Eigen

Kindle DX is an option, although it's the most expensive. I ended up deciding to go with a 1st Gen iPad for this, the sale prices made them reasonable enough with the launch of the new version. It has a backlit screen which isn't ideal, but the reading/annotation of PDFs makes it worthwhile for me. It gets in Monday, so I'll have more comments on it then. I had the Sony PRS for a while, but it wasn't great for PDFs- you could zoom in if you needed to, but really too small of a screen with very slow scrolling/loading.

Not to mention that the match system also doesn't allow you to definitely specify an *area* for your residency. I can't imagine many grad students being happy with getting shunted from say, chemistry to physics or biology just because there were more openings in those fields/they weren't competitive enough for chemistry (choosing semi-random related fields here, it applies across the board).

I think a lot of people focus on getting a recommendation from a "star" professor, and I think that is not at all necessary. A professor that knows you well and thinks you can do well in graduate school is all that's needed. Graduate admissions really isn't all that complex: Do well in classes, have a good understanding of the base material, have several years of in-depth research experience (that you can explain and discuss well) have some good extra-curriculars/awards/society memberships, and have 3 professors that know you well enough to write good, personal letters for you by the time you graduate.

Granted, this is quite an old post- but for other people that might be looking: Grossman's book (mentioned above) is quite good. For a book that's more on the reference end, Carey and Sundberg's Advanced Organic Chemistry two volume set is quite good. For protecting groups, Greene's Protective Groups is a must-have reference book for a synthetic organic chemist, and Kocienski's Protecing Groups is a good companion- not so much reference, and a lot more readable. Not nearly the breadth of Greene's, however. I also am a fan of March's Advanced Organic Chemistry. Nice reference, and has some explanations and details the others don't- mostly hard-soft acid-base theory and woodward-hoffman rules.

IF you're going this direction, get a short lease if you possibly can. There were several in my class who got short leases, and then were able to meet someone in the department to room with.

Agreed. If you started as a PhD student, and ended with an MS... This can be easily misconstrued as you being kicked out with a courtesy MS.

I think a lot of this has to do with how large the "gaps" are between the tiers. I think a lot of what I've been seeing people say this year is that probably the first 3 tiers of students (ie, 3x the number of spots) are all excellent students they'd be fine with having. As to the unfunded 2nd tier... A lot of schools will offer the funding from a first tier to a second tier student if possible.

But I'm talking about across all majors. Sure, of those 15 only two were in the sciences... But the point still stands- a 4.0 is quite hard to get.

I'm guessing the 37k is the tuition waiver for a year. Masters programs seem to be all over the place compared to PhD programs, in which the funding is more standard. I know our neuroscience program offers no funding at all to MA students, for what it's worth.

Honestly, with accept dates being April 15th, I wouldn't start calling schools until the first week of April. Maybe the last few days of March... But you still have quite some time until you have to make decisions, so I'd let it ride.

To top programs? I know the undergrad that applied out of our lab had three letters from research advisors- one from our group, one from an inorganic group they'd worked with, and one they worked with for a year in Paris while they were studying abroad. Mine varied from program to program- there was the research advisor I had for 3 years of work, the others were professors I'd either done collaborations with, or done independent study work with.

That's about what I remember. I applied to a top-10, and two well known but small lower ranked ones.. Interestingly enough, after getting into them all I went to the lowest ranked and am quite happy.

If you're looking to self-study Inorganic... Maybe Shriver & Atkins? It covers a full 2-semester inorganic course. It's a rather annoying book in many ways, but I found it very complete. It's what I used to study for entrance exams. Crabtree's "The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals" was what we used in grad school, and I like the book- it's very readable. And Crabtree's awesome- I got him to sign my book last semester when he spoke at one of our seminars. It's mostly organometallic chemistry, but the introductory chapters are nice basic descriptive inorganic stuff. Shriver and Atkins has it all, though. McQuarrie's math reviews are great- it hadn't been quite that long for me, but it had been long enough. I actually picked up our libraries copy of his "Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers" and kept it on my shelf as reference for quite sometime.

I started grad school in '09 actually... So I guess I was the 2009 application season? I didn't find the boards here until the end of my first semester, so I can't really comment much on my cohort. Sorry about the "he" thing... Missed my "s"!

Wow, you're all about digging up old posts today! I like Garret and Grisham for biochemistry, and I like Levine for Physical Chemistry. Stay far, far away from Levine's specialized QM text though- very good, but very difficulty. I really liked McQuarrie's QM book, but am not familiar with his other PChem texts.

To the former, she's saying that lots of people seem to be only applying to top schools, as opposed to a wider selection in years past. R1 denotes a first tier research university.

