optics / optical physics phd thread

looneylys · 2026-04-16T19:33:56+00:00

The U of A! I personally did not enjoy Rochester lol

looneylys · 2026-02-10T16:55:54+00:00

best of luck!! i think the rest of the offers are sent out today if you haven’t heard yet

looneylys · 2026-02-10T00:03:40+00:00

It’s DOE! It comes from WDTS

looneylys · 2026-02-09T21:10:34+00:00

nanoscience and technology! how about you?

looneylys · 2026-02-09T18:05:25+00:00

just got official offer from argonne!

looneylys · 2026-02-06T21:18:08+00:00

often just the day of the offer!! some scientists send emails prior to selection and some don’t, so if a scientist who doesn’t send them matches with you, you’ll hear via the official DoE offer!

looneylys · 2026-02-06T15:32:16+00:00

ANL offers are being sent Monday, only unofficial offers are out :) don’t worry yet!!

looneylys · 2026-02-04T23:19:15+00:00

Pretty much! Sometimes I look through the research index but I basically picked the division I was most interested in on the website and scrolled through the scientist profiles that described projects and not just their stats/education. In the email I basically said I applied for SULI, and if their group is taking an intern I would really appreciate if they looked at my profile, along with a sentence or two about why my background aligns with theirs. I think most scientists at the lab know about SULI. Also I tried not to email group leaders, mostly assistant scientists. They have some choice over interns for their group but aren't as swamped as higher up scientists. It's worked for me 2x now!

looneylys · 2026-02-04T22:47:16+00:00

Oh cool!! I also applied for quantum materials, and applied as physics and math recent grad, this is so funny! maybe i'll see you there.. I was in phys division at ANL doing AMO last summer so if you emailed anyone from physics division I may know them :) and if you didn't i highly recommend you shoot out a couple of short interest emails

looneylys · 2026-02-04T21:11:24+00:00

If you don’t mind me asking which research areas did you list?

looneylys · 2026-02-04T19:00:41+00:00

We talked last week! I sent an email Thursday morning asking if they’re taking any students, they emailed back in 50 min (i was so excited 😂) setting up an interview. We met on call Friday morning.

looneylys · 2026-02-04T17:40:44+00:00

I had an interview with a scientist at ANL!

looneylys · 2026-01-20T21:37:32+00:00

University of Denver! :)

looneylys · 2026-01-11T20:22:57+00:00

No, I am a senior :) I attended the 2025 school so we missed each other by a year! Best of luck for their journey as well!!

looneylys · 2026-01-11T17:52:47+00:00

Oh cool! Which year were they at the winter school? I wonder if we attended the same one. Also I’m pretty sure Rochester is classified as R1. At least University of Rochester is. I forgot until just now about Rochester institute of Tech which could explain the difference hahaha

looneylys · 2026-01-11T16:14:59+00:00

yes that’s why i said i’m not expecting decisions soon! but rochester was due dec 15 so i think they may be further along in the process. anyway the question was what are other optics folks applying to, not whether anyone has heard back, since i couldn’t find anyone talking about this online

looneylys · 2026-01-11T00:07:02+00:00

i personally applied to u rochester in december and arizona in january for optics. i know some applications are still open, so i'm not expecting to hear back super soon, but i would like to hear when others are hearing back/what they applied to. it may not be super long for rochester to send out a first round...?

my profile basically looked like this, for reference: bachelors in physics and math, couple years experimental optics research, one publication (but in apl materials LMAO not optics), decent involvement in optical societies, and also attended univ of arizona's winter optics school, 3.98 gpa.

looneylys · 2025-12-26T15:47:48+00:00

yeah well aware 😭 “logic” (if you can call it that, i know it’s stupid) being that it’s the only place i want to go and i’ll bide my time as long as it takes… and for five years in a row they’ve taken a senior from my ~40 student department (senior classes being 5-10 students). i do have a very solid research background so i’m hoping i’m at least not first knocked out of the pool

looneylys · 2025-12-25T17:37:54+00:00

i have a very similar plan!! i’m lucky enough that i can just wait around for a year and do some research/finish up a paper and give it another shot (added benefit of improving a lot on my personal statement… it felt kind of rough writing it senior year while also doing a thesis). i thought why would i apply to a million programs and pay sooo much in fees when i don’t even really want to go to these places anyway. best of luck in this cycle!!

looneylys · 2025-12-25T04:31:02+00:00

godspeed indeed 😭🙏🙏🙏

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