Monstercookie

You might want to keep an open mind and explore the options you have. In particular, I would strongly encourage taking advantage of any opportunity to visit institutions where you have been accepted. You may find that your perspectives change when you get to develop a personal relationship with a department and the people. I think putting your faith in one specific institution can be unwise, in particular a place like MIT. Even if you are likely to get in next cycle, you may find that you don't enjoy the institution as much as you though. My very personal feeling is that MIT Chemistry has a rather unique atmosphere that may not be a great fit for everyone. It is certainly a great institution, but that alone does not make it a good place for you. Be careful with what you wish for. What is your basis for saying that no school would accept a student who has previously rejected an offer? I think most faculty understand that graduate students are allowed to have second thoughts and doubts. I think the chances of getting accepted in a later cycle depends on if the student will be able to develop over the year so that the application will be significantly different from the previous year. Just having been through the cycle once, especially if the student visited institutions as a prospective student, may be quite helpful. I don't have any experience with reapplying, but I feel that my perspectives changed dramatically over the period between being accepted and arriving as a first year student.

I'm not so sure that the ChemGRE necessarily mean more for international students. I have read it many times on this forum, but never hear anything or seen any evidence for it outside of thegradcafe. What I do know is that almost everyone admitted at my institution has taken it and done well. Regarding scores, I think anything in the 800s is great but you can certainly get away with less than that. I used a YouTube video series for OChem prep and found it very helpful. I think the series I used was aimed towards the MCAT, but that really makes no difference. I knew very little OChem beforehand, but felt like I did very well on the OChem parts of the test.

I would call your current position "Lecturer". Assistant professor means something very different in the US. A Lecturer is someone who is hired to teach in undergraduate education. An Assistant Professor has a tenure track position, implying an independent research group and own funding.

I think we are essentially saying the same thing. I do think just about everyone are well suited, but realizing that it's not what you want to do for the next 5 or so years is rather normal. Students should certainly be open to quitting their program if they decide it's not what they want to do, but no one should quit because they feel that they aren't capable. A thick skinned attitude may serve you well at some points in life, but that doe not mean that we should encourage or normalize such climates.

I really do believe that essentially everyone who comes into a PhD program are well suited candidates. There's nothing that special about grad school as a whole. Some groups and some places may be rather destructive and only cater to people with certain personalities, but I am sure that is not the norm and it most definitely should not be. That said, many people may find that they don't enjoy grad school or don't feel all that motivate by it and in that case it most definitely makes sense to leave (with a masters or otherwise). There always seems to be a clique of people who carry the "thick skinned" attitude, and seem to cherish keeping those attitudes in place. Lets not be those people.

Although this thread is sort of old, I feel that I need to chime in. I strongly agree with madbiochemist. Forgeinstudent, you can do this! If you got accepted you certainly have what it takes. It's hard to know exactly where you are struggling, but I also sort of get the impression that you may be asking to much of yourself. For example in regards to research proposals, your professor may have wanted you to come in an share some broad ideas of what you might be interested in working on - just something to start of in as you and your PI start developing a project for you. In general: Try to do what's being asked of you, but don't stress if you feel that you are not always doing a great job at it. At early stages in your studies I think it's usually fine as long as you do 'something'. I find that many of the posts in this thread are being rather insensitive of Forgeinstudents situation, in particular by (often indirectly) questioning Forgeinstudents work ethics. I think that is very unfortunate. Clearly, someone starting a thread like this struggles with very real issues. We should focus on discussing constructive solutions to the situation. I'm sure there is a ton of experience out there, and people who might be able to identify and suggest ways to cope. Please focus on helping rather than questioning those who are already difficult situations. Forgeinstudent, hang in there! Try to find ways to overcome your struggles, but don't blame yourself if some things don't turn out well. Most of all, do not under any circumstances listen to people who imply that you are not cut out of grad school.

I would advice agains generalizations. I'm at a top-10 and find the community incredibly supportive. There are a few professors who aren't the best, but overall it's not bad at all. Overall, I think most top schools are generally great environments to do a PhD. However, most people at these places will have high ambitions and very high expectations on themselves. A good question to ask yourself is if you fit in with the people at these schools. If you do it can be a great experience, if you don't it might not be the best fit.

I would echo many of the things yolo963 mentioned. Most importantly, over all else, drop ALL negative remarks. By negative I mean not only straight out negatives like "serverly limited opportunities" or "not enough intellectual stimulation", but also comments like your first sentence about the cars. They give a very poor impression of your character. Focus on why you want to do things and your passions. Avoid over usage of complicated words. It seems like you are trying to impress by showing that you know tricky GRE-type words, which also contributes negatively towards your character. Avoid cliché statements, no one likes to read those. Drop the whole intro paragraph, it is overly cliché. It is good to have something personal and eye-catching in the intro. However, it needs to be truly personal and highly relevant to your passion for science and what you what to do. Use less "me" and "I", everyone knows its about you. I would skip the descriptions of your labs and work places. If anyone is interested they can look it up, if they're not already familiar with it. This is about you. Write about what YOU did. You write a lot about what "we" did, which makes your contribution very unclear. If I was in a committee reading your letter I would more or less assume that you did nothing of it, as I would trust that you'd specify what you actually did. Sometimes I think your text is overly descriptive. This is not a place to describe your research in detail. I would still mention major techniques (such as air-free synthesis or advanced instrumentation) that you are familiar with. However, don't let it take up a lot of space and make sure that it comes naturally in your text. Hope my comments are helpful to you!

