<p>Hello! I am a student who will be joining B.Sc. this fall. Can anyone,please, answer me the following questions?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How important are mathematics courses if one is concerned to do Sc.D in Physics (maybe Nuclear Physics)? Could you please suggest me which mathematics courses should I consider taking?</p></li>
<li><p>If one has some international distinctions in high school (like two medals in International Physics Olympiad), will it have any impact in his graduate school application?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you for answering me these questions. Please do not reply me “You are too early to be seriously concerned about Graduate studies. First complete your ug.”</p>
Extremely important. Many graduate school-bound physics majors complete a double major in math, and the strongest graduate school applicants have taken graduate-level math classes as an undergraduate. You can ask your physics professors which advanced math classes would be the most useful to you, after you have decided which branch of physics you’d like to pursue.</p>
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Not directly, no. Indirectly your past experience will help you tremendously though: you already have a leg up over your fellow students. Just keep building on your strong foundation and you can be a very competitive grad school applicant.</p>
<p>2.
Grad schools are usually degrees that prepare you for practice. In that sense they are not only interested in gpa, and course rigor, but also in what kind of work you actually produce. In my mind it would be a mistake to not find a way to include your olympiad projects in your applications. This is an essential element which your proves the abilities they are looking for in applicants.</p>
<p>If the projects are it good, then avoid them.</p>
<p>I disagree with InDesign. Your high school achievements have pretty much zero impact on graduate school admissions (unless you happened to publish a scientific paper or present at a national conference in high school), and honestly putting Science Olympiad on your CV as an adult seeking admission to graduate school is going to be a bit embarrassing for you.</p>
First, they are not projects - they are tests. There is no invention, research, or discovery being recognized, just knowledge.</p>
<p>Second, while getting onto an Olympiad team is a big deal on its own, medals are then awarded to the top 50% of the participants… so the medals are not that much more important than simple attendence.</p>
<p>Third, ANYTHING from high school suffers from the “what have you done for me lately?” problem - if it was truly worthwhile then it should have led to something greater during the undergraduate years, and if it didn’t, then why does it matter at all?</p>
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Extremely. The mathematical rigor of grad school is generally far beyond that of undergrad. The simplest suggestion I can give is that you should take the hardest mathematical track offered or suggested within your undergraduate program, and then try and add a few additional courses from the grad program.</p>
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No. And do not list them - it will immediately give the appearance that YOU feel inadequate about your collegiate performance, even it if was great.</p>