sk8er determinant

Hey i went to a cuny college for undergrad and I'm quite familiar with the chemistry professors at Brooklyn college. From what i know, youll be doing your rotations in the professors labs, which will be in their home campuses. Unfortunately some CUNY campuses are bit difficult to get to, so just a heads up for lab rotations and taking classes (if they're being taught at home campuses, not at the graduate center building). From what i know is that many of the instruments in the schools are shared among the department in the school and also campuses as well. 

My gut feeling is the following. I'd honestly say that you should rule out the research fellow from the consideration. What I've seen is that letters from folks who have a Ph.D. will carry more weight than those who don't. I'd do two professors you've done research with, and one professor who taught you.

Hi all. Was admitted to UCSD last week and I'm ecstatic since I have terrible stats. To give you an idea...
Undergrad Institution: Top liberal arts college 
Major(s): Chemistry
GPA in Major: ~3.1
Overall GPA: ~3.1
Position in Class: for chemistry majors, at the bottom
Type of Student: Female, low-income, US citizen but not a CA resident

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 153
V: 157
W: 4.0
Chemistry: 29th percentile

Research Experience: 3 labs: one for half a year (1 presentation); one for a summer REU (2 presentations); two years at currently lab for senior thesis. No publications.
I only applied to schools in California (I'm in the northeast and am tired of the cold winter months): UCLA, UCSB, USC, Berkeley, Stanford, and of course UCSD. I started this process telling myself that all I need is one acceptance so I'm satisfied and will most likely be attending UCSD  

i got an offer from duke last monday (jan 30th.) my guess is that duke hasn't finished sending out offers yet. best of luck!

i got an offer from duke last monday (jan 30th.) my guess is that duke hasn't finished sending out offers yet. best of luck!

oh damn! i submitted mine on the 31st (i applied for organic chem). getting rly nervous now but like damn congrats again! 
EDIT: ok I'm so stupid I sent mine on the 30th idk why I thought November 31st existed....

whoa congrats on your acceptance to princeton!!! may i ask which division you applied for, and when you submit your application?

Just got accepted to Princeton via email! 

Just got an email from Stanford saying I've been accepted! I'm a domestic student and applied for Organic. I submitted my application on Dec 6th (the deadline).

whoa congrats on your acceptance to princeton!!! may i ask which division you applied for, and when you submit your application?

Yep I am domestic and heard back by email last week. Also, just got acceptance to Princeton by email today!

oh i haven't either, but it's totally my fault for sending it on the due date (i needed some time to save the money i need for sending the dec 15th apps). truthfully, i'm very anxious about it, as well as for other schools lol

I've received the official letter from Cornell University Department of Chemistry and Cemical Biology.  Happppppppppy!!!!

still waiting (i applied for organic as well.) i sent my app on the 15th so I wouldn't be surprised if my app is the last batch of the apps to be looked at.

@Dibenzofulvene @meteora @L543 @jeromass hi all! 
so I just checked my wisc app and now, I no longer have "available for recommendation". Instead, I have
Chemistry PHD FALL 2017-2018 "Your application has been received and will be reviewed by your program. Please refer to this page for updates." with all the checklist. 
That's my update on it. 

I agree, I do research in catalysis (enrolled in an Australian PhD) but will be applying to go to the US (to start in 2018) since there are very little catalysis opportunities here (I'm pretty much the only person doing catalysis at my institution) - also primarily interested in Doyle. Based on experience, I would say that computational experience is a massive advantage in catalysis but wet lab skills are the most important. If you are proficient in computational chemistry but have mostly done research in wet labs, that would be highly looked upon. Doyle has some computational experience when she did organocatalysis during her PhD under Jacobsen to investigate preferred conformers and convergence of a thiourea to an intermediate. However, to my knowledge, it was pretty brief and naturally, doing catalysis, most of her work was screening and synthesis of new thiourea catalysts.

Hi, 
There's a guy in my group who did just that and has been incredibly successful. He knew nothing about synthesis when he started in our (hardcore synthetic) lab, but then do most first year grads really know that much about synthesis? He works on both computational and synthetic. He started off making lots of mistakes in lab but it was clear he was very talented, and every first year makes mistakes, so there were no issues. I don't think I could have done what he did, but he's an incredibly chill guy so he (at least outwardly) didn't worry and has gone on to be one of our best students. It worked for him because the boss wanted a computational project to supplement our skills. 
I certainly recommend starting work there in summer. Make sure there are multiple potential advisors you could work for - this is always the advice but particularly for you to maximize your chances. Feel free to PM me for details on the situation above. 

I don't think that'll effect your chances too much. I had the same fear with TAMU because there was an issue with my transcript. One of my friends actually works in grad admissions at a school and she says the day you submit your application it counts as the "submission date". The supplemental materials that get added later just end up in your folder and don't affect the date. The only issue would be if they had already met and decided a round of acceptances, which is unlikely to have been completed between the 1st and the 6th.

I heard from UC Berkeley last night. A professor contacted me via email to tell me I was recommended for admission and highly likely to be accepted!

I know that some professors actually view computational background as an advantage. A couple years ago, Dr. Zhang was looking to increase his utilization of computation, but I'm not sure what his perspective is now.
I'm interested to see the path that Princeton's Chemistry Department goes in the next couple of years. 
One thing that has stood out about Wisconsin Madison was the honest feedback and help that they provided during the application process. The admissions secretary is very nice and really went out of her way to answer a lot of questions I had back in March. 
I hope we can meet during visiting days!

@Dibenzofulvene
Abigail Doyle is also one of the professors I'd like to work with! I'd love to work with MacMillan but I have this trepidation that he'd find my computational background (I have very limited experience with synthesis) to be troubling, given his prominence in the synthesis world. But I'd really love to work with Robert Knowles though—his work on using proton-coupled electron transfer as catalysis is so cool, and one of the main reasons why I chose to apply to Princeton!
Prof. Shomakers is also one of my top choices! Her, Prof. Yoon, and Prof. Stahl (I actually just watched a video seminar by him on youtube today) are the top three professors I'd love to work with at Madison.
It'd be very cool if we do end up being in the same lab haha  

You have an interesting idea. I also apply for grad school this time, and I want to switch from organic synthesis to theoretical organic chemistry. You stated that you want to do organic synthesis and explain experimental results by computational methods, but have you found any group which does both the synthetic work and computational work? I think that organic synthesis is very time-consuming, and I am not sure if one person could do both at the same time. If you could match your interest with your POI, I think you will be fine.

Hey @sk8er determinant
I'm super interested in Abigail Doyles C-H functionalization research. I attended a talk given by one of her students in San Diego and was excited about the potential expansion of her research. David mcmillan is a second interest, but I am not sure the lab would be a perfect fit for non-chem related reasons. 
At Wisc, I am mainly interested in Jen Schomakers chemistry. She has developed some interesting selective functionalization reactions using silver (even though she hasn't fully elucidated the basis for the selectivity). Shannon stahl is a second interest. 
Im so sad they lost ron raines..I really wanted to meet him.

I'm interested in Zhang and Byers groups. Not catalysis but I'm also interested in Liu group since my first research project dealt with isosteres and his research sounds really cool.