Quantum Buckyball

They must have changed it, a friend of mine got in 5 years ago without a BS.

Okay. PhD Chem admission process is very different than dental schools. For dental school admission, in order to be eligible, you only need to fulfill the first two years of prerequisite classes. No bachelor degree is required. As for PhD Chem admission, you need a minimum of a bachelor degree in Chemistry/Biochemistry/Chemical Engineering or strongly-related field. Most of PhD Chem admission committee tends to focus on, 1. your letters of recommendation 2. number of peer-viewed publications 3. research experiences (length, field) 4. industrial, national, international internships or fellowships 5. outreach activities (Chemistry-related only) 6. number of high-end, advanced, graduate-level Chemistry classes you have completed. So long story short, they aren't gonna care if you drop your organic chemistry 2 this semester or not, as long as you take it before you graduate.

1. Did you ask them about the attrition rate for PhD students vs. MS students? I would assume that the rate for PhD students is a lot lower. 2. It's not easy to pass 5 cumulative exams during your first 2 years, I would think that this is how Purdue filter out the weak links. 3. Let's be real, West Lafayette's weather and location ain't good.

You will have to go through the whole application process again if you intend to leave your current program. It would make you look real bad if you do intend to leave your current biostat program to join another biostat program at a different school.

It's good that the professor contacted you to double check. Perhaps your application didn't make the cut to the first-round reviewing session and is in the second or third one? Well, I still think it's a good news that he contacted you.

Do you like Chemistry? Why do you want to get a PhD in Chemistry? Are you doing it just in case if you don't get in medical/dental/pharmacy/or whatever else school? If you think Organic Chemistry 2 is difficult now, then you're mostly ain't gonna enjoy analytical/physical or other advanced-level classes in the future. just my 2 cents

Purdue's Chemistry program is excellent. However, Purdue is notoriously known for their "examinations" (preliminary, candidacy, comprehensive exit exams). They takes in a lot of first year students each year just so they have enough of TAs to teach basic or organic chemistry labs. Only a small percentage of their students actually get to graduate. Two of my friends turned down Purdue's offer last year because of this.

Graduate advisor is not the same as your research advisor. Graduate advisor is someone like...the director of graduate studies at your department.

I think the most math you encountered in General Chem 1 or 2 are just college algebra. Have you ever used Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/)? It's a youtube-like website that teaches you math/science/history/computer science classes for free. You could use that as a tool to help you with your chemistry homework or basic understandings. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/algebra https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry

I think that only applies to American citizens and legal residents.

omg, one of my relatives said that to me! She was like, "it's not like you got accepted to top schools like Harvard or MIT" (Yap, she said that after I told her I got accepted to 3 schools, what a horrible person).

I think it was an indication that you were one of the top applicants at that school. They did, in fact, wanted to accept you right away but had to double confirm your credentials.

Oh goodness! a D+ in Chemistry!? Have you tried studying via flash cards or mnemonic technique? Both methods are really effective and helped me to get this far in life today.

I personally won't write to the remaining schools about funding situation. It would make you look like you're trying to buy your way into graduate school, which could do you more harm than good.

It meant you made the cut after the first preliminary round.

I think it would be nice to start early, but I personally won't do it. The summer between undergraduate and graduate school is probably the only "free" time you'll ever have for a real long time (or ever?). I've seen some people got burned out after their first semester in grad school, or got mild/severe depression. I took 2 weeks off before I started grad school and I wish I've had taken longer break before I start. I am telling you this because grad school doesn't work as the same as undergrad. You can't predict research progression or know exactly when you'll be able to graduate (4-8 Yrs?). This is something that's out of your control. Some professors won't graduate a student unless he/she publish a first-author paper in a top journal (as in top 5% in your field), grad school itself is a very stressful environment.

I have a BS degree in Biology and my Masters was very closed to the ChemE field but it was not a ChemE degree. 1. I think the main difference for ChemE vs. Biology was the high-end math courses (linear algebra, calculus etc.) and programming courses. Most of the time, you won't be working as a lab tech, instead, you would be doing a lot of computational simulations and optimization (C++ or matlab). You should have a solid background in programming and linear algebra (matrix). 2. As for communication, I didn't have any problems communicating with the ChemE people I worked with mainly because I'm a spectroscopist. 3. I don't know if it's required to have internship before you graduate or not, but I did do an internship and had to work on a couple of projects and publish papers before I was allowed to graduate.

For big schools like that, they typically have RA/TAships for PhD applicants only.