by Rohan Kulkarni

last updated :

Application to Heidelberg

After several wonderful undergraduate years at Leipzig, I applied to one of the best physics faculties on the planet and one of the most fairy-tale-like cities - Heidelberg. I had visited Heidelberg twice as a tourist and had fallen for the city. Let’s break down how the admission procedure works according to Heidelberg’s website. There are two parts to the admission,

1. BSc grades (worth 15 points) (5th-semester grades if your final degree certificate is not available when you are applying)
2. Interview (worth 15 points)

The number of seats is for the program not limited. You are admitted to the program if you get ≥16 points. If you have good grades in your BSc, you are almost there.

Now, jumping to the interview. You know beforehand the professors who will interview you; I highly recommend you google them before the date if you want. It’s just human nature to feel more comfortable talking to someone if you know something about them.

One of the most common questions I receive is, “How do I prepare for the interview?". The questions asked to summarize what you learned during your Bachelor’s.

Tips for preparation

1. They would assume that you are well-versed in the following undergraduate subjects,
   • Classical mechanics (Including Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, aka Analytical mechanics)
   • Electrodynamics
   • Vibrations and Waves
   • Special relativity
   • Quantum mechanics
   • Statistical mechanics
2. If you know your gaps and loopholes, you can fill them conceptually by reading chapters from David Tong’s lecture notes or Feynman’s lectures. Why the change of mind from Feynman to Tong? In recent years, I have read Tong’s lecture notes to solidify my foundations even more. To date, I have read at least five of his notes, front to back, and honestly, they have much more depth than Feynman’s lectures, which I previously recommended for preparation. This makes sense since Feynman’s lectures were given to first-year students approximately 60 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I still occasionally refer to Feynman’s lectures as they are always an excellent resource for quickly brushing up on concepts. You can find all of them here. Remember, you are preparing for an interview; you don’t have time to go through all his notes. Instead, pick a set of notes and go through the sections you don’t feel confident about.
3. A series of physics books by Daniel Fleisch is an excellent companion during this time. Most results and how they are derived in these books will be “obvious facts” that the professors might expect you to know. They are small booklets summarizing the main results of each of the following subjects.
   • A student’s guide to Maxwell equations (For Electrodynamics)
   • A student’s guide to Waves (For Vibrations and Waves)
   • A student’s guide to Schrodinger equation (For Quantum mechanics)
4. Apart from Tong and Feynman’s lectures - here are some goto resources one should keep in mind, particularly for Statistical Mechanics, Thermo, and Special relativity.
   • Thermal Physics by Blundell (Thermodynamics and Statistical mechanics)
   • Special relativity and Classical field theory by Leonard Susskind (The first three chapters should be good enough for Special relativity)
5. 🌟 If you have a friend who is well-versed in these subjects, ask them to test your basic understanding. Choose someone who is genuinely willing to help, not someone looking to show off their knowledge, as the latter will cause more harm than good.

As you will see, the theme of the questions can vary a lot. It is more about breadth than depth while you prepare.

Interview questions

My most important advice is that keywords are much more powerful than an elaborate explanation during an interview.

General questions