[Looking for the most recent/upcoming bootcamp?
Try this page.]
Tenth Annual
Northern California
Graduate Physics
Admissions Bootcamp
The camp took place at UC Davis August 17-18, 2019 and served
about 50 students from across the country. Thanks to the UC Davis
Office of Graduate Studies for funding us!
Resources:
- Agenda
- my advice for prospective grad
school applicants (pre-camp reading assignment)
- the slides I showed in
the session on the admissions process and statement writing
- more general (less physics-based) guidelines on the application process by
Steve Lee (formerly at the UC Davis Office of Graduate Studies)
- Physics GRE prep resources:
- slides shown at the camp
- Morgane Konig's
annotated solutions to the E&M and optics problems on the 2008
exam. (Note: if you like these, also check out solutions
to the problems in atomic physics, relativity, and lab methods
written by TA Jessie Hirtenstein for the 2018 camp.)
- Conquering the Physics
GRE. Most of the officially released exams available for
practice are quite old (apart from the 2017 exam on ETS's
website, the 1986, 1992, 1996, and 2001, and 2008 exams can be
found with an internet search). As the exam has evolved more
recently, the authors of Conquering the Physics GRE have created
their own practice exams that mimic, as best they can, the
current exams.
- GREphysics.net, a complete
resource for older (1986, 1992, 1996, and 2001) Physics GRE problems
- a
comprehensive self-guided 16-week Physics GRE study program from
the University of Washington
- APS programs for women and for underrepresented
minorities
- a list of postbac
programs in physics and astronomy
- GradSchoolShopper,
a comprehensive index of graduate programs run by the AIP
- Your undergrad program should run a career seminar to expose
you to various career options. If they don't, tell them that it's
considered part of best practices for a physics department and
recruit other students to ask for it as well! But if you can't
attend one, here is the next best thing: interviews with speakers
at the UC Davis career seminar.
Info about the 2018 camp is archived
here.