PRACTICE GRE'S ARE NOW ONLINE
Preamble
Well it's that time folks - by now your a Junior or (gasp!) Senior, and it's time to start thinking about the rest of your life. Well actually you should have an idea of just what the hell you want to do, so if you don't get your ass in gear! Myself and Becca have talked about what to do now that we're seniors, and we wanted to pass on the tiny bit of wisdom we've accumulated.
In a perfect world, you'd have done research with one of the professors and are getting ready or already have presented the work at an AAS meeting or written a journal article about it. The world is rarely perfect, though, and if you haven't done anything along these lines then you need to start REALLY thinking about what you want to do after school is over. Yes, school will one day come to an end. If you want to stay within the bubble of Academia then you're going to likely work your ass off to do so.
Academia means teaching. Becoming a professor, doing research somewhere on your heart's content. As Becca will tell you though, this isn't for everyone. Jobs in industry or a technical field are just as imporant (if not more so) and fufulling than the "Publish or Perish" atmosphere that pervades Astronomy. Jobs means working for an Aerospace contractor (Lockheed Martin, Ball, JPL, NASA, etc.). Or with all of our computer experience you can go for some sort of programming thing. Go and take a look at our Alumni page (http://www.astronomy.villanova.edu/students/name1.htm) for an idea of what other grads from our program are up to. It's not perfectly up to date, but ask Beth or Dr. McCook for more info along these lines and they'll help you out.
Internships and REU Programs
You all probably finished these by now, but as you know the National Science Foundation (NSF) supports various Research Experience for Undergraduate (REU) programs all over the country. Deadlines are typically January-February, and the webpage describing those can be found at http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.cfm. If nothng pans out with those, departmental research is almost always available through one of the professors research grants or through a Delaware Space Grant if you're ambitious enough.
GRES
GRE's are scary, their terrifying, and they are virtually required for any sort of graduate study. Start studying early, and take the Physics GRE MORE THAN ONCE. That way if you get a crappy score you have time to study more, to readjust, and to try again. I can't stress this enough, honestly. There are a number of books available to help study, so just head over to Borders or Barnes and Noble and take a look around their test prep section. In addition, there are 4 actual GRE tests that have been released by ETS over the years to help get a leg up and to give good examples. I have collected them and supply them below - all are hosted on our own webspace here, so no worries about them going offline anytime soon.
Practice Answer Sheet
GR0177.pdf (2001, ~2.85mb) GR9677.pdf (1996, ~2.30mb)
GR9277.pdf (1992, ~19.5mb) GR8677.pdf (1986, ~17.6mb)
And of course, please be kind to the LJ8000; print them double sided with 2 pages per page, these things are in some cases pretty long. When you register for the GRE's they should send you a sample book, containing I think the newest released test GR0177.
Misc
There is more stuff that I want to add, but here are a few random links before I forget completely.
http://www.gradschoolshopper.com/
http://www.aapt.org/Resources/gradstudtoc.cfm
http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~sss5946/grad.html
http://www.physicsgre.com/
http://www.physics.brandeis.edu/GRE%20physics/GRE.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/physicsgre/