tangentc

So much for that, I guess. I can't believe they haven't posted decisions yet. Highly unprofessional.

Anyone heard anything from UPenn yet? I sent an email a week or two ago and got a response saying my email was forwarded to the admissions committee, but I haven't heard anything since. I figure it's a rejection at this point, but it's frustrating that they can't seem to make up their minds.

Having been on the receiving end of this I agree completely. At my school (or at least in my subfield) the issue is getting time on the TEM. We got this wonderful Titan microscope (and it is wonderful), but it's impossible to get time on the damn thing without signing up weeks in advance. We're fortunate to have a reasonably well-stocked user facility in general, but there is competition for use of one of the two SEMs available, especially when competing with industrial users for the FIB. This concerned me a bit at UC Irvine when I visited. They are well-stocked with regard to SEMs, but I was concerned about their emphasis on EDS for elemental analysis. As far as I can tell they have no EPMA capabilities and while they supposedly do have XPS (which I prefer anyway), it has to be done through technicians. They did say that they had submitted a proposal for an XPS user facility, though. Between their two facilities they have a good number of xray diffractometers, though. I would like to see more than one single-crystal machine (I've seen a hell of a lot of papers get held up waiting for crystal structures), but that's a rarity and so it's hard to hold it against them. UCSB is, unsurprisingly, extremely well stocked for just about any sort of materials characterization you could possibly need. Even have a large number of NMR probes in case you wanted to look at some usual nuclei.

Wow, really? I was at Santa Barbara recently and they mentioned they expect to get 40-50%, but it's such a strong materials school that the applicants kind of self-select for the ones who will probably come if admitted. I assumed that Harvard and Caltech would be higher simply because of the power of the name on the diploma, to say nothing of the fantastic PIs (I'd do many things I wouldn't be proud of to work with Nate Lewis).

I haven't tried contacting them yet, but if you haven't heard back by now it's a rejection. 99.9% certain. If you look through the admissions results, only one has ever heard back from caltech chemistry this late in the year and reported it here, but most rejections didn't go out until mid-late march. They get most of the kids they admit, and they they send out more acceptances than students they really want to take to begin with, so the amount of people who get in off the wait-list is very marginal. From what I've heard it's the department's policy not to send out rejections until all slots have been filled, so this tends to take a while. Personally, I think it's ridiculous, as they know damned well that 80% of the applicants don't have a statistically significant chance of being admitted. As such, it's pretty cruel to keep people on the hook like that, but that's bureaucracy in action.

Yeah, I was kinda surprised to not see any acceptances go out on Friday. It's possible that the people who did get them just didn't post here, though.

Do you know if this is only true for international students, or is it for both domestic and international?

Hey, I was accepted to UCSB for next fall and I'm strongly leaning towards attending, but my pay is only 27k. I've been looking at housing costs online and I'm pretty concerned about being able to afford the cost of living. Everyone I've talked to (and all the information in this thread) suggests that housing is much more reasonable in Goleta, but I can't find any reasonably-priced places online. Anyone have any tips on where to look? I'd prefer living on my own, but obviously roommates are an option. I've decided against San Clemente, partially because I already have all of my own furniture and I'd have to pay to store it somewhere, and partially because the cost of living there with a roommate and without my own stuff is greater than just getting an apartment at Studio Plaza.

I figure Caltech is done for the year, but has anyone heard anything from them on rejections? It's really frustrating to not know if you're actually on the waitlist or not (though I'm pretty confident that in their case I'm not).

This is a really good point. If it is relevant to the class it can be a very good thing to do, and could probably lead to some really good discussions. Of course, that also depends on how well it's handled. Particularly ham-fisted attempts will probably alienate students just as effectively as an unprompted 20 minute political tirade. One thing you could do as a discussion leader is attempt to put any political comments made into a historical context related to the subject material being discussed. If you feel the instructor isn't giving adequate/respectful coverage to viewpoints other than her own, you could attempt to broach these in the discussion section. Tread lightly, though, some people react poorly to having their opinions critically examined.

The concentration they list you as has more to do with what advisors they think you'll want to work with than any limitations placed on you. It could be that your POI isn't accepting new students or something, but unless you were accepted to a different actual department it's highly unlikely that it put any real limitations on your choices.

Well, I partially agree with this. Certainly prestige should not be your only consideration in choosing a school for the reasons stated. Faraday is also right on the money about a school's overall ranking being very different from their chemistry ranking. For what rankings are worth, anyway. That said, any mentor worth their salt will acknowledge that there is value in doing a PhD at a more prestigious institution (especially if you want to work in academia). Sad to say, but even if you have a great mentor and do a lot of great work, you'll have a harder time of it than a mediocre student from a top school who worked for a famous PI, even if they're a terrible mentor (and fame should not be taken as an indicator of quality as a mentor). While the faculty who ultimately do the hiring will know the difference, random non-technical bureaucrat #301245 who is screening applications doesn't know the difference between good science and crap science, but they do recognize a big name school on a resume. Overall, neither the crap student from the good school nor the good student from the crap school will be very likely to be getting the job. I don't mean to be an asshole about this, but this is what all the professors I've worked for have told me when I expressed interest in being a PI. The calculus is a bit different if you want a job in industry, but if anything it favors the graduates of prestigious schools more (there are just more jobs to go around in industry). The prestige value of the school shouldn't be the ONLY factor you look at, as if you go to a school where you're a terrible fit you're wasting a slot someone else could have taken and you're likely to be mediocre (or even drop out) because you just don't care about the research and don't like your boss. Still, if you want to be competitive in the job market, prestige should be considered when looking at schools. It's all well and good to console ourselves because we didn't get into Caltech or Berkeley, but the fact is that the people who did are at a competitive advantage in both academia and industry and denying it does no one any good. I don't mean to be all doom and gloom here. The best students from smaller schools tend to get good postdoc positions, which can go a long way to closing the competitive gap. Since you apply directly to PI's for those positions, the name on your degree isn't such a big deal. It probably won't fix all your problems, but you can occasionally see profs at R1 schools who got their PhD's from lower-ranked schools who postdoc'd with famous people. It's a harder path to walk, though.

Hey, that was me. I posted previously, but here's a summary: I mostly do inorganic materials stuff. They're categorizing me as pchem, and I'd be doing the ChaMP program if I went to Irvine. Domestic GPA: 3.51 Chemistry GPA: 3.7something (depends on how you reconcile semester and quarter grades) GRE: Q:162, V:167, A.W.: 5.0 Subject: 740 1.5 years of research, no publications, but three in the works that I know were mentioned in my LoR's. One first author. Did an REU where I worked on two separate projects with two PI's simultaneously. One of these will result in a publication and a presentation at the upcoming ACS conference in New Orleans, and I'll be coauthored on both. Both PI's wrote me letters. Third letter is from PI at home institution. I just got an email from the physical area advisor setting up a phone conversation. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure they're still in the process of making admission decisions.

Thanks! I've been freaking out about it, so it's nice to hear the reason for the delay.

Has anyone heard anything from Princeton yet? I haven't seen any except for the one in December, and they had sent out almost all of their decisions by this time last year.