Sending a weaker application just to be early sounds like I very bad idea to me. I won't claim to be very knowledgeable in regards to this, but I can't imagine an early application would make much of a difference. For example, I'm fairly certain that it makes no difference at my current school, and it's probably the same for many others. Does anyone have reliable sources on the importance of early submissions? I know that some schools start looking at applications, or even start admitting, before the deadlines. However, I wouldn't necessarily assume this implies that early applications are favored. From what I gathered, it's generally clear if an applicant has what the school wants or not, and as there are often no strict limits on the number of accepted students they can safely start admitting as soon as the applications drop in. I think you shouldn't worry too much about getting ahead of the pack. In most cases, although of course not always, you're mainly competing with yourself; if you have what the school wants they'll admit you.

I don't quite agree with Eigen regarding his view on your ChemE degree. I come from a ChemE background and have never had that held against me, rather the opposite. I feel that the professors and students I meet at my university (top tire chem program), as well as those I met on other similar schools during visitation weekends and other events, tend to view my background as a strength. Being willing to and having the guts to do something significantly different from what you have experience in is viewed very favorably in my experience.

I won't claim to be particularly knowledgable regarding these topics, considering that I'm an international and haven't started the program yet. However, I have some comments based on the impressions I got during the graduate student visitation weekends and my own situation as an international. I experienced that a large fraction of the incoming graduate students had, at least in my perspective, unrealistic expectations and ways of reasoning regarding their life choices. It was not uncommon to hear comments along the line of "It is reasonable to give up all my interests and suffer for the coming 5-6 years, because that will prepare me for a wonderfull TT position". I find this disturbing for many reasons, but in particular because realistically only a few will actually go on to TT positions. In addition, I had the impression that there was a general feeling, projected from both students and professors, that the academic path is the only truly honorable path. I think these attitudes are different from what I'm use to from home. At my undergraduate university, I feel that most people who go into PhDs do it mainly out of interest, and that there are no particular "rules" regarding what you should or shouldn't do after graduation. Even though the TT job market is probably worse than in the U.S., I don't feel that people have the same level of concer regarding their future prospects. There are probably many reasons for this, one surely being that the general environment here is not nearly as competetive; however, I would not be surprised if the attitudes play a large part. Students know what they're getting into and plan their PhDs according to their personal desires and needs, and faculty tend to be supportive. That said, there is a fair bit of uncertainty and job market anxiety here as well, but it doesn't seem to be on the scale scale. I got the impression that many students in America are going into programs with rather uncompromising attitudes, putting all their focus working towards an academic position without seriously considering other options. Additionally, faculty may be fueling this by portraying academia as the only acceptable path. Driven by these kinds of attitudes, students might be tailoring themselves for jobs that they likely won't ever get. I'm thinking that the biggest issue is that graduate studies are covered in a sort of lie, claiming that the purpose of the studies is to pursue an academic career, while in reality only a fraction of the students follow that path. If so, the attitudes need to change. Students need to know what their prospects are, and the programs need to adapt so that the students get appropriate training in regards to where they will be going after graduation. On another topic, I've read a number of comments regarding implementing tougher quals/proposals/whatevertheymaybecalled to weed out a large fraction of the students after the first year. I'd just like to add that from and international student perspective this would be horrenderous. Starting graduate studies as an international often involves uprooting your whole life and moving to another continent, which is not trivial to say the least. Coupling this with possibly getting thrown out after a year would be nerve wrecking. The relocation process is hardly reversible; for example, if I had to move back after a year I would not be able to get a decent appartment, I would have lost a large sum of money and I would have to rebuild my whole life again. In addition, I might not be able to find a job/get into a new program for a while. I won't make any claims regarding whether such implementations would be good or bad when considering a greater picture, but I hope you will consider the situations of international students when discussing such suggestions. As mentioned, I hardly have the experience to be an authority on these topics, and I'm just presenting my own highly speculative ideas.

A few comments: I got into several top programs with a European BSc and no publications. I don't think it's true that you need 90+ percentiles on your GREs as some claim. What matters is the overall quality of your application; if you have no major flaws (in comparison with other top students) and a couple of really strong points I think you should stand a chance. Regarding visiting weekends: all schools I was accepted to offered the same travel package for me as for American students, consisting of a $250-450 maximum reimbursement depending on school. In my case three schools shared my travel expenses, which was enough to cover the whole trip. You can message me for more information, and in particular I might have some advice on how to build a strong case during the coming year or two.

Not as far as I remember. Sort of freaked me out as well!

I'll be attending March 19th-21st. Looking forward to it! I surely need some of that California sunshine

I'm international and I don't have any publications, so I don't think you should worry to much about publications. I would think, in regards to your research, the LORs are what matters. If they describe your work in an attractive way, and they are deemed trustworthy, I doubt a publication makes much of a difference. I think all adcoms will be aware that if an undergrad publishes or not is very much a factor of what kind of projects they get, rather than their own input.