- #1
Goddar
- 205
- 16
Hi everyone,
i won't be the 1st (or the last) to ask the $1Million question about his GRE score, but i need the opinion of knowledgeable persons.
First the good sides: my GPA is a nice and pure 4.00; i think my recommendations are good (2 professors who truly praised my work, one friend who is vice president of a really big company and engineer from top-school); finally, i think my own statements of purpose are convincing too, and they'd better be because i really know what i want. Besides, my general GRE should be high enough for any school.
Downsides: no lab or research experience AT ALL; although i intend to be a theorist, this is probably quite bad.. Then, a ridiculous and unforeseen 670 at the subject test: 61 good answers, 32 bad ones: now i understand why i felt strange being done 25 min before the end.
What really gets me angry is how irrelevant the questions seemed to be, regarding my abilities and what i want to do: clearly, i don't give a damn about how many screws an interferometer is made of, or if there is a factor of 2 or 1/2 in the equations for a diffraction minimum!.. i'd better like to have 5 challenging problems than a hundred dumb ones.
So anyway, i think i can kiss goodbye my applications to Stanford, Berkeley and Columbia. Would it be still realistic to attempt places like, say, UC Santa Cruz? Or any suggestions?
(interests: standard model & beyond, theory of gravity, cosmology)
Thank you deeply. Sorry for posting about such a common problem.
i won't be the 1st (or the last) to ask the $1Million question about his GRE score, but i need the opinion of knowledgeable persons.
First the good sides: my GPA is a nice and pure 4.00; i think my recommendations are good (2 professors who truly praised my work, one friend who is vice president of a really big company and engineer from top-school); finally, i think my own statements of purpose are convincing too, and they'd better be because i really know what i want. Besides, my general GRE should be high enough for any school.
Downsides: no lab or research experience AT ALL; although i intend to be a theorist, this is probably quite bad.. Then, a ridiculous and unforeseen 670 at the subject test: 61 good answers, 32 bad ones: now i understand why i felt strange being done 25 min before the end.
What really gets me angry is how irrelevant the questions seemed to be, regarding my abilities and what i want to do: clearly, i don't give a damn about how many screws an interferometer is made of, or if there is a factor of 2 or 1/2 in the equations for a diffraction minimum!.. i'd better like to have 5 challenging problems than a hundred dumb ones.
So anyway, i think i can kiss goodbye my applications to Stanford, Berkeley and Columbia. Would it be still realistic to attempt places like, say, UC Santa Cruz? Or any suggestions?
(interests: standard model & beyond, theory of gravity, cosmology)
Thank you deeply. Sorry for posting about such a common problem.