St Andrews Lynx

I think most of the US vs. elsewhere debate is based upon the assumption that an American PhD confers more prestige & quality than a PhD from anywhere else. I doubt that is true (hey, in 10-20 years we might all be publishing journal articles in Mandarin and doing our postdocs in the Far East, given the economic growth in China & India compared to the West), but perceived opinion is a powerful thing. Some specific advantages to doing a PhD in the USA that I can think of include: (a) It is probably easier to get your paper published in a high-impact American journal if you are studying at a well-known, American university. ( Because of that "do your PhD in the USA" mentality a lot of high-flying researchers end up in American universities for their PhDs & postdocs. If you want to network with future academic stars from around the world it will be easy to do so in the States. © The work-culture in grad school is a lot more vigorous in the USA than it is in a lot of other countries. I can't speak for Singapore, but compared to the UK you'd be working much longer hours in the States. Longer hours --> more research done --> more publications/experience/data, at least in theory. I

Yeah, better to phone or knock on his door. It's easy to forget about emails in an inbox, a person standing in your doorway has to be dealt with immediately. In general, my experience with faculty is that unless you give them a clear deadline for when you require x to be done...they'll do x at their own, sweet, slow pace. Be upfront & specific about when you want the map.

If you aren't happy on your program then your productivity will go down, your relationships with faculty/colleagues will be put under strain and your interest in the field as a whole will be dented. In short, the career-boosting prestige you get from School 1 will most likely be negated. I say go to the place where you will be happy & productive, and don't fret about "prestige".

#1 - I don't think anyone will ask for undergrad transcripts after grad school. Undergrad laziness is more likely to undermine you if you carry your bad habits into a PhD program... #2 - US News Rankings are calculated almost solely on other academic's opinions of the grad programs (x number of professors in the field are sent a questionnaire and asked to rate programs based on the knowledge they have on them). They're valid as a form of perception...but not much further. The National Research Council does a program ranking that covers more variables (such as time to graduate, research output, grants per PI, etc).

In my program at Rutgers the funding is supposed to remain "roughly fixed" during the course of the program, according to the Dept. Provided I remain on TA/RA support (fellowships might be different) I don't think there will be any variance beyond $2-3K (from my initial $32K p.a).

UBackwardsChemistry - I'm headed to slightly-less-rural Jersey. Beaches, 24-hour diners and a 1 hour train ride to NYC, baby!

All the chocolate, ice cream and greasy junk food eaten in grief should line the stomach enough for a night of hard booze...

I'm not really a "room-mate person" and would prefer the freedom of having my own place...but for the first year I intend to live in graduate apartments on-campus. I'm unfamiliar with the area and won't have any chance to explore residential areas before term starts. I don't know what time constraints will be on me in first year - a daily 40 min commute might completely wipe me so I'd rather be close to the department at least until I adjust to the workload. At my university the on-campus rent is a little bit cheaper than off-campus housing, but crucially the apartments come furnished so I don't have to buy a lot of stuff at the beginning in addition to all the other "start-up costs" that come with moving. After those first 12 months...I'll be outta graduate housing as fast as I can!

That sounds a bit like when the Department recommends you for admission to the Dean of Admissions, then the Dean rubber-stamps your application and you receive your official offer. If there's something fundamentally wrong with your application the Dean's office will reject you...but it's usually just a formality/paperwork double-check. Hope the International Office processes your application quickly!

Take the time to deal with the emotional aftermath of the breakup now - you've still got a lot of time before Fall (it may not seem like something you'll get over in that timeframe right now...but you could be surprised). Take up a new sport or hobby. Book yourself a nice, relaxing holiday. Hang out with your friends. Spend time planning and getting excited about your new school. Do things now to help you move on and get your life back on track in time for grad school.

In the end "gut feeling" about a school won out over the logical pros & cons list I had written in my notebook. I trust my subconscious to pick up on things that the rest of my brain doesn't notice: things like atmosphere, departmental relations, happiness of the grad students. I didn't rely entirely on instinct, just because I only got to see a snapshot of the departments when I visited...say a 60-40 or 70-30 split between gut feeling & logic.

I'm down to attend Rutgers' for Chemistry.

American visa photographs have different size dimensions from standard passport photographs I believe (or at least my J1 a couple of years ago did), so check that you're bringing a photograph the embassy will accept.

I think a fair number of international students come to the USA for the "prestige factor" and apply to the high-profile universities with names they recognise. In the case of UC Irvine...I suspect most of the international students that fancy doing a PhD in California will be looking at UC Berkeley first then UCLA & UC San Diego. From my experience as an international, UC Irvine is one of the less-familar institution names. I don't think having a large local contingent is a bad thing when you're an international PhD student. Through my experiences I've found it a more fulfilling experience befriending & hanging out "locals" rather than the transient international students. It made me feel more settled in my new place, more part of the community.

I accepted a place at Rutgers University a few days ago. There were still a few places I was waiting to hear back from...but realised that even if I did receive more offers...it wasn't going to change my preference. Feels great committing to a PhD program - I can now sort out my summer plans and perhaps treat myself to a holiday. Now I've just got the US visa process to deal with...

