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Graduate Admissions Procsss




Application Process

1. Submit your Apply Texas Application electronically before the appropriate deadline.

This alerts our department to be on the look out for supplemental materials and letters of recommendation with your name on them. When filling out your application, be sure that you are applying to the main Texas A&M campus in College Station.

You will also be required to pay the application fee before submitting your application.
Applications for Fall 2012 require a fee of $75 for domestic students and $90 for International students.
Limited financial assistance is available for low-income applicants. Please contact apply@physics.tamu.edu to request assistance.

Application deadlines for Fall 2012 admission:

2. Submit your official test scores directly to Texas A&M from ETS.

Use Institution Code 6003 to ensure that your scores are sent to the main Texas A&M campus in College Station. A department code is not needed.

Required score reports:

Please visit the ETS website for assistance with sending your scores to Texas A&M.

3. Submit your official transcripts directly to Texas A&M.

Transcripts are required from every undergraduate and graduate institution you have attended to earn your current degree(s). Transcripts must be certified official from each institution - unofficial copies or grade reports are not sufficient for admission. Transcripts that are not written in English must be accompanied by a certified translation.

Once you have submitted your official transcripts to the Office of Admissions, you may choose to send additional unofficial transcript copies or grade reports directly to the department. This will allow the Graduate Admissions Committee to review your grades without waiting for the Office of Admissions to process your transcript. The committee recommends sending copies directly to the department if you are applying close to the application deadline, since the Office of Admissions is often very busy at that time. Regardless of whether you choose to send copies to the department, official copies MUST be sent to the Office of Admissions.

For assistance with submitting transcripts, please visit the Texas A&M Office of Admissions.

4. Submit your Supplemental Materials directly to the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Your supplemental materials must be sent directly to the department at this address. Do not send supplemental materials to the Office of Admissions.

Supplemental Materials include:

After submitting your Apply Texas application, you will receive a letter from the Office of Admissions containing your Universal Identification Number, or UIN.

Once you receive your UIN, you must activate your Net ID on the Applicant Information System (AIS).
AIS is your primary method of communication between you and the Office of Admissions.
You should check AIS regularly to moniter the progress of your application. Once you see a "Processed Date" listed for your application, you will notice expanded capabilities appear within AIS, including a Credentials area where you must enter your referee information in order for letters of recommendation to be submitted online.

If you are applying close to the deadline, you may ask your referees to mail their letters directly to the department for faster processing.

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What Happens Next?

1. Applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning with domestic students.

Texas A&M University offers a number of Merit fellowships (for outstanding academic records) and Diversity fellowships (for minority students in science, as determined by the university) for domestic graduate students. The Department of Physics and Astronomy reviews domestic applications first in order to determine which applicants are eligible for these fellowships.
If you believe you may be eligible for a Diversity fellowship, please briefly include your reasoning in your Personal Statement.

2. Once fellowship nominations have concluded, all remaining domestic and international applications are reviewed.
Only completed applications are considered, thus it is important to send supplemental materials as early as possible to ensure your application is reviewed in a timely manner.

The department does not have minimum test scores or GPA requirements for admission. All applications are weighed against the others, so your odds of acceptence are based upon how the strength of your fellow applicants. Additionally, weakness in one area of consideration (e.g. GRE scores or grades) can be offset by strength in another area (e.g. publications or research experience).

3. The department will contact you if your application is missing any required materials.

Because the Office of Admissions receives applications for the entire university, they often experience a delay in processing materials. Therefore your online application status may not accurately reflect the documents that have been received by the department. Don't panic! If something is truly missing, you will receive a call or email.

4. All applicants receiving an offer of admission will be sent an offer letter by email and post mail.

Admissions decisions are based both on the merit of the applicants and the needs of individual research groups within the department. There is no ranked waiting list.

Because of the high volume of applications received by the demartment, only those students who receive offers of admission will receive letters. No rejection letters will be sent. All applications are considered until all spaces have been filled.

5. All offers must be accepted or declined in writing by April 15.

If you receive an offer letter, please return the signed decision sheet before the decision deadline of April 15. If your decision will not arrive in the mail by April 15, you may submit a scanned image of your signed form via email. All scanned forms received by email before midnight on April 15 will be considered valid.

Once all decisions have been received, the Graduate Admissions Committee will meet to decide whether any new offers will be made, based again on the merits of the remaining applicants and the needs of the department.


Department Mailing Address for supplemental materials:
Graduate Admissions Committee
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Texas A&M University
4242 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-4242

Questions?
Visit our FAQ page, or contact apply@physics.tamu.edu
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