ChemiKyle
-
Posts
27 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by ChemiKyle
-
-
It's around the time when my field sees a large number of results so I wrote a python program to automatically check for updates on this page: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=Chemistry and notify me if schools I applied to have shown up since I last checked. The code is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/ChemiKyle/Automated-Academic-Angst I figured I'd share it here, though it's probably not as pretty as would be made by someone whose undergrad actually involved programming courses (it's MIT licensed though, so people with actual talent can do whatever they want).
Happy waiting!
- therisingpage and Rameez
-
2
-
It's about the time I remember seeing the most posts about results so I wrote a python program that checks this page http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=Chemistry for any updates on schools you're waiting to hear from. I have it up on my GitHub for anyone to use: https://github.com/ChemiKyle/Automated-Academic-Angst
Happy waiting!
-
Had a false start in 2015 so I'm playing this game again. Once more unto the breach.
If everyone could put their stats in their profile it'd be helpful for referencing for us and those who come after.
-
Not true.
Most programs don't care too much about GRE, it's usually only scrutinized to make up for GPA but yours is good. You have 2 papers, one of which is first author, which is far more important than your GPA or a standardized test which uses very few skills relevant to chemistry.As an international applicant, however, your cGRE will likely be important so I hope you did well.
-
Did anyone else apply for theoretical chemistry? I'm rather nervous, I don't think that my test scores accurately reflect my true capabilities. I hope my LORs and SOP are strong enough to make a case for my admission.
When I went to a recruitment weekend at Northwestern they said that those were their most important deciding factors.
-
Which paper deals with NICS, the 2015 one? I don't have access to PCCP, so I don't follow.
I PM'd you regarding it, it's also on the nubakery site; it didn't exclusively mention NICS but it had to do with simulating electronic structures of big molecules with some heavy atoms under a magnetic field, so I figured it might have some applications. My minimal experience with NICS was using it in Gaussian to guess at the stability of some excited state aromatic molecules and I was going off that.
-
That's awesome! Congratulations man
. When did you complete your application? I haven't heard back from them yet, but it gives me some hope that our stats are within the same range.Thanks, I'm so excited! I applied extremely early, like mid-September.
You seem like you really know what you wanna do (I wish I understood how theory couples with the experimental portion as well as you, but that's what the summer's for!) so if you put that in your SoP I think you'd stand a good shot!
Congrats! Just an FYI, Shiozaki WILL definitely get tenure. There has never been any doubt
His BAGEL code is one of the most well written excited state codes, both in programming style and theory content. It is open-sourced so you can check it out yourself. The speed is mesmerizing!Plus, working for an assistant professor has many advantages. There are a few threads here you can read about it.
I didn't know it was open-source, that's great! I assume I'll be doing some time-dependent DFT and NICS calculations so the material he based his recent PCCP paper on will probably play a role with regard to the latter.
Do you know how having two advisors is generally handled? I'm pretty convinced of who my primary would be, but I think I'd want time to build up my knowledge before taking up arms for a theorist.
-
I've heard that a lot of people who go into theory haven't seen material more pertinent than the QM covered in physical chemistry. I personally don't have much background in theory, but I know what work is being done by who and where. I think that it is most important to identify what kind of problems you are most interested in working on and demonstrating that you are familiar with the work in those fields. Who did you identify in your SOP for Northwestern, btw?
Just like Hijojo said, I'm more of an experimentalist looking to understand the nuts and bolts of all the computational work; so the theory person would be secondary to my experimental advisor. It's good to hear I wouldn't be the only one with barely any background.
The only theorist in my SoP was Ratner; I was only vaguely aware of theorists when I was applying and didn't want to put down someone I didn't know enough about. I almost put down Shiozaki, but since he doesn't have tenure I was hesitant - I think having a newbie in your group while trying to get tenure would be very stressful. Since applying I've been looking more into Schatz and Seideman, they're both very nice which is the main selling point for a theory advisor since I figure I'll be messing up a lot and asking questions quite often.
I also just got accepted to Northwestern via phone call!
Best day ever, especially since I'd been bummed that I couldn't afford to send scores to a few other schools on my list. Huge mood booster!
-
What are people's plans if they don't get in anywhere?
I have to get a job over the summer for when financial aid stops covering my rent, so I was planning on trying to find a tutoring job; if the world ended (i.e. I don't get into grad school) I'd probably stick with that.
