Graduate Program Application

We welcome applications from students who will have earned bachelor’s degrees at accredited institutions by Fall 2025. The majority of our applicants major in physics in their undergraduate education, but some obtain their degrees in related fields such as electrical engineering or mathematics. The department has on occasion admitted interested students who focused on social sciences or even humanities as undergraduates.

US citizens and applicants with degrees from US universities are considered US applicants for our review process. A fee waiver is available (See tab below). The following application materials are required:

1. Certified undergraduate transcripts must be sent directly from the undergraduate institution to the NC State Graduate School. Transcripts must be received from all undergraduate institutions that the applicant attended.
2. Three letters of recommendation must be included from people qualified to judge the prospective student’s ability to succeed in graduate school.
3. Applicants will submit a CV and candidate statement. The candidate statement should describe why the applicant is pursuing a graduate degree, what research experience and accomplishments the candidate has obtained, and list possible research interests and advisers. The candidate should address special or unusual aspects of their educational career. Some aspects of the review process for the candidate statement are discussed by Dr. Riehn in this interview and this one. Ideas on how to address COVID-19 disruptions are discussed here.
4. Show us your strengths. Applicants are able to submit additional materials at their discretion. For instance, applicants include publications or copies of posters that were presented at scientific meetings, or GRE test scores if available.

For 2025 admission, we will waive the application fee for the first 100 applicants who are U.S. citizens with an undergraduate GPA higher than 3.0. If you wish to use this waiver:

• Submit the application, and stop when you reach a payment screen.
• Email py-grad-program@ncsu.edu and tell us that you have submitted the application. We will then pay the fee for you without any further steps required from you.

Non-waived fees are $85 for U.S. citizens who do not meet the criteria above.

Requested Application Materials

1. Certified undergraduate transcripts must be sent directly from the undergraduate institution to the NC State Graduate School. Transcripts must be received from all undergraduate institutions that the applicant attended.
2. Three letters of recommendation must be included from people qualified to judge the prospective student’s ability to succeed in graduate school. These can be submitted electronically via the application system or via hard copy to the Department of Physics Graduate Office.
3. GRE Scores. Physics GRE scores can be valuable for judging applicants who have taken a path that is different than those of students who are already here. These could be international students where we rarely have multiple applicants from the same institution over multiple years, students from smaller colleges where we do not have outcomes of students from prior years in our graduate program, or students that have taken their physics courses in an unusual way such as online, by self-study, or through auditing. We encourage students take the Physics GRE and submit scores if they believe that it helps their application, but submission is not required.
4. English language proficiency may be demonstrated through any one of the following
   • Be a citizen of a country where English is an official language and the language of instruction in higher education
   • Have successfully completed at least one year of full-time study in a degree program at a regionally accredited four-year US College or university.
   • Passing the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) with a score of 80 or above, passing IELTS  (International English Language System) with with an overall band score of at least 6.5, or DuoLingo with a score of at least 110.
5. Applicants will submit a CV and candidate statement. The candidate statement should describe why the applicant is pursuing a graduate degree, what research experience and accomplishments the candidate has obtained, and possible research interests and advisers. Finally the candidate should address special or unusual aspects of their educational career.
6. Applicants are able to submit additional materials at their discretion. For instance, these include publications or copies of posters that were presented at scientific meetings.
7. The graduate school levies $95 for applications by international applicants.

[F]requently [A]sked [Q]uestions – for Applicants
Graduate School Admissions
Graduate School Live Chat

Planning for in-person visits for Spring 2025 will begin in late 2024. We will be guided by the risk posed to applicants by the current health situation.

We will invite prospective students currently living in the United States to one of our campus visits, which are typically in late February and early March. During this visit, you will have the opportunity to interact with faculty and current students. Invitations will be sent out after initial review, and travel costs for invited students will be covered by the graduate program. For international students, we usually conduct Skype or telephone interviews.

While a visit at this time is preferable, students who wish to schedule a personalized visit should contact the Graduate Programs Office to set up the visit and indicate if they would like to emphasize one specific area of physics in their laboratory and office visits with our faculty. With a faculty of 43 and a day that can incorporate only a handful of visits, only a cross-section of our faculty can meet with each prospective student. The Graduate Programs Office can tailor a prospective student’s visit around one or two specific areas (such as nanotechnology, optics, computational physics, materials physics, nuclear physics or astrophysics) or schedule a tour that provides a broad sampling of many of our research areas.

Admission to the Graduate Physics Program at NC State is granted by the Graduate School upon the recommendation of the Physics Department Admissions Committee. Official notification of admission is made by the graduate school, and the terms of the admission are provided by the department.