Eigen

Pretty sure if you're a dependent on taxes that you will have to file FAFSA with him, but I'm not positive. There's an age cutoff too, from what I recall. You're likely to get more exact information by contacting the financial aid office at your current school- they might be able to help you figure it out.

In general, I recommend not contacting professors after you've submitted your application, since it can be seen as a combination of pushy and trying to influence the admission process. You want to contact them ahead of time, and if you haven't heard back from them by the time you submit, it's probably best to just wait. If you mentioned them in your SoP, your application will probably make it by them at some point, and they may contact you then.

I actually may see him this week- if so, I'll ask him about it. I know the two graduate programs were not at the same school, and both were different from his undergrad (I think). I don't think there was more than an application cycle between the two, but I'm not positive. If I recall, the PI he works with now does a lot of bioanthropology work in the amazon rainforest, and some other people working with that advisor do a lot of work on hallucinogens and other natural medicinal agents, so I'm sure his background was useful to what he's doing now in that manner.

Actually, that's not usually true. I'm not sure of the exact data for the GRE with Kaplan and PR, but I'm pretty familiar with their MCAT reviews. For the MCAT, they target people primarily with scores below a 22 or 23 (this is out of 45), and if you're careful reading the fine print they say that they can't guarantee/show improvement if your starting score is already above average. From what I understand, the GRE works the same way. Everyone can gain a bit from reviewing how the test is put together and practicing, but where it really shows benefits is people trying to bring their scores up to average. People who're already scoring well don't usually see the same type of improvements. And, as with some of your other posts, please support the bolded statement. Where do you see that strong students get "much higher scores" when they use PR?

Not only this, but you rarely post again once you start the thread. It's quite frustrating. For my school, the professors are officially off Dec 23rd to Jan 2nd. Most of them will be in and out during that time, however. We're a research heavy school though- primarily undergraduate institutions or SLACS might have faculty that take much longer breaks between semesters. Other than that, I agree with Fuzzylogician. If you're asking because you're wondering about your letter writers, then ask your letter writers- not people from other schools of all different types across the US.

Support your argument. All you have is an unsupported observation- are you referring to your current school? Multiple schools? Nationwide? Masters, PHD?

I've got a colleague at my current university who went from Chemistry to Anthropology. He even did a bit of graduate work in Chemistry before he decided he wanted to work in the social sciences instead. So it's definitely possible- can't really give you much to go on past that.

It has nothing to do with age... It's the amount of experience. With two years, you might have the degree, but you wont have as many upper level courses as electives as you would in 4 years, and the most research experience you can have is two years, assuming you started when you started college. That will put you at a disadvantage when you're being compared to people with similar stats but a longer track record, more coursework, and a couple of more years of research experience.

The sciences have far more varying tasks than the social sciences most of the time. I assume you're a modeling related engineering field? If so you should have plenty of things to read and then apply, not to mention writing up summaries, notes, files of interesting code for future use... Not to mention the actual time writing and editing code. You should also have plenty of math to work through in terms of theory, derivations, an the synthesis or modification of new equations to use in your models. Sciences and engineering are some of the most diverse fields in terms of task variety- even those focused on computational work and modeling.

You can't post past year results, or I would. My admissions all I came in 2008 and I didn't join or find the Cafe until 2009 after my first semester.

I don't know about your programs, but most of the ones I'm familiar with do post-acceptance interviews- some before and some after funding offers. I think it sounds like you're a pretty solid candidate, and given that you fit well with the groups, you should be OK. Good luck!

From ETS, as well as the sources you mentioned. I think you hit on what is to me, the key part- better essays are often longer, but longer essays are not necessarily better. A lot of times I hear it repeated on these boards, it's that length is a benefit in and of itself, and I don't think that's correct- all of the ETS publications on scoring, etc. that I've read don't even mention length in their discussions.

Personally, I'd worry a bit about the GRE verbal score- the concordance chart our university is using places it at a 470 on the old exam (and a 51st Percentile), and you're a domestic applicant. That said, it shouldn't make a huge impact, it's just a bit on the low side. The real key, however, and something you didn't address at all, was how well your research fits the university, how many groups you feel like you could work with, and how well you discussed those possibilities in your personal statement. Additionally- was your research related to med chem? Any publications/talks etc? How well can you discuss your research, future prospects, etc? Overall, I think you've got a decent shot at the universities you've selected- you might not be the most competitive applicant, but you're not that bad off, I wouldn't think.

+/- 100 words is what I've heard as a "rough" feeling.... Here's a thread on the CHE forums you might find useful, basically all the prof's are pleading for shorter rather than longer- but it's for a 3000 word writing sample. YMMV. I'd say you're probably fine at 1060, but you could always e-mail and ask.

I'll add: go ahead and get your applications in. Lots of schools in Chem do rolling admissions, and it never hurts to get in the stack early. I know our adcom really prefers to look at people as they send them in! I got all of my applications out various times in October, and I had all my admits by November- it worked out really well, as I was able to schedule visits to the schools over Winter Break. You don't necessarily have a handicap if you submit late in the season, but I think at a lot of programs, it's really helpful to get them in as early as possible.

Eh, even if you get a 1 and a 5, you'll still get a 3.5 average. I wouldn't worry too much about an average AW score, most adcoms really don't seem to pay that much attention to them. Wait to get the actual score, then see about adding an explanation/addendum, depending. Since you're in the humanities, are you submitting writing samples with your application? If so, the adcoms will see a full sample of your writing, as well as what is presented in your SoP.

