kseeful

This is a really great topic, as I've been struggling to navigate this myself. I'm not really in a position to be very open about my grad school plans at work. It's not necessarily that my colleagues wouldn't be supportive, it's just a complicated situation. I've been thinking that I will confirm somewhere this spring, and around June 1st I will officially let my supervisor know, which gives me up to three months to wrap things up and get things in order. I've had others say that giving more than two weeks notice is generally bad though, since it makes you a "lame duck" at work.
I mentioned grad school in my interview for this position, but my timeline was accelerated a bit. I've been told that this is a really common step for employees, especially for 20-somethings and I shouldn't feel guilty about it. That said, it does make me feel a little more secretive and disingenuous than I'd prefer.

Well, it sounds like a dirty little secret when I put it that way...
But I'm currently employed way outside of my field and when I was job searching, it became clear very quickly that I couldn't mention grad school if I wanted a job, so it felt like something I always had to hide at my current job. So far, I've heard back from one school who invited me to an open house and I'm taking PTO for it (and I'm out very sick this week, fudge...) but I'm worried - what if another school invites me and I'm taking all this time off... should I just eventually explain it to my employer? BONUS! What if I explain it to my employer and then don't get into grad school??? AWKWARD.

That's really good to know. We should all have a gallon of hot toddies apiece. 

@BooksCoffeeBeards I'm so sorry  Is there anything we can do to help other than telling you that you're still awesome?

Oh, I'm so sorry.

The link doesn't work man just copy and paste it here

May all your terrible mistakes be as terrible as this one and no worse. That is to say: this is not a terrible mistake, not even close. I don't even know if I'd call it a mistake at all. You're not a native speaker; your transcripts are clear about your degree, and the wording on your CV, while not the best to choose, won't cause you any harm. Just change it for future reference so it looks more like something that a North American audience will understand. Your intended wording sounds fine. 
And in the name of all that is holy, people, please, stop reading your submitted materials. 

Ugh, I know what you mean!  Everyone, my parents, my grandmother, my fiancé's parents and so on, all keep saying "I'm sure you'll get in!"  My response is always to remind them how competitive these programs are, but they don't seem to think there's a chance I won't get in.  I'm terrified that I won't get into school because I really, really want to go to grad school this fall, but also because they'll all be so disappointed.  Hopefully that won't happen!
The only one who has said "It'll be okay if you don't" is my fiancé, and I'm not convinced that he completely believes it either.

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!
 
 

I would completely drop / change the first paragraph. I sense that talking about monetary motivation (even when you are not after it) in any way when you're going to be paid like shit for 5-8 years is a terrible idea.
I would not use the word "things" in an official piece like this
Air free synthesis.... Not uncommon in undergrad. Everyone knows how to use a glovebox if they've worked a summer. 
I would make the first part of your essay more personal after all this is when you made the (bad by the way) decision to go to gradschool because you fell in love with chemistry.  Not by using more flashy adjectives but by describing something in more detail. I have no idea what reactions you did and what the challenges were, if you optimized etc. For all the admissions knows you've just replicated someone else's notebooks and compared your data. 
Same goes for the biotech industry. Chemical biology is a bunch of kits with instructions where if it works it works and you're lucky, if it fails..god why? Details of optimizations or anything. something specific that started your interest then just bunch all the kit business in one sentence and move on. 
If the company you work for is the fastest growing i'd bet universities know already. get rid of that sentence it says nothing about you.
Don't end sentences in prepositions "like." it's still a thing after college to not do that
There's too many words dedicated to techniques or bond dissociation energies or really things that belong in a notebook not a personal statement that explains your motivation. Running hplc is not what is bringing you to gradschool.
 
Also i assume you know but all graduate schools will want you to teach. You may want to do industry but if you don't say anything about any teaching love that may be a minus...
 
Good luck

@GeoDUDE! *Fingers crossed*  Yes, when I attend grad school

Got an email from a POI at WHOI-MIT joint program asking me whether I'm interested in the POI's project (this POI was not listed in my application). Obviously not a guarantee of admission, but it's good to hear at least something for the first time from any school since forever.

Rejected from Brown! Woohoo, the fun just keeps coming!

hey, could you please tell me how to to that?







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wii accessories, wii remote, ps3 controller, xbox 360 controller

Not a .gif but please forgive me. Watching people get responses from their schools...

@kseeful I was accepted, shockingly! 

Bad idea. You'll come across as very impatient, and programs have deadlines for a reason. 

If you report it to only one decimal place, your number is correct. It's trivial and not worth worrying about.

Getting no emails

 
Getting school-unrelated emails

 
Getting "we got your transcript" emails

 
Finally getting an email from the program!!!!!

Haha, here's a good one from today: Each word in their rejection notification cost me $1.55...

Not a .gif but please forgive me. Watching people get responses from their schools...

Not a .gif but please forgive me. Watching people get responses from their schools...

Not a .gif but please forgive me. Watching people get responses from their schools...

I can't prove that teaching ability is not passed down genetically, but dude, nobody wants to see this.