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Instructions for Application Components

The Department of Physics & Astronomy requires all Ph.D. applicants to submit all application materials, including transcripts, online through the Slate application portal. Please follow the below guidelines when preparing the required materials.

The graduate program application includes an application fee ($55 for domestic students; $65 for international students). We can grant a limited number of application fee waivers; if you would like to apply for a waiver, please complete this fee waiver request form. Application fee waiver requests are due on November 15, 2024 and completing the application does not guarantee you will receive a waiver.

Application Details

Enter all requested information in the online forms.  Below we provide clarification regarding certain questions, organized by the tab inside the portal.

Academic Program

Under “Academic Program,” please select “Physics PHD,” as that encompasses all Ph.D.s granted in the Physics & Astronomy Department.  Under “Area of Interest,” please indicate the research area you are currently most interested in.  Your choice of research area will be used in the evaluation process, but you are not bound by this choice if you are admitted to the program.  These categories conform directly to the faculty research groups described on our research pages. In particular, the research areas you can choose from include: 

  • Astronomy
  • Astroparticle – cosmic rays, gamma rays, neutrinos, etc. 
  • Biophysics 
  • Condensed matter – experimental 
  • Condensed matter – theoretical 
  • High energy/particle physics – theoretical 
  • Physics education research

We use your selection to match admissions with research group needs, and secondary interests are available for selection under the “College of Science” tab.  These selections are used as a guide, but the personal statement should describe the nature of your interests more precisely.  For example, you may not yet know which area of physics you’d like to specialize in, and that’s OK: Be sure to clearly explain that in your personal statement. If GRE scores are submitted, they will be used to help evaluate your potential to be successful in graduate-level physics coursework. Omission of GRE scores will not be penalized.

Academic History

Upload an unofficial transcript for every undergraduate institution you have attended.  Upon acceptance into the program, you will need to provide official transcripts, including evidence of Bachelor’s and (if applicable) Master’s degrees, to the Graduate School.  Admission into the program is contingent on meeting these requirements.

College of Science

Select, if applicable, up to 2 other research areas of interest (see information under the Academic Program heading above for details).  Also indicate whether you would like to be considered only for the Ph.D. program, only for the postbacc program, or if you would like to be considered for both.  Please review the information on the postbacc program to see if it may be applicable to you.  The applicants for the two programs are assessed separately with differing metrics, and in general candidates will be suitable for only one program or the other.  However, strong applicants with non-traditional backgrounds may benefit from the postbacc program even though they would be competitive as a Ph.D. candidate; in this case, requesting to be considered for both programs would be appropriate.

Prerequisite Coursework

In this section, you will provide information about the math and physics courses you have taken to prepare yourself for graduate studies in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah. This is important for the evaluation of your application because the first year of our program involves rigorous graduate-level coursework, and we want to ensure that you are prepared to succeed. The required first-semester courses in the graduate program do not include a refresher, and all students must achieve a “B” grade or better, and perform well on the final exams of these courses, to retain good academic standing.

List all relevant physics and mathematics courses that you have taken in your previous studies that have prepared you for graduate studies in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah. To add a course, use the “Add New” link below to add information about courses you have taken previously or are currently enrolled in. This will populate a course table that will be used to review your application thoroughly. When you add courses, please start with all quantum mechanics courses and all electromagnetism courses. After that, please enter your most advanced coursework, and then lower-level courses last. You do NOT need to enter every course you’ve taken, but you should address the relevant prerequisites, as described on the Application Review Criteria page. For each course entry, please include the specific textbooks used in the course in the “additional details” box.

Additional Materials

This is where you upload PDF files with your personal statement, curriculum vitae (CV), and other work products. These documents are your opportunity to tell us what makes you a great candidate for the Physics and Astronomy Ph.D. program at the University of Utah. When preparing them, keep in mind our evaluation criteria, which are laid out in detail on this page. It should be possible for reviewers to easily find evidence of that criteria in the documents you upload on this page, as well as elsewhere in your application materials. Feel free to repeat information in multiple places, or point to other documents for more details (e.g., in your personal statement, you might mention belonging to multiple student organizations but refer to your CV for more details on those groups and your roles in them).

