u/Avaura

Hi all, I wasn’t sure if this was the best subreddit to ask for this advice, but I was hoping to get feedback because I feel I’ve hit rock bottom. My dream is to be an astronomer, I’m particularly interested in exoplanet research. Last year, I graduated with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and minor in astronomy (I originally double majored in physics and astronomy, but something very traumatic and personal happened which caused me to change career plans until I realized I really wanted to pursue astronomy). I applied to two cycles of PhD and fully funded Masters graduate programs and of those two cycles, the most I’ve ever gotten was on the waitlist, which I didn’t even get off of. During my undergraduate years, I had tons of research experience (every summer and my senior year), ran my chapter’s national scientific organization for two years, was co-author on a published paper, graduated with an honors program, and for that program, completed a senior thesis and mentored for two years. Despite not being accepted into a graduate program after the first cycle, I was lucky enough to land a paid research position which has now ended, but I am working on finishing up a paper which will be eventually published and I will be the first author. Now the second cycle of applications has completed and I received nothing. It really hurt as I felt my hard work over the years have meant nothing and I have no idea what to do next. I will admit, my grades were not the best, I graduated with a GPA of about a 3.3 and during my most recent research project, I took two extra physics courses to strengthen my physics background for graduate applications, but I honestly didn’t do that well in them due to personal circumstances. I guess the thing I’m looking for would be any advice for what to do for another year and what I could do more for my future applications. Also how to explain poor grades in my application…Astronomy is my passion so I know this is what I want to pursue, but I’m feeling like a failure.

Thank you for reading this through and sharing your advice!

I was waitlisted by a school (my only hope with starting grad school…) and the school said I’d hear back by April 30th. Well, it’s now April 30th and past 5pm. Do I send the school an email tomorrow asking for an update? I honestly don’t have much hope but should I include that I’m still very interested and that they are my top pick? I already sent an email of continued interest after getting the waitlist notification so I don’t want to be annoying.