I'm a bit late to post my stats up on here, but I've been very busy with school this semester. I have applied to Princeton, Stanford, Northwestern, and UNC Chapel Hill so far. I applied to both physical and theoretical programs, indicating in my SOP that I was interested in focusing on relativistic electronic structure calculations
Nice! I was looking at a joint-appointment with an experimental PChem group and a theory-based one.
I have a math and physics background but no formal work in theory unless you consider black-box Gaussian calculations valid (which wouldn't be done at Northwestern anyway); do you know if people from outside of theory often jump into it for their Ph.D. studies?
-
So what is the minimum percentile that international students need to get on the GRE chemistry test to be competitive when applying to top 10 schools ? I personally got a 810 (79%), which I find rather unsettling considering that I got a 970 on the practice test...
While I'm extremely far from being an authority, I've heard that people maybe look for 90%+ at the top 10s. I know nothing of a minimum, but 80% is extremely high anyway.
If your school is well recognized it probably won't matter; at some point I heard that the reason international students' cGRE scores are given weight is that there's often no way to know if their undergrad curriculum was robust enough. Also, a lot of them will take 1-2 years off and/or do a Master's degree while they study for the subject tests, which is another reason the results are so skewed.
Apply anyway, don't let ETS keep you from giving it a shot.
-
Would it hurt to report a chemistry GRE of 730 (58%) to schools that strongly recommend it (some even says looked favorably)?
If you're not international then 50% or better is considered good, so it would probably be a good idea!
However, it's not going to make you stand out and is probably only used as a criteria for fellowships, so if the cost would mean not applying to some other school then just don't send it.
-
Well, I had my visit weekend; I think it went pretty well.
Pertinent to you all, part of it included a visit with the director of admissions (keep in mind the attitude varies by institution). It's fairly old news for most of us, but it's somewhat official now. I'll cover some of the biggest messages that I took from it.Letters of rec and SoP are the most important things that we still have in our control; the only important thing out of our control is our research experience. GRE and cGRE are pretty much unimportant, they think they're a worse indicator than GPA and you're probably only in trouble if your GREs and GPA are both low. Multiple grad students shared the careless attitude toward the GRE; one senior grad student told me the smartest person he knew got ~30% on the physics GRE, and he'd scored higher himself.
With respect to letters of rec: they've received generic, 1 paragraph letters before saying "so-and-so got an A in my class, he'll probably do great in grad school," and even ones where the professor said the student wasn't cut out for it. Know your letter writers and make sure they know you.
Regarding GPA: as they've had 3.0's be wildly successful and 3.9+'s fail out, GPA doesn't mean much either. You'll need to look better in every other area the lower it is, but if you're an oddball with multiple first author publications and a 3.2 you can probably relax.
More than anything, it's important that you show that you can be a competent researcher and your letter writers back you up on that. They don't expect you to know exactly what you want to do, but you need a rough idea and the professors that you mention need to have a clear indicator as to why you put them down (e.g. if you're talking about nothing but inorganic chemistry and say you wanna work for E.J. Corey they're going to notice that and it's going to look bad - on that note, double-check before you submit, don't send UChicago an essay that says how much you're interested in PChem at Berkeley). They take note of who you mention, and the adcoms have an idea of who is going to be accepting students, so if you're applying to Caltech and refuse to work for anyone but James Heath, you might want to send him an email.
At the school I visited, professors get to see (and have a part in the decision on) your app if you list them.I also heard a story of someone who had been accepted to a school and insulted some professors during the visit weekend; not only did that school rescind his application, but the people he insulted called their friends and he got quite a few other acceptances pulled. While it's best to treat everyone with some common human decency no matter who they are, don't go putting down any Ph.D.'s who are in the room with you!
-
You're so helpful, ChemiKyle
I actually loved Harvard's program - according to my PI, their Wyss Institute is probably the best place for materials research in the US, but I don't have the Chem GRE, unfortunately. And you know I actually read your profile a while ago when this thread first started and I was really, really intimidated! There's a lot of people on this forum that are really strong applicants, actually, so I'm hoping there's some selection bias and that we all have really good chances of getting into our top choices lol.
Haha thanks, I try. Try applying anyway, you can send them an email asking if it's absolutely necessary, and if so tell them you'd be willing to take it in April.
We have roughly the same profile; your GPA and GRE scores far outshine mine, for whatever those are worth. I also bake fish way better than eggs but I'm not sure how adcoms evaluate cooking skills, though a girl I knew who made quality stew is now at Caltech.
-
Did anyone else get the ~400 emails from Rutgers?
Finally narrowed my list down... I'll be applying to Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, UI-UC, Ohio State, MIT and Wisconsin. I'm really turned off by the fact that I'll be paying around $700 once the whole thing is said and done.
