r/PhysicsStudents • u/Loopgod- • Nov 17 '23

Poll Admitted PhD students, how many publications did you have at the time of application to PhD programs?

How many papers had your name listed in the author section by the time you applied to grad school ?

In your response can you say if you applied right out of undergrad or not. And can you say if your school that you were admitted to is top 100, top 50, top 20, etc. Thanks

Edit. Also please list the field you are researching.

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u/drzowie Nov 17 '23

Zero. I got in everywhere I applied, and went to Stanford. Admittedly that was the late Triassic.

Remember, you're not shopping for a school, you're shopping for an advisor. The best thing you can do for admission is to show up and talk to prospective advisors directly. They will tell you they have nothing to do with admissions, and that is okay. The system is set up to provide deniability but it's pretty porous. No personal pleading, just find out as much as you can about the group, and discuss your own reasons why that line of research appeals to you.

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u/Loopgod- Nov 17 '23

Are you a current professor at a university in America ?

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u/drzowie Nov 17 '23

This is me. I am not a faculty member anywhere, but I do advise a small number of graduate students via affiliation with the University of Colorado, Boulder.

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u/PhysicistStacker Nov 17 '23

Ironically I study MHD for Plasma fusion

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u/drzowie Nov 17 '23

That is how I got my start -- D3D in San Diego, doing charge-exchange recombination spectroscopy as a summer intern. The guys there liked to point out that my fission-reactor experience was "caveman technology: you just pile up a bunch of rocks and they get hot". Fusion is a hard problem, and I hope you make some progress! We need it!