cog_3

I was at the second weekend and heard back yesterday (positively). I imagine they will get back to you soon, probably depends which research groups you were most interested in.

For the Canadian schools, generally what matters most is having a PI that wants you in their group. It is extremely common in Canada for students to meet with PI's/talk to them on the phone before even applying. I would suggest contacting potential advisors and telling them about your research experience and interests. If they are keen to have you join their group, the particulars about your GPA aren't as big a concern. Although, I should note that it can sometimes be harder for international students, especially at U of T, and the groups that focus on asymmetric catalysis and green chemistry are some of the most competitive to get into. Of course the process is different for American schools. Maybe ask a faculty member that you know from undergrad if they think you should explain the lower semester.

I wouldn't bet your chances based on stats. I thought my GRE scores were questionably low for the schools I applied to, but ended up being admitted everywhere. Research experience and references letters are much greater determinants of application success. (I'm international, but native english speaking, so I'm not sure about the effect of TOFEL scores)

If you go to the application website and go to "review your activity" and click on the name of the application (Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Graduate - chem) so that the info appears about submission/payment confirmation, after a few seconds a button pops up that says "view decision".

I got an email last week saying Yale's visitation weekend is March 24/25. I assume this is for the whole department, although the email I got was specific to orgo.

I'm visiting 5 (out of 8)... leaning towards two but really that's just because I have more first-hand information about the research groups and have met a couple of the PI's (through conferences or when they were at my university for a seminar). The other three also have excellent programs and research groups, so I'm looking forward to visiting them as any of the 5 could very well end up being the best fit.

Does anyone know which schools have faculty interviews in groups and which are individual?

Can't speak for SyntheticOrganiker, but I got my letter from Harvard via international FedEx on Thursday.

Looks like my question was answered by the results page.

Does anyone know if last year Harvard's replies went out via mail/email/phone? Or this year's, if anyone's heard back.

also just waiting for Harvard and Yale (didn't apply to Columbia)

Thanks for the clarification! I suppose the similarity of the names confused us.

I'm likely going to those same dates for Scripps and Berkeley (organic also). Also heard from Caltech, MIT, Princeton - just waiting on Harvard. I noticed on the results page the post for the Harvard Chemical Biology was for an interview, do the other chemistry sub-disciplines normally call it an "interview"? I thought only Scripps was like that.