Tips for Prospective International Students Masahito Yamazaki * October 29, 2020 Contents 1 Introduction 2 2 My Research 3 3 Research Environment at Kavli IPMU 3 4 Graduate School: Mathematics or Physics? 4 5 Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences 6 5.1 Admission Process ........................ 6 5.2 Graduate Studies ......................... 7 5.3 Lectures .............................. 8 6 Graduate School of Physics 8 6.1 Options .............................. 9 6.2 Finding a Primary/Official Supervisor ............. 10 7 Oxford Option 13 * An associate professor at Kavli IPMU, University of Tokyo, also affiliated with the Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Tokyo. 1
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Tips for Prospective International Students · invest a bit of time learning some basic Japanese characters (Hiragana and Katakana; these are Japanese counterparts of English alphabets
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Professors with ? marks in the list above organize pre-screening
process for international graduate-school admissions. This hap-
pens before the official admission process of the graduate school
of physics. If you wish to choose one of them as an official advisor, you
should apply to these pre-screening process, see their web site15 for more in-
formation. The application materials should be uploaded there directly, and
this needs to be done separately from the department of physics
admission process. The deadline for the pre-screening is in late November
14This data is subject to change, please do cross-check with updated information.15See https://member.ipmu.jp/taizan.watari/joint-preselection-HHIW.html
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in the case of 2020 academic year (this is subject to change in the future: in
the past the deadline was earlier, in late October).
As far as I know, other professors (e.g. Prof. Murayama and Prof. Mat-
sumoto) do not participate in this pre-selection as of this writing, but in
any case please do ask the professors for updated information. In my un-
derstanding, this means that even if you do not get through the
pre-screening mentioned above, you might still have a chance by
choosing professors who are not involved in the prescreening.
Whether a professor is willing to be your “official advisor” while letting me
be your “de facto adivsor” depends very much on the professor in question.
As far as I know, such an arrangement was never worked out with professors
in ICRR/Kashiwa and in Hongo campus in the past, so you might have a
better chance with professors at Kavli IPMU.
In the past people often worry that it could be impolite to ask other
professors to be your official advisor, while in practice wish to have me as a
de facto Ph.D. advisor. While in general this could be the case, professors at
Kavli IPMU are well aware of the problem and are open in general to the idea
of being your “official advisor”. Indeed, many students have already studied
as such in the past, under the guidance of Prof. Hellerman, for example (who
had been in the similar situation as myself in the Graduate School of Physics
until recently).
I often have the inquires as to which order things should be done. For
example: Should you write to me first, or to write to the potential official
supervisor first? Should this happen before or after the graduate school
application? These things depend on the situation and there is no simple
answer, however in my experience it probably makes sense to write me first
and then contact potential supervisors next, so that I can at least reply
something when the potential official supervisor asks me about you.
Please be aware that in almost all the cases I cannot judge whether or
not to be your (de facto) advisor even you send me a one-page CV; accepting
graduate students is a highly non-trivial commitment, and I need to take into
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account all the information possibly available, which can include your CV
but also many other things, e.g. your graduate school application materials,
letters of recommendation from your advisors in your school or elsewhere,
and sometimes results of in-person video interviews. This practically means
that in almost all the cases all I can say that it is OK to apply to graduate
school and list me refer to me as a candidate for the de facto advisor. The
final decision of whether such an arrangement works or not will be deferred
until the very last stage of the admission process (or in some cases in later
stages of the graduate school in some exceptional cases).
Finally, while all the things written above are admittedly complicated, I
hope you regard this as an opportunity to take initiative yourself and to be
actively engage with many professors. Such experience will surely be of use
during your graduate studies. Indeed, I have always been encouraging my
graduate students to interact with other professors whenever possible, and
having someone as an “official advisor” could provide an excellent excuse to
interact with him/her on a regular basis.
7 Oxford Option
In addition to Departments of Mathematical Sciences and Physics, there is
also a wild card: come to Kavli IPMU through Oxford-Kavli IPMU program.
Since none of my graduate students have used this program in the past,
I have not been too familiar with the system, see however https://www.
ipmu.jp/en/research-activities/PhD-programs for some minimal infor-
mation. Let me here copy the description there:
“There is also an option to enroll in a PhD program at Oxford University
and spend about three years of the time of the PhD program at Kavli IPMU;
Kavli IPMU has such an agreement with Department of Physics of the Oxford
University. The admission process and thesis defense are run by the Oxford
University; class-room lectures are also provided by the Oxford University
in the first year of the program. A part of research activity is done at