity, and the questions they try to answer are the most interesting things in the world to me, they are the reason I chose physics in the first place, but I just have to do what I can with my situation now, and I won't count on acing the GRE.
Thanks P.F., sorry for the novel here...
Hey, I am a student at Penn State at the moment and I am going into my 5th year and planning to take the GRE in the fall. I know that physics graduate programs can be very competitive, so I was wondering if those of you who have gone/work at a university may be able to help point me to what kind of school I have a shot getting in to. So here is my deal:
I did poorly my first year at a satellite campus(about a 2.6 GPA and I did poorly in my for major classes a couple B's a couple C's and a D which I had to retake because you must have a C). The next year I came to the main campus here and only did worse ( around a 1.5 GPA with several C's several D's and a B in my in major courses, again I had to retake the Ds and two of them were classes I already had a D in, so I had to retake them a third time. This left me at a cumulative 2.08 GPA)
After that summer, I really evaluated my life and turned it around, the next year I came back and fairly well(a 3.7 GPA the first semester and a 3.0 the second). I got an A and B in the classes I had to retake and in all finally got a taste of how to become a good student.
This year I was in almost exclusively 400 level math and physics courses and my GPA was about a 3.9. So over the first two years I had a 2.08 and over the past 2 I have had about a 3.6, which would be much higher save that one semester where I got a 3.0.
I have been doing research with a pretty solid name in particle astro for the past year, and am currently coding for a brand new project (lots of responsibility, I am actually contributing a lot of code that will be used in the final project, I only got this job because the previous professor I worked for spoke very highly of me). So I should have two very strong letters and will have some actual work done, but no publications.
I haven't taken my GRE yet, so I don't know how that will turn out, but I do think I am near the very top of my class, so I expect to do fairly well. I would love to go into theory(fundamental theory to be exact), but I know with such a tarnished background, that seems rather unlikely to happen, but I will hold out my hopes and just do my best to nail the GRE, which would really help my case I think.
However, I am feeling completely blind as to where to find a school that will take me, and be a good fit. Like I said I would love to do theory, but as far as experiment goes, I suppose gravity or subatomic seem most interesting (though there may be an area I have not yet been exposed to, but out of all my classes I found quantum and relativity to be an absolute joy).
I want to go to the best school I can of course, and my end goal would be working at a research 1 school, but that of course is like winning the lottery, I'd be perfectly happy teaching at any university. I figure another Big 10 school would be my best bet, as I have a great relationship with a lot of the professors here, and I would think getting a letter of recommendation from a colleague that you do research with holds more weight, but they are pretty competitive as I understand it.
So where should I be looking? Has my recent upswing taken care of past problems, or will my overall poor GPA really doom me? What kind of GRE score should I be happy with if I want to show I have a grasp on this stuff?
Also, where can I go to get an idea of fields of research? I know unless I get a 90%+ on the physics GRE I don't have a shot doing Unification stuff. Like I said I really enjoyed QM and Relativity, and the questions they try to answer are the most interesting things in the world to me, they are the reason I chose physics in the first place, but I just have to do what I can with my situation now, and I won't count on acing the GRE.
Thanks P.F., sorry for the novel here...