pchem2018

On my transcript that I submitted I had a 0.00 so that's what I put on my application, and I guess they figured out what that meant. I ended up only getting a 3.66 for my first semester, so I think that paid off!

Where exactly are you seeing this?

Here is the website with the announcement: https://ndsegfellowships.smapply.org/prog/national_defense_science_and_engineering_graduate_ndseg_fellowship/

So I applied last year and I didn’t get it, but I can tell you about the scoring. At least for me, I didn’t think the reviewers were mean, and I thought they had some good comments and also some comments that I didn’t think were that good. Each reviewer grades you on two categories, intellectual merit and broader impacts. The letters (I think) are E for excellent, V for very good, G for good, F for fair, and P for poor. I’m too lazy to go find my reviews, but that’s what I remember. Thus, V/V would be very good for both intellectual merit and broader impacts. Unfortunately from what I understand a single good will kill your application, and you can only get a couple of very goods, everything pretty much needs to be excellent. Which is unfortunate of you get one reviewer who didn’t like your stuff.

What offices did you apply for? Sounds like the person who got it applied for ARO, I applied to ONR. I haven’t heard anything yet either.

Yeah, they make a big deal about it and remind you to do the things you need to get residency. Part of the deal is being in the state continuously for 366 days or something like that, so if your program is only a year I doubt that will help you.

So I don’t know how it is for MS students (I’m an out of state PhD), but for us they only cover the first year of out of state tuition and after the first year we either have to gain residency or pay it ourselves. Fortunately, gaining residency for tuition purposes is really easy and there are instructions on how to do it after your first year online.

For me personally, I went to a good university, but I didn't go to a top university (definitely not nearly as good as Purdue). However, I was able to get into whatever university for graduate school that I wanted to because of the undergraduate research that I did. Undergraduate research is (in my opinion) easily the most important aspect of your graduate application. If you have 1-2 publications (especially if it's a first author publication) you should have no problem getting into a top university for graduate school, as long as your GPA and GRE are pretty good. I would look at the opportunities for undergraduate research at the institutions (are lots of undergraduates doing research or no?). A lot of top universities have really strong graduate programs, and so it is more difficult for the undergraduates to have research positions. However, at my university the graduate program isn't very good, and the professors rely a lot on undergraduates to do their research. Anyways, those are my two cents. That being said, Purdue is a great university and it sounds like it is your daughter's university of choice, so as long as she can get a research position after her freshman year that would be an excellent choice.

I should have clarified and said that people’s opinions about the “top 5” can vary quite a lot, and discipline does matter. Honestly, deciding which schools make the cut is a little silly. For example, several professors I’ve spoken to think very poorly of Harvard, and definitely wouldn’t put it in the top 5, but other professors I spoke to strongly recommended me to apply there. I was giving those five schools as a general top 5 from what I’ve heard. That being said, I did have a synthetic organic chemist friend who applied to Princeton as a backup school (he got into Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, along with others) and he didn’t even go to Princeton’s visiting weekend as it was so far down on his list of all the places he got into (he still visited 6 schools), and I’ve never heard someone speak that highly of Princeton.

I think the professor I spoke to said it wasn’t worth my time and wouldn’t help my chances of admission, and I would have a lot more to talk with the professor about after I was accepted. Keep in mind though that the professors I was considering contacting were at Berkeley, so that might have had an influence on the advice I was given.

I’m a domestic student, so I can’t really speak from your position, but in general the advice I was given was to wait to contact the professors until after you’ve been officially accepted. Of course, I think there are situations where contacting them early would be a good thing. For example, at my undergraduate school we don’t have a great graduate program and not very many people apply, and almost all of the students are international and get accepted. Our program is actively searching for graduate students, so reaching out to one of the professors at my school would probably be received enthusiastically. Of course, it’s probably not super necessary as you’re almost guaranteed acceptance. Also, professors who are in their first two years or so seem to be more active in trying to recruit people to their group, so they would also probably be happy to speak with you. However, if you’re applying to really prestigious schools and famous professors, there is a good chance you won’t get a response and they won’t be invested in speaking with you.

