This page is a selection of suggestions you could do to beef up your resume for admission to a top physics graduate program. It is not a recipe for guaranteed admission.

The department website also has more information on this topic here.

Areas we discuss:

Research and connections

Your research experience and potential for future success in research is the single most determining whether you will get into graduate school. Even if everything else on your resume is perfect, you will not be able to get into graduate school without the research.

There are three main ways that graduate schools will evaluate this research aspect:

  • your published papers
  • your personal statement, where you’ll write about your specific contributions to each lab/STEM job you worked in
  • what your research advisors say about you in their recommendation letters

The first major hurdle you need to overcome in the admissions process is demonstrating to professors that you are actually committed to graduate studies. Successful applicants to top schools are able to use real examples from their life to demonstrate that:

  • you know what being in a research group is like
  • you enjoy being in a research group and would enjoy doing it for the next five to eight years of your life
  • you want a research and development job in the future

Let us qualify that statement. In the sciences, you don’t have to know exactly what research you want to do yet. But, by the time of application, your ideas should already be starting to take shape. Your thoughts might be something like:

  • I am going to be a string theorist. It is my destiny.
  • I love physics, and I love sitting on my computer and writing code. I know I want to do computational physics, but I don’t know in what subfield of physics yet. I’m going to apply to universities where lots of professors do computational stuff and do rotations to figure that out.
  • I’ve tried a lot of different research in college, and I liked biophysics best. I may seem like a dilettante because I’m applying to programs in physics, biomedical engineering, and biology, but I know which specific professor I’d want to work for in each university and its department.
  • I tried three areas of physics research. I kept getting lab jobs every summer because I just love being in the lab. However, no physics subfield I tried was quite the perfect fit. I learned a lot about myself and what I like and don’t like in college. I’m going to try XXX in graduate school and do a few rotations to find out what’s the best fit.

That is, you don’t have to know exactly the thing you want to work on for exactly one person, but you have to show some direction.

Do lots of research, and do it well

Many successful applicants to top schools have at least one paper (published or submitted or at least far along in preparation) before applying. It helps your application immensely if you are listed as first-author on the paper (i.e. you did the majority of the new research).

  • Getting a paper is nothing you can force, so don’t go up to your professor and tell them you’re mad at them that you didn’t get a paper this summer. It’s some combination of your amount of experience doing research, being on the “right” project, intangible qualities like creativity and grit, as well as a bit of luck! However, if you’ve been in the same group for a while, it is acceptable to lightly slip into conversation with your professor that you’d like to be on a project leading to a paper.
  • Even if you don’t manage to do enough to have a paper by first semester of senior year, you need to have demonstrated to your research advisors that you are smart, honest, dedicated, hard-working, and creative enough that in the future you will be churning out papers.
  • You should seek out opportunities to learn more about research and present your own research as well. You should absolutely not pass up opportunities to present your research at group meetings, and you might want to participate in a couple of undergraduate research symposia. It looks very good on your resume if you attend (and preferably present/have your name on a paper at) any professional conferences, attend a summer research school, or go to other relevant events.

Make connections with your college professors

Life is all about the connections. Even though college may seem very focused on scores, it is important to remember that the world is not a meritocracy based solely on standardized test performance and GPA’s alone, neither now nor later in your career. Even in physics, the most important criteria are subjective — whether your professors think you have talent and drive (your reference letters), what the physics community thinks about your research (admissions essay readers; reviewers of journal articles), and even whether other people think you’re personable (interviews).

Make a point of getting to know a lot of people to advance your professional career. You never know who will later be on an admissions or hiring committee, have a summer research position open, or be co-authoring a paper with your group. You never know who can direct you to new and exciting opportunities!

You’ll need at least three professors that can write you a strong reference letter. It’s also nice to get to know a few faculty on a personal level, whom you can approach for advice about not just solving physics problems but also about what courses to take, applying to graduate school or jobs, what academia is like, etc.

Make connections with researchers

As far as research goes, it is fine to work with one professor for the majority of college. In fact, it can be very helpful, especially if you get a paper together. However, if you’ve been doing research since the beginning of freshman year, it may be good to spend at least one semester or one summer in another lab. You’ll make connections with a new professor who can confirm your first professor’s ideas about how great you are in a reference letter. You’ll also learn a lot about a new subfield of physics, which can be helpful in the future.

Now, where should you work? That is really up to you. However, it will make your application shine if you can do one of the following:

  • Go to a different university (or organization). STEM jobs elsewhere, like an R&D position in industry or work at a government lab, can provide good letters as well.
  • Go abroad to work on physics. This is a chance to go outside your comfort zone, do physics on multiple continents, and work with people from another culture.
  • Go to an REU, a prestigious program, or fancy lab. Some other highly prestigious summer programs include the CERN summer research and DAAD-RISE programs abroad (physics); the NSA Director’s Summer Program and the Minnesota-Duluth REU (for mathematics); and others, including research and development positions in industry and government facilities. One of these on your application can be a huge plus, especially if you get a great recommendation letter.

A good rule of thumb is to prevent yourself from treating your summer lab job in an exciting location as you might a high school summer job — going through the motions from 9-5 and then taking off and enjoying the rest of your day. You’re trying to get into a profession, so you need to act like a professional — put in well beyond the expected hours and do well beyond the expected work. Often that means spending time at night and on weekends learning the background material inside and out, as well as coming into the lab early or staying late to get a project done.

