Physics graduate school choice help

Catria
Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:50:53 +0000

Before I continue looking for advisors and subjects, I need to know where I might have a realistic shot at getting admitted into either a M.Sc. or a Ph.D. in physics. Note that I didn’t write the GRE or the TOEFL just yet, and any budgeting decision will depend on what schools might be probables or possibles.

I’m well aware that PhDs in physics may not find employment doing jobs related to physics so I don’t think that my dissertation subject would matter that much in the longer term.

Here are a few pieces of information that might be useful to review my request for information:

Current GPA:

3.67 if I apply to schools that count A+ as 4.3 (I have 14 credits’ worth of A+s out of 68)

3.61 if I apply to schools that count A+ as 4 instead

Current school: University of Montreal
Current major: Double-major physics-mathematics

ECs: Wrote articles for the physics department’s student newspaper

Even though the University of Montreal is a francophone school, I know some people in the graduating class that were admitted at schools like UBC, McGill and Waterloo for grad school, all of which are anglophone schools. Plus, like all Quebecer schools, regardless of teaching language, Quebecer resident students, like me, undertaking most undergraduate degrees only need 90 credits of coursework to graduate.

Plus, like most francophone schools that offer physics or mathematics as majors (usually with no selectivity other than what’s afforded by the requirements of majors), University of Montreal is known to be a sieve-type of school, a school that admit lots of undergrads freshman year and weeding out the subprime students (usually between 1/3 and 1/2 of the incoming class).

P.S.: If I realize that what I want to do for my MSc (or PhD) was a topic related to solar physics or exoplanets, then I may as well stay at my undergraduate school since these are two things I know University of Montreal is renowned for in the physics world; as long as I can stay above 3.3 for the final 22-credit stretch I could classify that school, alongside University of Sherbrooke and Laval University, as grad-school safeties, since they both ask for a minimum GPA of 2.7.