The top 5 would probably be Caltech, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, and Harvard. From what I’ve heard, it depends on what you want to do. If you just want a job in industry, it’s probably not going to matter if you go to any of those schools. However, my advisor told me that for p-chem academia positions you’ll have the most opportunity if you go to Berkeley, MIT, or Caltech. Of course, advisor does matter a lot, and if you’ve fallen in love with research at another school I would say you should go there. However, if that isn’t the case, I would consider the prestige of the school in your decision

Well, considering the cost of living in Palo Alto I would hope so.

My acceptance letter said the stipend at Stanford is $41,316.

Undergrad Institution: Large Private UniversityMajor(s): ChemistryMinor(s): Physics, MathematicsGPA in Major: 3.93Overall GPA: 3.94Position in Class: N/AType of Student: American, White MaleGRE Scores (revised/old version): Q: 166 (91%)V: 166 (97%)W: 6.0 (99%)S (Chemistry): 880 (94%)Research Experience: 2 years (including summers) in a physical/materials lab. 5 publications, 3 first author. All relatively good journals, but they aren't in JACS or something like that.Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Not really anything notable, dean's list and such.Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Just my research position.Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: The publications and research experience are probably the strongest parts of my applications.Special Bonus Points: My research advisor went to UC Berkeley and I think he is relatively well respected.Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:Applying to Where: Schools are in my signature, all for physical chemistry or physical materials PhDs in the chemistry departments.

I just got the phone call from the physical department head that I was accepted, and they apologized that they had gotten back to me later than other schools. I hope you get a phone call soon too!

The applicant did say they were shocked. I have heard of stranger things, and I assume that something else in their application caught the admission committee's eye.

I haven't looked much into Northwestern (as I didn't apply there) but I have a friend who got into Berkeley last week and he said that the professor he spoke to said the organic committee just finished their first round of acceptances, so if you're looking into going into physical or something like that they might not have finished looking at applicants (that's the boat I'm in). Additionally, if you look back at the results page over the past few years, you'll see that they give probably about half their acceptances in the second half of January, and from the people that have posted it looks like organic usually gets acceptances first before physical. I don't know if you're applying to physical, but if you are that might give you some comfort.

Did you not take the subject test? I thought it was required for at least Stanford and Caltech, and I think Harvard too.

Convert it to a PDF and then submit that.

I'm applying for the 2018 school year to several top tier schools, and all of the programs I am applying to will fully fund my PhD. However, many schools list possible fellowships that I could apply to as well (NSF, Hertz). Should I bother going through the application process for these fellowships as well, or should I just focus on my graduate school application if I'm already going to be fully funded? Are there any benefits to having a fellowship? Thanks!

I have a couple of thoughts about your application. First off, I doubt that many schools (even the smaller schools you've listed) will want to accept you to a MS program in Chemistry as you already have a MS, although it was internationally obtained. I don't think that you can omit the fact that you already have a MS degree either. At this point you most likely will want to apply to a PhD program. It is disappointing that you have no publication after your MS degree, and that mostly likely will put a damper on your application. In addition, your GRE scores are quite low. One of the best things you can do to strengthen your application is to retake your GRE, and to study this time around. There are plenty of materials online that are free to study from, and using the materials ETS provides to study for as well can help a lot. The GRE isn't really testing how intelligent you are, and by studying for the test and being familiar with it your score will likely improve dramatically. Of course this is only my opinion (not only on the GRE but also regarding your application). I hope this insight was helpful.

I wouldn't expect that your application would be less competitive if you decided to quit. I am applying for grad schools in the fall this year too, and my research advisor told me not to do an internship, and to instead continue to do research. If you are doing research in a lab you should be fine. Of course, if I was you I wouldn't include this internship on your application if you decide to quit. Of course, that's just my opinion, but it seems that most students at my university who are applying to PhD programs don't do internships, they just research with their advisor.