I think revision and strong organization is more important than length, but that's just me. As I've asked in other threads, I'd really like to see some of the data showing strong correlations between length and score- it's something that crops up often, but doesn't seem at all correct to me based on the essays/scores I've seen. Also, if you look over the grading guidelines for the essays, length isn't even mentioned. Heck, they even have sample essays and grades to look over. I think it's about the grammatical correctness, good word choice, organization and structure.

I wouldn't worry so much about entrance exams (usually where the ACS standards are used). They really aren't that difficult, and are rarely heavily used/enforced by the department. I just went through my textbooks and notes from undergrad (since I was most familiar with them) the week or so before the test.

Pnictides- this has been discussed in other (more current) threads. Seems like that might be a better place to ask instead of reviving an old less pertinent topic. But, as I said there, I'm not aware of any programs that allow late drops, at least not without full written permission by the department.

Yes and no. I think faculty are also pretty understanding of "I was getting burnt out, and needed to take a year off to step back and gain some perspective before diving back in". It's better to have someone that's taken time off and is sure that this is what they really want to do then someone who's come straight from an undergrad program and is partially burnt out already. If you took time off and still wanted to come back, you're probably less likely to decide in the first semester that it's just not for you. That's not to say you shouldn't have anything to show for the year, but it doesn't necessarily have to be an all-academic push. Just my 2 cents worth.

Your situation doesn't sound all that different from most students I know in your stage in related fields (we have a large laser chem/optics section of our department). If your advisor says you can graduate in a year, I'd trust him. Dissertation proposals don't have to mirror your research. You can change topical areas entirely if your chair (your advisor) is onboard. And really, when it comes down to it, if your advisor (dissertation chair) feels like you've done enough to graduate, chances are your dissertation will pass review. You may be expecting too much of yourself, and he may have a more realistic idea of how much your dissertation will need to include. I'd say your best course would be to sit down with him (since he's said you can graduate in a year) and ask him if the two of you can work out something of a timeline/discuss what results you need before you start writing up. Maybe seeing what he expects from a gameplan will help, and will get both of you on the same page. As to the research not being exactly what you want- you're so close I'd say to just suck it up and finish (assuming that the above discussion lets you see that as plausible). Your graduate research doesn't have to be the same thing you want to do for the rest of your life- you just need to do it and move on. You can take post-doc positions in areas closer to what you ultimately see yourself doing to get experience. I'll also agree with StrangeLight that what he's requiring of you sounds like pretty good training, especially on an instrument that's in high demand. If the instrument was less busy and/or inexpensive to operate, winging it isn't that bad of an idea. But otherwise, you need really good theory and proposals before you start- literature precedents, and a good idea of what you expect to see.

I certainly wouldn't drop out before you have to. As others have said, adjusting to grad school is hard! Give yourself time to adjust, and work hard to pull up next semester. Also, ask around (grad students) about how academic probation is used. There are people in my program that have been on academic probation for several years- it gives departments a way to dismiss you, but they don't *have* to.

If they're anything like ours (and it seems like they are), they're just a pretty soul-crushing experience. My first Organic cume gave two Nobel prize winning syntheses... and asked me to improve upon their elegance and suggest ways to shorten the overall process. I had another one that asked me to diagram, in detail, the biological pathways as well as the prevalent solid phase syntheses of oligonucleotides, including all reagents and protecting groups. One inorganic exam was a blank piece of paper, on which we were asked to draw the full periodic table. 1 point for each element correct, -1 point for each one with anything incorrect. They're extremely variable, and there really is no way to effectively *study* for them. Ours are given by discipline, but all in the same room- the first Wednesday of each month. We meet at 7 pm, and have until 10 or 11- they put three exams up at the front of the room, and you work what you can/want to, and turn them in. Each professor in the department writes one exam per semester, and they rotate randomly. Topics can be anything the professor wants to give- we've had exams asking for stockroom prices of common reagents, details from other work of a recent seminar speaker, to basic questions from the discipline. We have to pass 2 exams in our first two years, and then 6 by the end of our 3rd- 3 have to be in our subdiscipline. For Organic, at least, about 1-2 grad students pass each one. Grading is totally up to the faculty member- some require 90+%, some require only around 50% to pass. Some grade based on performance- they pass one or two of the best scores on the exam. The advice I usually give to first years in my program is to just go and do your best. You might find it worth asking around- we all have kept copies of cume exams we've both passed and failed, and it can give you some things to practice on. That said, none of the exams I looked over before I started helped me at all- it just came down to being familiar with most of the stuff in my field with a nice side of luck and good timing. On preview, the information at http://www.chem.purd...Exams/GSABA.htm is very, very useful, and very similar to what I gave- just do your best, don't panic, and experiment with various levels of alcohol intake prior to and following exams. Most of us only passed one or two our first semester, then more in the second semester, and pretty easily wrapped up in the third. Passing exams out of your area of discipline gets much harder the farther you are out of classes, so it's worth going to every exam you can early on.

We have some deadlines, but I find deadlines in research are really hard- you have to assume things will work out, and that's rarely the case (at least in lab-bench type work). Our usual deadlines revolve around grants- submission/resubmission times- as we try to get as much preliminary and supporting data as possible. I had a personal goal set of getting out a publication by the end of the year... But I had quite a few equipment breakages and other issues, and that just won't happen. I think it's important to mix between hard deadlines and realizing that some things just become un-meetable, and reassessing. I'm more of a fan of setting work goals for myself (ie, how many hours of work I'm going to put in a week) instead of progress goals, since progress goals are much less predictable. My PI is generally happy with us if we're just putting in the time and we have good directions, and pretty understanding if results just aren't appearing/we have to switch up our projects.

It's very dependent on the individual. I didn't, and that was the right decision or me... My wife took a year off, and that was by far the right decision for her.