Am I a competitive applicant internationally?

astrotemp
Fri, 15 Sep 2017 14:11:54 +0000

My undergrad university is a pretty no-name institution with small class sizes and not very competitive peers, so I have no way of really knowing what I’m up against on the ‘world stage’. I’m in Australia at the moment, and looking at a few PhD programs around Aus and Europe in astrophysics. I don’t really know what tier I should be aiming for though. My stats are good, but as to whether they’re good enough for the top places, I can’t say. I’d definitely need to apply for some of the really competitive scholarships to afford the move though, and that sets the bar high.

For the academic side of things:

GPA: 7.0/7.0
1 first-author publication from first year, probably two more submitted by the time I apply anywhere
Prizes each year for coursework
Research experience all through undergrad with my home university, and a summer spent with the CSIRO
A few international conferences (1 poster and 2 talks)
Expecting first-class honours as long as I don’t bomb my last exam, and then the university medal from that

For the ECs (for scholarships):

Founded a tutorial system at my university
Lecture series each year for National Science Week
Science in the Pub talks
Public talks for astronomy festivals/clubs
School tours
Heap of hobby stuff for martial arts and literature

My honours supervisors are both Gates-Cambridge recipients (and have worked at those kinds of university) and they’ve said they’ll help me tailor my applications for that level of program/scholarship, but neither are the type of person to ever give praise for anything so I can’t gauge what I’m up against. I’ll never get anything other than criticism out of them.

I figure the GPA is expected of an applicant and most will have at least one publication. I don’t know how much my supervisors’ connections to the faculty in these places will matter, since they still publish with people who work there. It’s a bit too early for me to be scoping out specific projects, but that’ll undoubtedly inform where I apply to as well.