eeee1923

You'd be quite a strong contender with your stats (I also was a ChemE undergrad)

I guess I'll defend my original statement a bit. I am totally an advocate for lifelong learning but unless you want to do something super specific like an MD/PhD working for the CDC or another career line that requires a combo of advanced degrees, I still feel it is not necessary. You can learn quite a lot without having to go back and sit through another degree. If you have the time and money to do so - then do it. My whole point is that an advanced degree provides one with the tools to be an independent learner, researcher, etc. Those are the skills you've gained - so eventually you should pick a career where you can further develop those skills but that by no means means that one should stop learning. I don't plan on doing so but unless the landscape of my future career path changes dramatically, I won't be going back to earn another advanced degree.

I have lived in the Midwest for the last 10 yrs or so. Most of the people tend to be pretty open and genuinely nice which is a plus. The weather has a mind of its own but you get used to it. The school systems tend to be pretty good in the suburban areas. These are some of the basics I've noticed living in a few places in the Midwest but you may want to be more specific on where you are thinking of relocating since not every part of the Midwest is the same. Hope this helps a bit.

I would suggest you don't send a thank you email since its over 3 days. At this point if you want to touch base, you should wait about another week since adcomms typically take 2-3 weeks to make their decisions.

emotional upswing

I know what you mean. I'm heavily leaning toward my top choice but I need to justify every little detail about why its the best choice. Ugh - I wish I could glance into the future and ensure it's not the wrong choice.

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Chicago is more expensive of an area to live in. Also you have to consider what your future career goals are when choosing - maybe one of the programs is better primed to help you in your future path.

Among the top applicants and especially in programs with many international applicants, the Quant and verbal sections tend to be very similar (>90 percentile), so many programs use the writing as a sort of filter (80+ percentile) to seriously consider applicants. In general, at the graduate level one would have to do a lot of writing, so YES - writing is important.

After the first year is the funding the responsibility of your PI + your academic performance? You should probably ask the program. Also if you want to teach going to a solid school for your doctorate training is important but things like landing a postdoc at a high impact institute tend to be more imperative (at least from what I've heard and discussed with my mentors).

Also consider your future prospects - academia, industry, etc. Some institutes have more ties to one of those potential routes than the others.

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Nope - it is not common. Some students are fortunate enough to get a publication during undergrad (which positively impacts the grad application package) but it is by no means expected and/or needed to get into a graduate program.

army bunker

My favorite chem books (I own the editions listed so if they've been updated I would assume there aren't too many differences): Organic Chemistry: - Leroy Wade (7th & 8th Editions) - One of the best intro level o-chem books I've ever read (I still referenced it when I took my advanced and synthetic o-chem classes) - John McCurry (7th Edition) - Good reference Biochemistry: - Lehninger (Nelson & Cox), 5th & 6th Editions - Classics, awesome and very well written Physical Chemistry: - Atkins (8th Edition) - generally ok reference - Levine (6th Edition) - good Quantum: - Lowe (3rd Edition) - I found it to be helpful but I found it hard to track down really good quantum books Inorganic Chemistry: - Miesslerr (3rd Edition) - I found it to be ok but with the same limitations as the quantum books

Haha that's brilliant - if only someone could actually get a response doing that.

Jeez, you really painted a vivid picture with that comment

army invasion

Since they are both pretty comparable - it will come down to whether you want to live somewhere fun for a couple years or in as you put it, an "ok" place. You should strive to do good science during your PhD, but you also want to be somewhere where you could have fun since you won't be locked away in a lab 24/7 for 4-5 yrs.

Absolutely. I'm very pleased with how this application season went, but now I got to really do some soul-searching and calculating to make the right decision. If only hindsight wasn't 20/20.

The way I'm doing it is semi-arbitrary. So for things such as stipend, I would calculate my minimum living expenses coupled with the cost of living in the area and see which funding package would allow me to meet this minimum value. If it does, then I would give it a 0.45-0.5, any excess over this would push that value closer to 1 (in my case one of my top choices is offering $8K more than my the lowest funding package which I could live off, therefore I assigned it a 0.9). For aspects such as research fit, I see if there are at least 3 PIs I could seriously see myself working with (0.5 = 3 PIs; >0.6 = 4+ PIs; <0.5 = 2 PI or less). I'm still working on it and will adjust it as I think of more aspects needed to make the most informed decision (talking to department, visiting, etc). Hopefully that will give you a good starting point.

Well all my decisions are in - it's time to make one of the biggest choices in my life (at least for the next few years). Hopefully I should reach a decision within the next 2 weeks.