Backside Attack

I had pretty much the exact same stats for everything else, but my verbal score was 430. I was able to get into almost every school I applied to including Berkeley, Scripps, Princeton, UIUC, Northwestern, Texas, and others so if everything else on your application is strong (SoP, LoR, ChemGRE, etc) then your verbal score won't be too much of an issue. I was organic and everything does differ year from year, but don't be too worried about the low verbal score.

Well, I have TA'd Orgo 2 labs for 6 semesters (1 of honors lab) now along with a semester of Orgo 1 recitations and have also taught an experimental type of official study group for two years and summer chemistry camps, so I am not very worried about "stepping into the classroom". My teaching experiences are one of the main reasons why I want to go into academia. I also have taken all of the graduate classes at my institution required for first year graduate students in my field, so I don't think I am worried about the material much. Of course there is the transition to a new department and the different things they emphasize, but I feel it would be pretty similar to my current school in a lot of ways. I do worry about transitioning to a new city, a new school, new people, etc. My pros of accepting the NSF I think are mainly that I would have less to transition to my first year, could focus on becoming acclimated to the new environment, focus on my classes and research, etc. If I didn't teach though, I think I would lose a lot of the chances I would have to work with many of the new and current grad students I don't regularly interact with. Another con is that I would likely teach a lot my 4th year, and I would be really focused on my research project and would want to spend that time in lab. I didn't even know about reserve status, so I will definitely think about that option.

I received an NSF GRF as an undergraduate this year and will be starting graduate school in chemistry this fall. I am hoping to go into academia. One of my potential advisers next year thinks that I should defer the NSF a year so I can teach a few classes 1st year before I get deep into my research. Going into academia, I will need to have a few semesters of teaching during grad school, and she thinks I should and would rather get those done first year than waiting until my 4th year when I will be focused on my project. Either way I will probably still TA one grad class in my 4th or 5th year. Do you think I should follow her advise?

Yeah, Illinois was fairly quick in their decisions. I was accepted on Dec. 21st and submitted the application first week of December.

Gray is a great guy and an amazing speaker. I coordinated a seminar with Alpha Chi Sigma and brought him in...he took several shots with me and had a few cheap beers.

I used the Princeton Review and the Kaplan books. I found they did a good job of providing the necessary topics in enough detail to answer the questions you see on the exam without having an obscene amount to study. The included practice exams in those books weren't indicative of the real ETS exam, so I used a test booklet that had about 5 practice tests which were more similar to the actual in content and difficulty. The books do a great job with Organic and physical, decent with analytical, but lack in parts of inorganic. Waddle brought up some great books if you have time to really look through the material. He mentioned a lot of biochem questions, but a lot of times you can reason biochem with a strong background in the other chemistry subjects. Harriss' book does a good job. Miessler and Tarr's is great for intro inorganic I definitely recommend it if you struggle with inorganic. O Chem you can find a lot of books which provide the necessary material. As waddle said, I don't like the Atkins book at all, but I would not recommend McQuarries book for the GRE exam. It is truly an excellent (or the best) pchem book, but few of the concepts will be on the exam. I wouldn't try to work through this book. The thing I don't like about studying from general books and lecture notes is that a lot of the material is extraneous. If you have a lot of time to study, then it would be better to cover more topics in more detail, but if you are tight for time, I would suggest sticking to the "big topics" that are most often tested on the exam. The review books do a good job of presenting a lot of the necessary material concisely. I studied for a week and used those two books, and did considerably better on the exam than I was hoping for. Good luck!

Congratulations! Yesterday I got a message from an Illinois professor I want to work with saying that I was accepted and the official letter will be mailed soon. I submitted everything Thanksgiving weekend.

Congratulations! An Illinois professor contacted me yesterday about my acceptance...said letter will be mailed soon.

CBS is an asymmetric catalyst used a lot for stereoselective reductions. Not sure on the exact structure, but it is proline based.

GRE: 800Q, 500V GRE Chemistry: 860 GPA: 3.76 at UMich 3 Years of Research, 2 SURF programs 2 Publications je1230: I think you'll be fine for most of those schools on your list. I definitely know a lot of graduate students at University of Michigan with less impressive stats and experience.

Berkeley, Scripps, UT Austin, Illinois, Harvard, Northwestern for OChem.