prolixity

did you figure it out? For future reference, better sites for this would be Isawyouharvard, harvardfml, or boredatlamont.

Depending on the quality of your references, you have a decent chance of being accepted at any program. Your undergrad GPA may slightly hamper you at the best universities in your field, but your industry experience and master's work would definitely help. Don't stress.

Yes, many people can.

The subject GRE is not very important if you have a great all-around application package. I only pulled a 48th percentile on mine and I was accepted at every graduate school to which I applied (Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc.)

What? Just don't.

You're assuming that they'll finally start handing out chemistry nobel prizes for work in chemistry. I think that's a big assumption.

The majority of jobs in corporate america prohibit beards. I also do not understand your swimsuit analogy. Everyone has two nipples and a belly-button, but not everyone has a tattoo. Tattoos can be shown not to be taboo only through the increasing exposure of tattoos by normal people to untattooed individuals. I have a functioning slide rule on my fingers. Tell me that's not awesome.

You should email the dean of admissions, but be sure to CC the president of the university and the chair of the program to which you're applying, as well as the head of the financial aid office. For example, if you were applying to Harvard and wanted to know how your second-author publication might affect your chances of admission I'd email the following people; they'll be happy to mull over your important concerns: Drew Faust Eric Jacobsen Dan Nocera

All of my instruments run in a unix environment. My simulations are conducted on a unix computing cluster. Everyone in my group, besides the European post-docs owns a mac as does nearly everyone else in my program. Unless your boss requires you to use Sigmaplot or OriginPro, you have no reason to purchase a PC. Macs can SSH and SFTP directly into your cluster without fumbling around. Macs can run Igor, Matlab, Mathematica, R faster than comparable PCs. Also, Preview is probably the most convenient program I've ever used for copying images from papers and saving them as .jpgs for inclusion in presentations. If you can learn how to use GIMP, you'll never need to pay for photoshop. Oh yeah, and MacPorts is probably the easiest way to install the software you're going to ever need. If you need to run a windows program, just use WINE. Most programs run well in that environment.

I have two finger tattoos and two lower arm tattoos and have received no sideways glances from the faculty at my stodgy ivy-league PhD program. Social mores are changing and I doubt you'll find much discrimination when applying for positions for which you are well-qualified. If you try to hide your tattoo like a dirty secret, boring people won't realize that you are tattooed and just like them and that the tattoo has no bearing on your ability to perform a certain job.. in other words, you're not helping the cause. I feel the same way about beards.. we need more of them in this world.

I attend the same school as you. My first year, I hardly put in any research work; rather, I spent my time covering my teaching/coursework requirements. I spent my evenings reading papers at the bar relevant to my research group. Things escalated over the Summer, and then petered off again over the Winter semester due to coursework and teaching issues. I find myself putting about ten to twelve hours a day during the week, and about six to eight per day on the weekends. I work seven days a week. If you don't have a project yet, don't sweat it too much. Do your best on the subproject you're assigned, and if you really feel like you have nothing to do, pester your PI for a project of your own. Feel free to PM me. I probably know you.

I brought my wife with me to all of my visitations. In most cases, the schools paid for the single-occupancy hotel room (as opposed to covering only half) and two of the schools paid her airfare. Additionally, when I mentioned that we wanted to explore the area for several days, one of the schools paid for our entire trip (three additional days at an expensive hotel). You might be able to guess that I picked that school, as financial resources for the students were evidently quite available.

Own your grades and don't apologize for it. Confidence in your abilities (and the expressed confidence of others in your letters of reference) are paramount. Talk about what projects you want to work on, and with whom. Don't get too specific, but you could maybe talk about how you want to, for example this is what I did: implement a method for in vivo super-resolution microscopy using thiol-capped quantum dots by exploiting their blink frequencies for point localization. etc. You aren't required to follow through on the plans.. You know, come up with an idea, state what you want to do with it and with which professor you'd like to do it. My GREs were 580V/730Q/4.5AW with a 3.8 GPA. Chem GRE was 48th percentile. I had no publications but two years of research... I was able to obtain entrance to every school (chemical physics at top 5 universities) at which I applied, despite my GRE scores. It helps if you have the confidence of a professor in the National Academy of Sciences or a similar prestigious organization.

Your subtitles are quite off.

Get out there and live a little. Drunk people are among the most fun types of people.

What did you expect, broah? Do you think we pepper our our face-to-face conversations with interjections of "indubitably" and end with "Sincerely, me" as we adjust our monocles?

Typically the approach one takes to solve a problem.. though there is a large bit of overlap. The difference is not as pronounced as say, biochemistry vs. chemical biology. In general, chemical physics programs are more selective.

Oh, my dear friend, you made the worst possible mistake: you confused chemistry with chemical physics. I wanted to illustrate that you don't need to have perfect scores to enter the most quantitatively demanding fields. You'll be fine. If you are not accepted, it won't be due to your GRE scores.

I lived in Perkins last year and it was awesome. It's a block away from the student-run bar and a short walk to the Law school gym.. with two bathrooms and kitchens on every floor what more do you need?

You're totally boned. I mean, my 730Q and 680V were obviously not good enough for the chemical physics program I do there. If I were you, I'd stop at nothing short of quantitative perfection. If need be, take the exam over and over and over and over again to prove to the school how numbers-oriented you truly are. They'll appreciate this.

BS. I only scored a 730 in quantitative and I got into every program to which I applied. I know many others in my program who also scored in the mid 700s for quantitative. GREs are nothing but formalities.

One of the people in charge of this took maternity leave, or so I heard. The office is a bit understaffed, so give it some time.

As one who designs heterogenous catalysts, I beg to differ; however, I'll save this argument for another day and another place.

Riverside, Irvine, Boulder, Harvard, CalTech, San Diego, UCLA, MIT, FSU, scripps.. Check out with where the authors of the papers and textbooks you've been reading are associated.

Only if you mean homogenous catalysts..