(BU) I am a 2nd year graduate student here at BU

How this student rated the school

Research Quality	B+	Research Availability	D
Research Funding	C-	Graduate Politics	C+
Errand Runners	-	Degree Completion	B-
Alternative pay [ta/gsi]	A	Sufficient Pay	A
Competitiveness	D	Education Quality	A
Faculty Accessibility	-	Useful Research	C+
Extracurriculars	-	Success-Understanding	A
Surrounding City	A+	Social Life/Environment	-
"Individual" treatment	D+	Friendliness	D
Safety	B	Campus Beauty	C+
Campus Maintenance	B	University Resource/spending	C-

Describes the student body as: Friendly, Approachable, Broken Spirit Describes the faculty as: Arrogant, Condescending, Unhelpful

Male

Lowest Rating Research Availability	D

Highest Rating Surrounding City	A+

He cares more about Research Availability than the average student.

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Physics (This Major's Salary over time)
I am a 2nd year graduate student here at BU. Over half of my year are leaving at the end of the semester, as did half of the previous year. Some of us have been forced out by the department, others, like myself, are leaving due to a toxic environment.

BU offers a highly challenging program of study. Don't expect to have a 4.0 GPA. That is probably the strongest feature of the department; you will learn a lot. There is also some really great research here, and they are bringing in new faculty, so now may be a great time to join the department.

However, much of the faculty, particularly the theorists, are elitist and condescending. You are judged heavily on how you score on various exams. That is what matters, not your ability to do research. You will be hard-pressed to start research before you complete the comprehensive exams (the comps), which are used as a tool to kick people out of the department that don't meet the theorists standards, even if you are an experimentalist. There is no system in place to help you find research. You just have to go knocking on professors' doors and asking if they have money. All in all, you will probably not really start research until your 3rd year.

The comprehensive exams (the comps) are a huge deal here. In my year, 3/15 people were kicked out for failing to high-pass the comps. We know nothing about how they're graded, or how the decision is made, except for rumors. From what we know, the decisions are made somewhat arbitrarily by a mysterious exam committee, whose members we also don't know.

That said, the comps are passable. I passed them, but I'm leaving anyways. I do feel my time here was of value, but I also wish I had explored more options and considered going somewhere else. You can make a lot out of a PhD at BU, but I strongly caution you to have a backup plan, and to be entirely content with the very real possibility that you will leave the program. Also, expect to be hazed in your first semester. They pile you with an absurd workload, but it gets better after that.

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