This is one of the extremely few times that I'm glad to be low-income since almost every school has a somewhat painless fee-waiver process (aside from MIT, who for some reason consider their fee all-important).
Does anyone have an comments regarding my current list/Can anyone think of any schools?
Perhaps look into Stanford and Caltech, they have a ton of bio-related chemistry. Harvard was spoken of as a mecca by a chemical biologist who graduated from my lab last year, but I've heard terrible things about the culture of Harvard - premed level competitiveness - YMMV.
Your app profile is far more impressive than mine, quit worrying about rank! As long as you meet whatever cutoff they may have for your GPA and arbitrary tests (which you definitely will) your app should be looked at and from there it's based on your letters and research more than the rest. -
Haha, I probably just got lucky on a few exams. I think having above a 3.5 shows you can balance coursework with everything else, anything above is a minor improvement. I've heard some people say a 4.0 may even look bad if it seems you favored minor grade improvements over research; it's like the hook effect in fluorescence. That may have been wrt grad GPA though.Thanks! I wish I had you're GPA though...I'm debating about applying out there. I'm born and raised in the northeast, so It'd be a big lifestyle adjustment for me to go live out there. Have you started applying yet? I've decided to take a small break after my rough October....working on the NSF GRFP app and studying for the CHEM GRE really ran me into the ground.
I submitted 2 apps at the end of September and tried to focus on c/GRE prep, but I'd been looking into those schools since my sophomore year. The apps were also very simple (unlike Berkeley's) so most of the material was available from my previous scholarship and REU apps. I think mid-November could still be considered early even for December 15 deadlines so it's probably fine to avoid burning out completely by jumping straight back into your apps after those.
If you've had your PI and maybe grad admissions director look over it and they think it's good, go ahead; if the school looks at them as soon as they come in it'll definitely make you stand out. Worst case scenario they don't and you're viewed on equal footing with everyone else. I did and got invited to visit (unsure of whether or not that was app-related, however)!I am a little bit in dillema now. Is it beneficial to submit your application early?!
-
As of now, I have Northwestern, U. Wisconsin, Ohio State, MIT and Harvard. There are a few others that I'm debating between to apply to, like Princeton, Michigan, Columbia and UI-UC. Looks like we have a bunch in common!
Not surprising given your profile is like a (much) shinier version of mine; we're probably even looking at similar PIs!
I'm surprised you don't have Stanford on there, they seemed like their faculty was really focused on bio relevant stuff, same for many other CA schools.
Fancyfeast,
I'd agree with everything Hijojo said.
Re: cGRE, if they don't require it explicitly don't worry about it, if you look through the admission results on this site there are even examples of people getting in to places that required them having never taken them.
When I was making my lists I regarded rank as virtually meaningless, the only thing they're good for is a general idea of how an institutions facilities might be, it's vastly more important that you like your research and get along with your PI; the general rule I've heard is that if a school has 3+ people whose research you'd be excited about you should apply there.
Regarding your paper, you can list it as in preparation on your resume, I'm doing that with one of mine.
Try looking into people who commonly collaborate with those your PI suggests too, that'll help you expand your potentials and in the event you don't get acceptance to X University where Prof. Really-Exciting is you could still get a chance to work with them if you're at University of Y with Really-Exciting's collaborator.
-
Thanks for the feedback!
I'm probably just letting my nerves get the best of me and succumbing to impostor syndrome somewhat, especially in the face of unofficially good news from my top program coinciding with underwhelming standardized test scores.
What do you mean by "worried that it may be solely because of an underprivileged initiative program"?
I'm in a less-than-welcoming part of the US, the general stereotype is that "diversity hire" = "underqualified" (I'm well aware this isn't true); so (erroneously) applying that outlook to other places made me wonder if the intent was something along the lines of "we have this grant to bring out under-represented students, so let's grill them hard to make sure they're up to snuff."
Either way I'm sure reading a few more papers couldn't hurt, but I can probably relax a bit.
-
Hi Everyone,
Been a lurker here for a while and decided it was probably the right time to make an account. I can't believe app season is here already! Stats are in my signature.
Where all are you applying?
Hi~ I'm going to apply for PhD program in bio-organic/chemical biology to several US universities.
GRE Chem score is out today and I am very disappointed by my mediocre score of only 810 (79%)~ considering I'm international applicant I am a little bit nervous that this score won't suffice. (I was aiming at 850+)
Did you make sure your programs want the cGRE and not the biochem version? Either way the pub probably offsets the 10%, but I know you guys get viewed in a radically different light than domestics.
