Advice for Graduate Applicants

Application Materials

In order to receive full consideration, please ensure that all application materials and all of your recommendation letters reach Ohio State by January 15 if you are a US citizen or permanent resident of the US, or by November 30 if you are an international student. Applications received later than the January 15 deadline (either domestic or international) may be considered, but only if space in the program is still available. Any application that is not 100% complete by these deadlines cannot be considered for a University Fellowship. Please note that it is best to send all materials directly to the Astronomy Department, notwithstanding the advice given on the University's graduate admissions web site. We will forward all materials to the Graduate School as necessary.

Please note that all applicants are responsible for paying the required application fee. We do not have the resources to waive this fee for any applicant, domestic or international.

Fellowships and Support

Note that the International deadline (November 30) above refers to those applicants who wish to be considered for University Fellowship support. Successful applicants who are not awarded University Fellowships will be offered financial support as Teaching Assistants or Research Assistants; we provide full support to all of our graduate students through to the completion of their PhDs. If you are interested in our program but cannot get everything in by the deadline above, please apply anyway and get in materials as quickly as possible.

Prospective students are strongly encouraged to apply for outside fellowships that offer tuition and/or stipend support during gradute school. For domestic students, these include:

• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships
• NASA GSRP Fellowships
• Hertz Foundation Graduate Fellowships
• National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowships

International students are encouraged to apply for outside funding such as the Fulbright Program for Foreign Students.

Admission Criteria

Our goal in admissions is to select outstanding students who will benefit from and add to the OSU astronomy program. We base our admissions decisions on a number of factors, primarily (but not in any particular order):

• University transcripts and grades
• GRE general test scores
• GRE physics test scores
• Letters of recommendation
• Personal statement and supplementary materials

No one of these factors dominates, though letters of recommendation from people who can describe your suitability for the OSU program and preparation for research in general are especially helpful to us. Your personal statement and supplementary materials should convey your reasons for seeking a PhD in astronomy, your interests within astronomy to the extent that you know them (we don't expect you to have decided on a dissertation topic before you have entered graduate school!), and any relevant qualifications or experience you have that are not obvious from your transcript (e.g., research projects, published papers, teaching experience). If there are specific features of the OSU department or graduate program that influenced your decision to apply, you may wish to mention these in your personal statement.