Physics Graduate School Admission Results

Ignore status. Has anyone heard anything from Northeastern? I see a waitlist and a few invites to an in-person open house on here. Should I assume rejection at this point?

Forget waitlist. Does anyone know the status of decisions from UT Austin, NYU, USC, Penn State? Are they done with sending out offers?

If you have received an offer from this program but are planning to accept another opportunity—especially if you have a better offer elsewhere—I would sincerely appreciate it if you could inform the university of your decision as soon as possible.

If you have received an offer from this program but are planning to accept another opportunity—especially if you have a better offer elsewhere—I would sincerely appreciate it if you could inform the university of your decision as soon as possible.

Interests: Hep-Th and Cosmology

3.35 in my MS. This cycle has been a brutal one with all the massive federal funding cuts. My situation is pretty abnormal as I am not requesting funding and will be doing my Ph.D part time which I think really boosted my chances of being accepted. I wouldn’t use my experience as a standard.

Mentioned they sent out about 50% of the number of acceptances compared to last year because of federal funding uncertainty and larger than usual class last year. email extract: "You are one of about 50 students who has neither been admitted nor denied admission to the CU Boulder physics Ph.D. program. Last year, we ended up with a very large incoming class of 80 students compared to our target of 60. Last year we admitted 248 students. To compensate for last year and to be conservative given the uncertainty in federal funding, we have admitted only 123 out of 1224 applications. In a normal year, nearly all of you would be admitted to our program. Unfortunately, this is not a normal year. The reason that we have kept your application active is in case it seems that our entering class will be even smaller than our target. If that were to occur, we may be able to admit a handful of you."

Mentioned they sent less than 50% of the number of acceptances compared to last year. Cited "federal funding uncertainty" and a larger than usual class compared to last year as the main reasons. email extract: "You are one of about 50 students who has neither been admitted nor denied admission to the CU Boulder physics Ph.D. program. Last year, we ended up with a very large incoming class of 80 students compared to our target of 60. Last year we admitted 248 students. To compensate for last year and to be conservative given the uncertainty in federal funding, we have admitted only 123 out of 1224 applications. In a normal year, nearly all of you would be admitted to our program. Unfortunately, this is not a normal year. The reason that we have kept your application active is in case it seems that our entering class will be even smaller than our target. If that were to occur, we may be able to admit a handful of you."

Got this email today. AMO-EX and Boulder is my #1 choice, so if anyone got accepted and not planning on attending, please decline the offer. I’m sorry I have not sent this email earlier. I wanted to give you an update on your status. You are one of about 50 students who has neither been admitted nor denied admission to the CU Boulder physics Ph.D. program. Last year, we ended up with a very large incoming class of 80 students compared to our target of 60. Last year we admitted 248 students. To compensate for last year and to be conservative given the uncertainty in federal funding, we have admitted only 123 out of 1224 applications. In a normal year, nearly all of you would be admitted to our program. Unfortunately, this is not a normal year. The reason that we have kept your application active is in case it seems that our entering class will be even smaller than our target. If that were to occur, we may be able to admit a handful of you. In summary, it is very unlikely that you will be admitted to the CU physics Ph.D. program. You should definitely make plans based on not receiving an offer from us. A few of you (out of 50) may end up receiving an offer. We plan to finalize our admissions by April 11.

Email from Boulder: "You are one of about 50 students who has neither been admitted nor denied admission to the CU Boulder physics Ph.D. program. Last year, we ended up with a very large incoming class of 80 students compared to our target of 60. Last year we admitted 248 students. To compensate for last year and to be conservative given the uncertainty in federal funding, we have admitted only 123 out of 1224 applications. In a normal year, nearly all of you would be admitted to our program. Unfortunately, this is not a normal year. The reason that we have kept your application active is in case it seems that our entering class will be even smaller than our target. If that were to occur, we may be able to admit a handful of you." In summary, it is very unlikely that you will be admitted to the CU physics Ph.D. program. You should definitely make plans based on not receiving an offer from us. A few of you (out of 50) may end up receiving an offer. We plan to finalize our admissions by April 11.

Generic response. It should be a requirement that these departments at least ATTEMPT to reach out to you so you can talk to someone. Giving anyone a fair shake from a piece of paper is impossible. I have sent multiple emails to try to get any kind of explanation for the rejection but have received nothing back. The entire system is completely broken and balanced unfairly.