chemblah

I'll be going to the Materials Chemistry Visit weekend at UIUC (March 5-7) and the UT Austin visit weekend in February, feel free to say hello if you see me!

No one has given me RSVP deadlines! But Austin said the February date is filling up soon...

I guess that's the problem, there isn't much of a hierarchy between the last 4 schools. I know I will visit UIUC, I already have a connection with a prof there and had a great phone call with another prof I am interested in working as well. So I guess I will need to spend some time really thinking about the remaining three schools this weekend...

Let me preface this by saying, the problem I am facing is an excellent problem to have. I applied to 6 schools: UIUC, UW Seattle, UNC-Chapel Hill, UT Austin, MIT and Cal Tech. I heard back and have been accepted to all but my top two schools: Cal Tech and MIT. I haven't heard from these two yet, so I don't know if I got in. If by some magic I got accepted to these two I would absolutely need to visit! So if I got accepted (by some magic) to all 6 schools and even if I wanted to visit all of them, I couldn't. Some of the visit weekends conflict, so in theory I could visit only 5 schools. However, the ACS National meeting is in the midst of all these visits so traveling that much probably isn't a good idea anyway... So here's the deal: How many schools should you visit? How many is too many? How do I choose which ones NOT to visit?? Should I contact MIT or Cal Tech to feel out my chances or let them know the situation? Do I reserve Cal Tech and MIT's visit weekends just in case I get in? I don't want to waste an opportunity to visit another school if I get rejected, but if I get accepted, I don't want to have to turn down visits to my dream schools (and miss vital info on making my final decision) because I already committed to visiting another school.... If anyone is curious here are the visit weekend options: Feb 27: Seattle, Austin, Cal Tech* Mar 6: UIUC (already committed to this one) Mar 13: UNC, Seattle Mar 20: Cal Tech* Mar 22-26: ACS Denver Meeting Mar 27: MIT*, Austin, UNC *Don't know if I am invited yet Also my stats: I attend a medium sized undergraduate private uni, 3 domestic research internships (one at a Community College while in dual enrolled in college and high school, the other two at R1 unis), an international REU, Goldwater Scholar, 3 posters, 1 pub in preparation, GPA 3.98 , Chem GPA 4.0, math and physics minors, GRE 157V, 157Q, 4.5W, CHEM GRE 680 I appreciate any advice! Thank you!!