I've also heard that 50% is good, though it seems to vary by field - UC Irvine told me that organic applicants should shoot for 70%. And people certainly get in with lower scores (good news for me) - UPenn mentioned that the lowest score of their incoming class was a 610.
I think the rest of your profile more than outshines the cGRE, but I'm biased towards having a low opinion of anything ETS-related. I think it depends on the institution culture and the adcom members themselves.
-
Hi everyone,
I was recently invited to an all-expenses paid graduate preview weekend by my highest rated POI out of every prospective institution; I know that them paying is generally a good sign, but I'm worried it may be solely because of an underprivileged initiative program.
While the email wording seems to suggest a recruitment, I'm going to be meeting 2 professors of my choice to discuss research interests, which seems like it might be an interview-type situation.
I saw some other posts from people doing these sorts of preview/recruitment events, but the timeline was way off; although I have submitted my app this is a month or so before the application deadline and possibly before them receiving my GRE scores/seeing my application at all (I submitted it a month before being contacted but the site lists it as incomplete still).
This is probably field-dependent, but I'm not sure if pre-acceptance interviews are common outside of things like McNair/early acceptance programs; does anyone have experience with this sort of situation?
Should I expect to be more grilled on my research knowledge or cajoled by the cool stuff they're doing?*Edit: It's probably worth noting that my grad students in my field are always fully funded.
-
Congrats ChemiKyle! That's awesome.
Did you have your entire application already submitted to this school (all LORs, regular GRE scores) before they contacted you?
With the release of chem GREs today I submitted all of my scores, but one of my recommenders has still not submitted his LOR so my application might be still viewed as 'incomplete'....idk. I just am so anxious...cannot wait to hear back from SOMEONE....
Thanks! I'm nervous/excited! It seems like a recruitment but it's a top 5 school so for all I know it's an interview.
Yeah I had my app and all my LoR in about a month before being contacted. My app still shows up as "incomplete" on their website though.
The earliest I've heard of actual decisions is late November/mid-December; early admissions obviously don't apply, but the only person I know who has those is a McNair scholar with 4 publications and I think the early app was through McNair. You have pretty good stats so as long as your letters are shiny you'll probably hear back from a few early.
Also, do you know/anyone else know what constitutes a 'good' chemistry GRE score for domestic applicants applying to top 10 programs?
It seems like the consensus is that 50% is good and 70%+ is extraordinary, although most schools don't actually care about it at all (even if it's required), it's mostly just for fellowships.
-
September cGRE scores should be available online today (ouch).
I got invited to a preview weekend at (one of) my top choices by my highest listed POI!!!
She emailed me 4 days after I took my regular GRE; do any veterans have any input on what this could mean with regard to admissions? Could it outweigh an extremely low cGRE and sub-par GRE scores (note that this school doesn't seem to care too much about cGRE, it's likely just for fellowships)?
but the school I attend actually keeps both on the transcript. Also, are there any courses I should include in calculating major GPA that is not a chemistry course? (i.e. Physics, Calc 3, Diff eq.)
I'd just report what your school does, if they see a lower score on your transcripts that could be grounds for rescinding your admission.
I only used my chemistry classes for my cGPA and put math and physics GPAs separately in my résumé/CV, but I'm minoring in those; if it's listed as a requirement for your chem degree you could probably use it.
You could also ask the departments what they'd prefer, I was able to report a significantly higher upper-division GPA for some programs since I took dual enrollment and it skewed my coursework. However, if your school calculates a major GPA for you use that, no matter how much better your self-calculations look; some apps ask for a major GPA ONLY if it's been calculated by your school.
-
The Caltech app is finally open.
Type of Student: Domestic male, low-income/queer (if either of those matter)
I'm not sure if queer helps anything unless you're part of a minority program for it, but low-income definitely does, at least as far as fee waivers go (you'll prove most via EFC on your student aid report).
UW-Madison has a handful of programs, but this is the one I used: http://grad.wisc.edu/admissions/feegrants
-
Since this thread is just starting lets move our application stats to our signatures so everyone doesn't have to go back and search for someone's stats when decisions start rolling around
I put them in my profile for the same reason, trying to get an idea of previous years' decisions was less than painless.
-
I Wrote a Program to Check Admission Results
in Waiting it Out
Posted
You're welcome everyone! Hopefully it stems the stress rather than adds to it.
Like @therisingpage mentioned, I wrote this for Python 3, so running it in 2.7 requires a little modification.
I updated the readme just to be safe.