Sure. I just know that when I was preparing my NSF app this year, I was told I definitely should not put on "declined" fellowships- most of which were fellowships from other schools that I declined along with the admission offer. They are still nice "feathers in the cap" so to speak, especially the ones from top-10 schools... But the consensus among my advisors was that it might be more detrimental than beneficial to put them on.

I've also had professors tell me that it's a really, really tacky move to put "declined" fellowships on your CV. But yes, a lot of the prestige doesn't come from winning it, but from keeping the funding and networking opportunities it provides. If you turn down the fellowship, you don't spend three years as an "NSF Pre-Doctoral Fellow"... You just were offered (and declined) an award at some point in the past. Basically, it's a nice perk on a resume, but not nearly as good as if you accept it.

So by following this advice, where have you gotten in this year? It seems like you're telling people who have successfully navigated the admissions process (and now have our bosses talking to us about how they pick graduate students) that we're wrong in the best way to go about a productive career in science. I know every professor I know would consider your advice really, really bad for someone who wanted to pursue an academic career. They want people who have their own ideas- solid ones- from the start of the application. Ideas that build on things that are currently being done. Scientific research is about being novel. New ideas, new ways to do things... Those are what the NSF and NIH fund. You're getting down-rated because your conclusions are quite honestly bad- we want to make sure people don't come here, read them, and think they are widely accepted methods for successfully getting into graduate school- especially since you are generalizing them as a conclusion from our poll votes. When people see a post they dislike/disagree with, they vote it down. That doesn't make them "haters". It is the purpose of the little red minus button at the bottom of each post. I don't, however, believe I'm going to convince you- and beyond that, it's the right if each person to choose how they want to apply, what strategy they think is best. Best of luck with your applications following through with your methodology.

You keep talking about "fitting" the department. You don't "fit" a department.... you "fit" a particular professor/research group. The Department likely won't have a particular leaning as far as its research, most strive to cover as many different bases as possible. And most research groups will only be taking 1-2 students (likely 1) per application cycle. Which means if it's a popular area, there will be a ton of students competing for that one spot.... And lots fewer competing for spots in other groups. If your research interests "fit" a less popular group that has room and funding, and there are far fewer people interested in that area... That will be a huge perk in your application. That said, I still think you're completely off base on trying to tailor your research interests to something mainstream. Pick something that interests you, and then find one program among the 100+ out there that has faculty specializing in that, and you'll stand a good chance at getting in. Another thing to keep in mind: "mainstream" areas fade/change fast. You may end up having a better shot at getting into grad school (pick a hot topic, it's still hot two years later during grad school apps) but by the time you're on the market for a post-doc and job... The area will likely not be so hot anymore, and it will be way harder to land a job- the market is flooded with people who went into said "hot topic", and no one really wants to fund it that much anymore.

Heh... I also just noted looking through who voted for what options that there were definitely some people that didn't read the "choose 3" part of your poll.... I'm looking at you, Chaospaladin- you voted for every option! Also several people who voted for 4 options. Definitely skewing the results some.

Popular research interests will hurt as much as help your application... They're popular, which also makes them way, way more competitive. You need to develop your research interests, and then apply based on those. I mean, maybe if you're talking to a Freshman or Sophomore about developing their research interests this might apply (when they still have 3ish years to develop a background in that area) but otherwise, you should go based off what your interest has been and your background is in. I think it's pretty apparent in admissions when someone is just parroting interests that the department has, vs. a defined interest in an area that the department also has research in. If not in the SOP itself, it will be extremely obvious upon interviews. You won't be able to have a rational explanation for why you're interested in a research topic or how you got there... And that's important in convincing a department of "fit". But to reinforce what fuzzylogician has said... If you are picking your research interests to give you a better shot at a school, you probably won't make it through a PhD- it's long, it's tiring, and unless you have a truly abiding interest in what you're studying, it's absolutely brutal.

I had a bunch of ::coughbullshitcough:: classes my last semester- the music credit I hadn't taken, a technical writing class that was painfully easy, etc... It was really hard to stay focused. So to help, about a week into the semester I went and asked some professors teaching graduate classes in other related departments if I could sit in.... It gave me something challenging and different to focus on, and really helped. The Statistical Thermodynamics class I took in the physics department helped a lot, and I actually made a nice connection with that prof. Finding something you can really get into is good. If you're doing research, diving into that helps- if not, find some research to dive into! If you have an idea where you're going to be studying/what area you're going to be working in, start working your way through that literature and coming up with ideas.

It's pretty common to be required to take classes that have a lot of material you've already seen. I wouldn't fight it too hard, honestly. It's just one class.

I haven't checked to see if they changed the methodology... But if they're still going off of the old one, there were a huge number of flaws in the ranking system, especially in how it weighted funding. For accurate "ratings" I'd go with the NRC over US News and World Report.