cheekylittleduck

Hi there! I'm procrastinating and recently accepted my offer to Columbia chemistry earlier today (came across here by searching columbia lol) I spent a summer in Berkeley so I got to hear all the good gossip about the school. I should preface and say that I'm not in synthesis, but the grad students told me all about the synthesis groups at Berkeley. I think unfortunately, as it seems to be, synthetic work gets the short end of the stick out of anywhere you go but in Berkeley it seems especially bad. Its very physically demanding and the science takes an excrutiatingly long time, so its just the nature of the work. That being said, one might hope that a professor doesn't schedule group meetings on weekends. Several Berkeley professors do this, sometimes late into a Saturday to insure their students are still there. One might hope that a Berkely PI graduates women at as equally as the men. Some Berkeley professors do not do this. Some Berkeley professors have a history of being at other schools and climbing the ranks to get to Berkeley, effectively abandonding their students, claiming 'they weren't creative enough', forcing students to restart or leave their PhDs. I don't want to name any names, but in the remaining time you should probably reach out to grad students in the labs you're interested in and see how the professor exerts pressure on the group. I had a friend who ultimately rejected a certain professor at Berkeley who really wanted them to join, so as soon as they rejected Berkeley the professor turned very very nasty. Luckily they dodged a bullet. Columbia's synthesis isn't entirely innocent either but I don't have enough information to say anything. When I asked about bad groups they told me since I'm not in synthesis I shouldn't have to worry about it.

Hi there. Unfortunately I'm replying a bit late since the REU cycle is way over, but for anyone else I can share ancedotal experience about this if they find this post. I was basically in a similar position, if not worse because I wasn't really close to a publication with either project I was doing in my home institution. Things weren't going so well with my research and I was getting burned out and I was seriously considering not applying for grad school. I applied to a ton of REUs and got into one and it was a totally life changing experience with the amount of doors opening up. If you land in a good group that is excited to house a student for the summer I would highly highly highly recommend taking it. The real power of an REU at a large research insitution is having that extra letter of recommendation from someone likely well known in the field that can support you for your graduate school. Its powerful because the letter of rec will likely be very easy for them to write since there is concrete material to talk about. From talking to more senior professors, the reality of the situation is that most letters that come from professors you've taken a class with get tossed to the side during an admissions process. They might help get you through the graduate admisisons group, but when the professors start reading the application, they won't care for those letters. Those types of letters all tend to read the same and don't speak too much about the students ability to do research. This was one of the most motivating factors for me to even apply for REUs. I'm graduating soon and I don't have any publications, but still got into every grad school I applied (most of them top 10) and won NSF. My lack of publications was a serious insecurity that was crushing my morale to even APPLY but I did anyways. On my visits, if any part of my application was brought up it would be more in the context of who I worked for and what I did. I don't want this to sound like I'm bragging at all. This is just my personal experience and one aspect of my application. If you have a publication, that is GREAT, especially if it is of relatively high authorship, but it is hardly the soul of your application.

According to the GRE website, test scores can take up to 5 weeks to be processed. Will schools accept late test scores if it takes ETS too long to grade an exam?