isk20

Current Columbia Chem student. The Dean's Fellowship supports all first- and second-year students in the department, and after that, you get funding either through external fellowships (like the GRFP) or your PI.

IIRC because the person who started the thread had their account deleted.

Fall 2020 applicant and current first-year here, came back to offer reassurances because I know it's a stressful time for everyone. I'm wishing all of you luck. Also, don't panic if you haven't heard back from your top choices yet. Covid is causing a ton of delays. Hang in there! 🙂

Fall 2020 applicant here. There was a thread that was pretty active, but it was deleted last April/May.

Are you an undergrad at Hopkins? In STEM, it’s generally better to do UG and grad at different schools since it shows that you’re branching out your skills. Don't worry about prestige at this point. The closer you get to the top, the less rankings matter. Yale is also a world-renowned school and won’t hold you back in your career. The fact that you seem to be dreading another 5-6 years in Baltimore suggests that you would probably benefit from a change of scenery and pace. After all, you need to enjoy the location to be happy and productive in your program.

Here’s the thing about applying next cycle - between the recession and the fact that a lot of schools are burning through their cash fast, indications are that admissions will be unusually competitive. (This is coming from professors, so straight out of the horse’s mouth, so to speak.) I can’t emphasize enough how much labs across the board have gotten slammed by school closures and industry funds drying up. It sounds like UAB made you happy and you could realistically see yourself going there and being productive, which is very important for a PhD. I’m sure you know that there are no guarante

I never did an REU as an undergrad because I was too focused on my thesis work, which I started in sophomore year. However, I did take two gap years after graduation to work for a big name at a top STEM school, so having that letter was undoubtedly helpful. I applied to multiple top-ten programs this cycle and was admitted, so the REU thing definitely didn’t make or break my application.

Well, I bit the bullet tonight. I’ll see both of you at Columbia this fall! (Provided the school is open, which seems kinda doubtful atm.) Tom Rovis is actually a big draw for me - his research is super interesting and he made a great impression on me at the visit weekend. But I’d be happy joining some of the more biological groups as well.

Oh, I see. To clarify my comment about private vs public, private universities tend to get more help via federal funds and have larger endowments on the whole, so funding tends to be safer - but that's not always the case, of course (as my institution shows). Thanks a lot! I really appreciate all of the input and information you've provided.

Thanks for the input. My question is, how do you know about the funding situation in the College of Chemistry specifically? I work at an obscenely wealthy private R1 and our departments/labs are getting unilaterally slammed because so much funding comes from industry, which I assumed was also the case in the Bay due to the proximity to biotech and startups. Edit: redundancy

We're getting down to the wire, so it seems as good a time as any to make a last-minute panic post about decisions. I was very lucky to be accepted to these two amazing programs, but even after talking to a lot of people, I'm struggling to actually hit the "accept" button on either. Pros of Berkeley: - Insanely powerful (probably unmatched) in synthetic organic chemistry and chemical biology, which are the two fields I want to explore in grad school. - As a whole, the research being conducted here appeals to me more. - Great placement for students post-Ph.D. I want to

You’ve probably decided already, but I do want to point out that Harvard’s stipend is very low when compared to COL in the Cambridge area. It’s pretty hard to find a room under $1k, even with roommates, and you’ll also be paying taxes on the stipend on top of that. You will probably want to look for external fellowships.

My current institution has some weird rules about students/staff gifting superiors, but I bought a nice bottle of wine for one of my other letter writers at another school. I’m sure they would appreciate any token of thanks.

If the site will be down until 6 then we wouldn’t be able to view the awardees list even if it went up at 2:30, right?

Does anyone know how we’ll be notified if we win an award? Like, do we get an email or will we just have to check the site?