M4ss5pec

My username and avater are closely related--my username is a leet speak play on 'mass spec,' which is short for mass spectrometry, my favorite instrument for chemical analyses (I am a big time chemistry nerd ). For my avatar, I have a stylized shot of a mass spectrum.

Coffee bean

Wow, that's pretty crazy...I certainly hope they'll be updating anyone who's already applied about their application status, I'm on pins and needles waiting to hear about any one of my apps.

Out of curiosity, do adcoms pay much attention to the percentile? Is it more of an afterthought compared to the score itself, simply to monitor score fluctuations?

Much appreciated, you as well--and the addition of a Hunger Games quote works great here. One issue that I do have with my app, though, is that one of my LORs is from my dept's lab manager, not a prof. Our chem dept is so small that I ran out of professors to ask because my ochem prof left (been too hard to contact him since to ask for LOR). Does that seem like something that could severely weaken my app? My manager at least has a PhD in chemistry, which my research advisor said was enough for him to be a decent reference.

May as well join in... Area of interest: Analytical Chemistry, Instrumentation/Mass Spec Undergraduate institution: Small Public University GPA: 3.97 Chem GPA: 4.00 Biochemistry Major 2 full years of undergrad research experience in analytical chemistry, will be 3+ by graduation 2013 Undergraduate Award in Analytical Chemistry at my institution 2 departmental awards for academic performance 1 publication (method development with GC/MS), a second in the works 2+ years as a quantitative analysis TA GRE: Verbal 160, Quant. 163, Writing 4.5 (Chem GRE not taken) Schools Applying to: U of Wash., Purdue, U of Arizona, Washington State, U of Michigan, Oregon State. Just hoping to get in somewhere....guess I'll see...

Pretty easily, at least at my uni--not even the ACS certified degree requires any more than a year of calc. ...for what it's worth, one related question: if one does not have additional math preparation, will that cause trouble in chemistry grad programs?