Grades and test scores

What grades do I need to get into a top graduate school? What test score do I need?

There’s no easy answer to these questions – graduate schools evaluate your whole application package, and scores are just one small component. However, high scores are very beneficial to an applicant who also demonstrates promise in physics research.

Good research experience and solid reference letters can make up for a lower score in some area of your application, like a section of the GRE or your GPA. If you have personally carried out spectacular work during college and/or demonstrated a high potential for future success in research (as evidenced by the quality of your published work and reference letters), then your scores will likely matter much less.

That advice might have seemed ambiguous. What scores do you need? Is it better to spend every second of the day studying, or should you just blow off your classes entirely and spend all day every day in your professor’s lab trying to make the next Nobel-winning discovery? For most of us, the answer is somewhere in between. Take this advice with a grain of salt – none of us have yet served on an admissions committee.

Grades

A majority of successful applicants to the very top schools have high GPA’s in hard classes. You need to score almost all A’s in your physics and math courses, and only slightly less importantly, almost all A’s in your other courses as well. This shows that you are capable of understanding the material taught and that you work hard. A high GPA is the best place to be in at application time, so don’t blow off your classes if possible.

There are still successful applicants with a GPA in the mid-3’s. There are even a few successful applicants to the very top schools every year who have a GPA in the low 3’s. However, if you’re a freshman or sophomore reading this website to plan ahead, you should aim for much higher scores than that. It is much, much easier just to get good scores in the first place than to have to play “catch up” in other areas of your application (e.g. research, essay, reference letters) to make up for low scores.

  • If you had a low GPA during certain semesters due to an extenuating circumstance, that’s fine. Just make sure you discuss it with your advisors and explain the situation in your personal statement.
  • Upward trends are always a very good thing. If you’ve been pulling a perfect 4.0 in upper-level classes the past two years, nobody’s going to care that your GPA was about half that because you needed some time to adjust as a freshman.

GRE

Many reputable physics graduate programs have stopped requiring students to submit physics GRE scores with their applications. Other schools will take into account how many times you took the physics GRE, and they’ll add extra points on if you only took it once, to account for the significant average increase in score for students who take it a second time. However, you should not assume that all the places you’re applying will be so nice. Many places even have minimum required GRE scores. Here’s what you need to know:

  • The general GRE is a lot like the SAT, so treat it as you would have (or should have) in high school. Take a practice exam, see how you do, and evaluate whether/how you need further preparation. You can take the exam up to five times in any twelve-month period.
  • Aim for a high physics GRE (PGRE) score. Don’t blow off the test – it’s not a measure of intelligence or creativity; it measures if you’ve memorized a lot of facts and formulas. Regardless of what you think of the PGRE, some professors still think highly of the exam and will factor your score into their evaluation of your application.
  • You should plan to spend a full semester getting ready for the physics GRE, and you should work through a full prep book (Conquering the Physics GRE seems to be the book people find most helpful) Take every single practice exam you can find online, and work through problems you get wrong. The PGRE likes to reuse questions and question styles.

Honors and awards

Awards beget more awards. The more fancy things you have on your resume, the easier it is to get more and fancier things on your resume, and the easier it is to get the graduate school or job offer of your choice.

If you’re already working hard and doing great things in college, then it’s natural that you should seek out opportunities to receive honors, awards, scholarships, as well as to compete in academic competitions. So ask for nominations! Many of these awards will give you a little monetary boost to help pay for your education too. Remember that after about mid-sophomore year, it’s generally no longer appropriate to list awards you won in high school on your resume (except for major college scholarships and scientific publications). Thus, it’s important to continuously be building your resume.

An award in science, engineering, or mathematics is probably most beneficial to your advancement in physics. However, there are a number of other areas that are important for your future success in physics, including but not limited to leadership skills, participation in teaching and service activities, as well as your abilities in writing and public speaking. You can and should always list any award from any area of your life on your resume.

Apply for national graduate fellowships and special fellowships at each university you apply to. Graduate schools ask you on their applications to list the fellowships you are applying for. Physics professors want to take as little money out of their grants to fund you as possible; they’d rather pay for fancy lab equipment instead. Furthermore, it makes you look really good if you can write down on an application that you’ve already received an interview offer for a relevant fellowship (regardless of whether you end up getting it).

However, be aware that none of these awards guarantees admission to a physics graduate school. They only add sparkle to an application and help confirm the skills exhibited by other sections of your curriculum vitae.

Leadership, service, and teaching activities

It isn’t enough just to be great in lab. You have to be a good person, too, and that should shine through in your recommendation letters and your activities.

Involvement in teaching and outreach activities shows that you’re interested in helping train the next generation of scientists and that you’ll like having graduate students of your own one day. Involvement in service opportunities shows that you’ll be a team player in a research group and that you’re interested in making the world a better place with science. Your successful involvement in a leadership position shows that you’re preparing yourself to spearhead your own scientific endeavors, lead your own research group and acquire funding some day, and that you’re responsible.

Furthermore, most major national fellowships will flat-out reject your application if you did not participate in any leadership, teaching, or service activities during college. For example, most government-funded fellowships evaluate you on two criteria: intellectual merit and broader impacts. The broader impacts part of your evaluation does in some sense evaluate whether the research you want to do has any application. However, the NSF committee usually construes the broader impacts section of your fellowships essay to also include your influence on the scientific community. Generally, you need teaching or outreach opportunities to satisfy that requirement.

References + More Helpful Links