Dr. ERNEST BEHRINGER
ADVICE ABOUT APPLYING
TO GRADUATE SCHOOL
The first best thing you can do for yourself before you start sinking money into graduate school applications is to answer the question: Why do I want to go to graduate school? If you can answer that question with a rationale that does NOT involve financial gain, then you are probably going for the right reasons. If not, then you should think hard about other options (e.g., getting a job). Talk with your professors and find out why they went to graduate school. Do any of their reasons sound like something you've thought?
You might also go to the web site of the National Academies Press and look up the free-to-read book, Careers in Science and Engineering: A Student Planning Guide to Grad School and Beyond. It contains suggestions regarding different career paths and the stories of real people. It is a very brief book, but very good.
If you are seeking a Master's (whether in physics or engineering), congratulations! You are pursuing a logical compromise between enhanced expertise and financial gain. Nonetheless, even though Master's programs may last only 2 years, it is an investment that you should only make if your heart is in it. People who seek a Ph.D. should be warned that there may be a financial penalty if you are in graduate school for a long time (i.e., more than about 6 years). If you are seeking a Ph.D., your success will depend on how much you really enjoy and/or respect the field you pursue. If you don't truly enjoy your chosen field, it is likely that you will have serious difficulty sustaining the effort needed to complete your degree program. Simply put: unless your heart is in it, don't do it.
If you've ascertained that your motivation springs from your heart, then I suggest the following.
First, prepare to apply to graduate school. Of course, you've already been doing that be building your academic record both in and out of the classroom. But you will probably also need to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), both the general test and the subject test in physics. For the general test, I recommend purchasing a test prep book with software and working through at least a few practice tests. Frankly, you should expect yourself to achieve a nearly perfect score in the quantitative section of the exam, and also to score quite well on the analytical part of the exam. You should also expect yourself to score well on the verbal/composition part of the exam. Remember, physicists must be able to communicate well - they have a unique responsibility to do so - and part of this ability is measured on this exam. No complaining, please.
Do not take the general test and the subject test within a short (say, < 2 week) interval of time. It is unlikely to be productive. I recommend getting the general test out of the way first (say, at the end of the summer just before senior year) and then take the subject test later (in the fall semester of your senior year). This way, you can focus your energy on the subject test and have the most physics knowledge possible going into the test.
After dispensing with the GRE, try to narrow down the range of fields you want to pursue. For example, I knew that I didn't want to be part of some huge project in which I was only a small part. Consequently, I ruled out experimental high energy physics (which may well be faulty reasoning. Nonetheless, particle physics didn't excite me). Also, I knew that my interests didn't involve sitting at a desk or in front of a computer all day, so I ruled out theory. That left experimental condensed matter physics. I then looked at the book published by the American Institute of Physics on graduate programs to find schools that had a large effort in experimental condensed matter physics. Nowadays, you would go to www.gradschoolshopper.com to check out graduate programs.
Second, limit yourself to several applications. Applying to Ph.D. programs is not like finding a job, where you might send out several tens or even more than a hundred resumes (which I strongly recommend against, by the way). I submitted six applications, to three excellent schools, a very good school, and two good schools. (Full disclosure: I had a very high GPA, did very, very well on the general GRE, scored in the 76th percentile on the subject GRE, and had worked in a research lab but had not done research. Rather, I learned important skills but was not independent.) I probably applied to one too many excellent schools.
The applications, for the most part, are very similar. Usually, you are asked to write a statement regarding why you want to pursue graduate school. To put it mildly, this is not an insignificant writing task, and you should put significant effort into producing a statement that accurately and clearly expresses your rationale and feelings regarding the pursuit of graduate study. And so the application process comes full circle to the original point: Why do you want to go to graduate school?
After the applications are sent, you can relax a while until the acceptance letters come back during the spring (mid-April is typical). If you've been accepted to more than one school, and if the schools are of similar quality, I strongly suggest that you go visit the schools. There is no substitute for a face-to-face visit to obtain a sense for what a place is really like. When you visit, I strongly suggest that you speak to as many graduate students as you can. They will usually give you the straight dope regarding department functioning, environment, and faculty. It is worth asking whether you can obtain financial support for traveling from the places you visit. Don't expect that the trip will be fully paid for. Remember, this is a pretty big decision and you should invest what you need so that you make the best decision for yourself. To make the best decision, you need information - so visit those schools! It may also be useful to talk with your faculty advisor(s) during this process.
Good luck!
