Admissions
To apply to the Graduate Program the following materials are required of applicants (electronic submission is preferred):
- Personal Statement
- Transcripts (applicants can upload an unofficial transcript for committee review)
- Three Recommendations
- GRE and Subject GRE examination scores
- TOEFL/IELTS score (for international students whose primary instruction was not in English). Minimum TOEFL score of 100 required.
Spring 2013 Admission Deadlines:
October 1 – Rolling admissions up to this date for international Masters applicants
December 1 – Rolling admissions up to this date for non-international Masters applicants
December 15 – Deadline for non-international special student applicants
Fall 2013 Admission Deadlines:
February 1 – Priority deadline for Fall admissions applications. However applications may be considered after this date on a rolling basis until the incoming class is full.
May 1 – Rolling admissions up to this date for all international Masters applicants
August 1 – Rolling admissions up to this date for all domestic Masters applicants
August 25 – Deadline for non-international special student applicants
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Financial Aid
We offer a complete package for the first calendar year that is valued up to $61,349. Incoming PhD students will receive a teaching assistantship stipend of $20,600 for the eight-month academic year and, as long as they remain in good standing at the end of the academic year, a summer research or teaching assistantship up to $10,300. This leads to a typical one year stipend of $30,900. The full tuition waiver (equivalent to $28,200) and full medical coverage (equivalent to $2,249) results in a very competitive total financial aid package.
Teaching assistantships generally involve 20 hours per week of providing instructional assistance for the undergraduate courses and interactive learning sessions. Typically teaching assistants are responsible for supervising one or two sections of undergraduate general physics laboratories (10 students per section), one session per week, grading laboratory reports for those sections, and working in one or two interactive learning sessions. Interactive learning sessions are group problem solving sections, in which the teaching assistant helps the students to solve problems in groups of 3 or 4 students.
Advanced students beyond their second year of graduate study are usually awarded research assistantships that are funded by their research advisor’s faculty research grants. These assistantships are generally paid year round at the same rate as a full year teaching assistantship, which was $30,900 plus tuition and medical coverage in the 2013-2014 academic year. Advanced students may also be eligible for IGERT or other graduate fellowships, with varying stipend levels.