Personal Statement: This should be a single essay (approximately 500 words or roughly 2 pages double-spaced) that addresses both of the following prompts and addresses the review criteria:

  1. What is something about physics or astronomy that you find exciting
  2. How do your goals for graduate school match the opportunities offered by the research programs in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah?

We strongly recommend that you investigate the research efforts (link) of our individual faculty members and if any appeal to you as potential mentors, please mention them by name in your personal statement. If you are currently undecided about your research interests, that’s fine – please indicate the areas and faculty that appeal to you most at this time.

Curriculum Vitae (CV): The purpose of a CV is to document all the work and experiences relevant to your academic and professional career up to this point in time. As such, it is not usually tailored to a specific audience and only grows with time – there is typically no length limit for a CV in contrast to a resumé. The content of a typical academic CV would include your educational background, (relevant) employment history, academic accomplishments and awards, presentations given (usually talks and posters), publications, names of key mentors and anyone you have mentored in an academic setting, grants or other financial support for research or other academic projects, etc. One of our faculty members – Prof. David Kieda – has created a slide presentation to help students better understand the structure and purpose of a CV.

As stated, there is no length limit for your CV and you have the freedom to include all activities, large or small, that speak to the evaluation criteria. You should also feel free to describe activities in more detail here that may only be briefly mentioned in your personal statement. Although CVs have no page limit, overly long CVs may be difficult to read, particularly if they are not well organized, so you still want to be as concise and clear as possible; the organization and clarity if your CV will reflect your communication skills and will impact the “communication” dimension of the evaluation criteria.

Work Products (optional): If you have published any research papers, you should have listed them in your CV. Not every student has the opportunity to do research, so you can use this section to provide other examples of work you have completed as part of your preparation for graduate school. Examples of other work products could include: internship reports; class project reports; capstone project reports; abstracts for poster or oral presentations at conferences; copies of poster presentations from conferences; etc. In any case, you should put all the products you want to share into a single PDF file and upload it in this section. Please note that the Work Products document should NOT be an extension of your personal statement and should NOT be an essay, but rather a collection of products that provide additional evidence of your preparation for graduate studies and your commitment to professional development.

Additional Academic Information: These prompts are optional; however, it can be helpful to us for you to list your undergraduate GPA computed on a 4.0 scale.  If the second prompt applies to you (non-completion of another graduate program), this text box is your opportunity to provide important information explaining your situation.  Even if this topic is discussed in your personal statement, it is beneficial to repeat/expand on it here.

Test Scores: If you are an international student, you should enter self-reported scores for a language proficiency exam (TOEFL, Duolingo, IELTs). For all students, general and physics subject GRE scores are optional - you are welcome to submit them if you think it will strengthen your application. Omission of GRE scores will not be penalized.

Additional Immigration Materials: If you have a document with an English proficiency score certification (for more details, click here), feel free to attach it as an additional page to the scan of your passport and upload both as a single document here.

Recommendations

Please provide contact information for 3-5 individuals who have agreed to provide a recommendation letter on your behalf.  An email will automatically be sent to the provided email address once the Recommender form is complete and “Send to Recommender” is clicked.  For the “Relationship” field, describe the capacity in which the recommender knows you, e.g., you were a student in their class, they were a supervisor for an internship or research project, etc.  It is good practice to follow up with the recommender to make sure they got the email and know the deadline that their letter needs to be submitted by (which will not be stated in the email that goes to them).  You can return to this page to check the status of letter uploads and remind letter writers as the deadline approaches.  For the letters to maximally benefit your application, you should waive access to the submitted letters.

Review and Submit

On the final Review tab, any errors (almost certainly a list of unanswered but required fields) will be indicated.  When no errors are found, you will be able to submit the application—once submitted, you will not be able to change any responses or documents provided through the online application.  If information needs to be updated after you have submitted (but before the application deadline has passed), please contact the Graduate Coordinator at admissions@physics.utah.edu.