alkylholic

I wouldn't worry about the GREs in general. I'd say that publication is going to hold much more weight than any test score.

Assuming you want a family...Some people have different priorities. If you think being a dentist is something you'll enjoy, go for it; you'll get money and fulfillment. If you don't, you'll do a lousy job and won't last long anyway. *cliche* Can you really put a price on fulfillment?

Interesting! I was aware of the grad course opportunity at Scripps, but not the UCSD opportunity.

If you want to teach, then I'd say Harvard because Scripps doesn't offer you the chance to teach undergrads. If you just want to focus on research though, choose Scripps.

Wow, that's nuts! The closing remarks about rape was a great way to close this crazy email. I spoke to Movassaghi's current and former students (grads, postdocs and undergrads) and they had nothing but positive things to say about him.

The program seems good - they have the standard 1 year of TA duties and classes, oral exams, ect. I'm curious if I can transfer my 6 grad classes from undergrad to bypass the class requirement, but I wouldn't mind taking them again...The only thing that seemed annoying were the cumulative exams at MIT, but the grad students told me not to worry about it. Also, while I personally don't like the idea of lab rotations, they don't make it mandatory, which I am very grateful for. I spoke to Movassaghi and he said I could start early (summer for certain, possibly next month, I still need to work out housing details), though I wouldn't be an "official" member until the same date as the other 1st year students. Compared to other schools I applied to (like the Ivy leagues, though I still think they are great schools for our field), I thought MIT's student body was higher caliber (intelligence, focus, ect.) and more diverse. The campus is also really beautiful. Buchwald sounds like a great choice!

I actually visited last week - I had Yale visitations on the 6th and 7th, so I decided to squeeze MIT in. I'm interested in Mo Movassaghi to do total synthesis. How bout you?

Good news for me; I'm probably heading to MIT. I don't remember last year's rank for organic, but I think it went up.

Caltech rejection!

Since you're going for biochem, I would worry more about your biochem, biology and chemistry grades than physics or math.

I think it's something worth considering. I visited Massachusetts for MIT and Connecticut for Yale and I had a huge change of heart for similar reasons. I was originally set on Yale... While I liked the faculty, I didn't like the campus, city or other people. New Haven was a dirty place to me and Yale felt rundown. The students in general did not impress me intellectually and had the stereotypical "Ivy league culture" (big surprise hah), which definitely doesn't gel with me. MIT on the other hand had an awesome campus and Cambridge was cleaner. The MIT people were more diverse, focused and just more helpful. I still haven't officially accepted offers, but I think MIT is going to be it...

Get them done as early as possible!

I wouldn't worry about not having inorganic or pchem knowledge. Having a solid basic organic and analytical chem background is good enough for polymer chemistry.

At some point I would like to be the one in charge and not merely a student. It's not a matter of passion or money, it's about time, something you don't get back. I'd be fine finishing in the standard 5 years, but I have no interest in being a 7th year grad student that isn't going anywhere. Again, each their own.

I'm aware of that and I didn't compare how grad school and undergrad work, I was just saying it would be nice to finish early.

To each their own. As someone who finished their BS in 3 years, I would like to finish the PhD program in 4 years for the sake of getting to my goals in academia quicker. I wouldn't sacrifice quality for quantity (the years spent) though. My mind might change when I'm actually there, but for now that's the upside that comes to mind.

I knew a prof. who did it - her research was synthetic methodology. She told me there are things that are out of your control (the experiments), but there are things you do have (how long you spend working). At her school, she spent 7 days a week, full days in lab.

I went there for my undergraduate - it's a great place!

Hah, check it out: http://openflask.blogspot.com/2014/02/believe-everything-you-read-on-internet.html

This actually isn't the first I heard of this. One of my profs. at my undergrad institution last year told me Scripps was having budget cuts and something like this could happen.

Use applications of the concepts as examples. Or resort to giving out free beer before the powerpoints. What part of pchem is this - thermo/kinetics or quantum?

Yup, no berkeley. Looks like I'm heading to the east coast! It'll be a nice change of pace.

I'm organic.

Stanford said no. Im getting the feeling someone out there wants me to leave california...heh.

Bummer. Ah well, can't win them all.