Was emailed by my First-Choice POI at my Top Choice British University to say that he didn't think he would have funding to support me as a PhD candidate. It might still be a while before I hear from any of my other POIs at the same place about their funding, but there's no guarantee they'll be in a better off position (or that I'm their first-choice candidate!). Actually, the news comes as a relief to me. I had applied to TCB University and FC POI because of the strength of their international reputation, and I felt that if they'd offered me a place on their PhD program I would feel obliged to accept it ("How could you decline an offer from there?!" etc, etc). Getting a polite rejection allows me to properly consider my other choices: places with less international clout but which would be better for my professional & personal development. My advice to everyone based upon this experience: do not feel obliged to accept a PhD offer solely on the strength of program reputation. Think about fit and your opportunities for personal/professional development. Good luck to everybody currently deciding & waiting for decisions!

How much do you interact with your fellow grad students & postdocs? In a lot of instances they'll be the ones who know the equipment/software best, simply because they use it in their day-to-day research (so are likely to have more clues about how it works than the PI). Your fellow labmates should be able to help you, it's only a case of asking. If there is a more experience postdoc in the group then perhaps run ideas by them instead of the busy PI. With regards to the coursework, do you need high grades or just a pass? It might be that you are putting in too much time into the coursework when you could be getting away with a lot less. If the supervisor is notorious for slow graduation times then there isn't a lot you can do to change that. Try to find out the reasons student completions are delayed. If there's a trend you should be able to take steps to counter-act that happening to you.

If the school has already decided who they will accept & reject, then the longer it is until you hear back the more likely it is that you'll be receiving a rejection. Schools email acceptances first, some have a significant time-lag between acceptances & the rejections, especially if the emailing has to be done by the Dean's office/central Graduate Admissions team. They're going to be emailing out a whole lot more rejections than acceptances after all...

I've got my first visiting weekend next week. Quite excited. It involves flying from the UK to the East Coast and I got several days extra to look around the area/get over the jetlag. I've already visited this school, but now I get to stay in a nice hotel, feel like a proper grad student and chat some serious chemistry. Safe travelling everybody!

Organic chemistry does get over-hyped a lot. My belief is that the problem comes from i. contraction of funding to universities (especially from industry) in the West ii. A greater weight being placed upon scientists to publish early and publish "high-impact". iii. More grad students & postdocs coming through the pipeline. These conditions mean that scientists who wish to secure financial backup have to "sell" their results a lot harder in the face of greater competition. I know a lot of chemists who talk disparagingly of "sellers" - I think a lot of chemists would naively like their research to be conducted and appraised as research for its own sake...that isn't a option in the world we live in. So I'm generally OK with the hype.

I'd be happy to help, if you like. I'll PM you.

The methodology US News uses for their grad school rankings is that they send out emails to lots of faculty across the country asking them to rate programs at all the universities they can based upon what their impression of the program is. (Ref: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2012/03/12/methodology-graduate-social-sciences-and-humanities-rankings ) That's as detailed as their analysis gets. So, essentially those rankings are based solely on perceived reputation by professors at rival institutions. University rankings are a witches brew of differently-weighed factors - everything from student satisfaction to how many papers are published per faculty member per year. But of course students saying they are "very satisfied" with the program doesn't mean they're able to find jobs later, and is a faculty member who publishes 5 papers per year in crappy journals really more productive at research than a professor who successfully publishes one or two in high-impact journals? You get the picture. If the UMass Political Science program is undergoing a reinvention then it would take some time for the program metrics to improve (new faculty hires now will be affecting the employment prospects of grad students coming out of the program in 5-10 years time, etc) and for fusty academics elsewhere to realise that the program is improved. If the PhD program looks good to you "in the flesh" as it were, I say go for it!

Best wishes (fail-save for all scenarios) Best (for people I know personally, close colleagues) Yours (bit more affectionate than Best, used quite often) I don't think memorable should be a quality of your sign-off. You want to come across as professional, mature and aware of social conventions in all correspondence. Any sort of catchphrase such as "Till Niagara Falls" does not achieve that. It suggests a hotmail account with 'xox' in the name and excessive use of coloured hearts. None of those things will impress professors...

I've heard it from a real person, not just on the internet. This was an individual who recruits people with PhDs & postdocs, and he didn't think going to the same school for UG/PhD looked great on a person's CV. That is only one person's view, and it does depend on what else you've got on your CV...but it's right to be aware of the potential issue. In my field it's not unheard of for PhD students to go on an exchange to another university in a different country for part of their graduate study. That might be something to enquire about. If you are going down a career path that requires a postdoc, then you can aim to do that somewhere else, that should go some way to countering the shared UG/PhD institution.

The advice I received from several industrial employers was not to become too specialised when doing my PhD. For instance, pharmaceutical companies would prefer to recruit an entry-level scientist who was an Organic Chemist, rather than a Medicinal Chemist or Chemical Biologist: the principles of med chem & chem bio are quite easy for the companies to teach themselves to new recruits, but general competence at synthesising chemicals is harder to teach from scratch. If you've spent a lot of time during your PhD doing Med Chem then you will have spent less time doing standard synthesis, etc. My approach towards maximising employability during a PhD is not trying to 'game the system' (ie, choosing an in-demand research area) because everybody will be thinking along those lines; rather, cranking out publications, attending conferences, networking, keeping in contact with the industrial folk I've met, choosing a university that companies recruit from on-campus. Oh, and knowing my chemistry. Actually, the best piece of advice I received from an industry contact was this: "Don't think about what jobs are in demand now, try to predict what jobs will be in demand in 5-10 years."...