Quantum Buckyball

1. location of the school 2. nearby/surrounding facilities (if any) 3. crime rate (safety first) 4. graduation rate/attrition rate 5. cost of living 6. # of research groups you're interested in 7. group members from each group 8. # of publications/yr/student 9. # of students went into academia vs. industry 10. in-house facilities/professional staff 11. money

If the amount of money you will be receiving from your scholarship is greater than the TAship or RAship for a typical first year student. Then, it is highly unlikely you would get offer for a TAship or RAship position.

Really? How in the world do you expect people to give you advice with so little information provided?

That is something completely out of your control really. Either way, you'll still be getting paid either through TAship, RAship or fellowship of your own. It depends on which research group you're in, and if your advisor has the funding or not.

I think it's very important to have some sort of volunteering experiences, especially if it's in the chemistry field. It shows the school that you're willing to "give back". I was a member of chemistry club at my former school, and held a leadership position for 2 years before I applied for graduate school. Having a minor in biology will definitely boost your application, it's better than those with only a BS in Chemistry. If you haven't noticed, majority of chemistry research groups are currently working on research somewhat related to biology. Lastly, you should definitely take a programming course or computation modeling course before you graduate.

I talked to this girl the other day and she did that when she was a graduate student a couple of years ago. Long story short, she did not graduate, she left after her second year because she only worked 20 hours/week for her TAship, and she got herself a part time job off campus. She didn't have enough materials ready for her research plan/proposal and had to leave.

I like Braveheart

If that's the case then it's really good! You'll get to choose if you want to join a orgo or inorgo group next fall. I know a girl put down analytical as her first choice and organic as second on her application. She got accepted to the organic division, but she still wanted to join an analytical group so she ended up interviewing a couple of analytical professors. Long story short, she and didn't get in any analytical groups and thus had to join an organic group in the end. I think some organic professors didn't like what she did though...

Did you put down Inorganic as your first choice concentration and Organic as your second concentration? If so, it probably meant your application did not make the first cut during the screening process by inorganic professors and made the cut after the second screening process by professors in the organic division.

Your productivity (# of first-author papers, fellowships, research grants, invited talks) > Programs' ranking

Yeah, I know what you meant, some studio apartments are like that and I lived in one before and hated it. The one I'm getting this summer is actually one bedroom and one bathroom apartment, we don't have any studio apartments in this town.

There is a separate area for dining room. Both apartments have a standard kitchen (sink, refrigerator, stove, microwave, dishwasher etc.) But if you want the one with dining area where you can put your dining table and chairs, then that's extra 45 bucks/month.

I am getting a new apartment this summer, and I couldn't decide if I want to get an apartment with or without a kitchen. The rent cost is about ~$45/month different. I purchased a dining set for my current apartment last semester, and I have barely used it, I think I have used it for twice in the past 5 months. I do not cook at home that often, and whenever I do, I just use my coffee table in the living room because it's the same size as my dining table. I think having a kitchen area is nice but I was trying to be practical. My colleague recommended me to get an apartment with kitchen, and I can always turn the kitchen area into a study area. I thought that was a good idea, but then it would be a bit odd whenever I have company over.

I think it has becoming more and more common nowadays. One of the programs I got accepted only supports 50% of the incoming students, the other 50% had to pay out of their own pockets.

1. Have you checked the deadlines for those schools? 2. A downward trend for your GPA is not good at all.. 3. do you have any publications? or the professor you worked with has connections? 4. why don't you want to go to a mediocre PhD program? Are you willing to apply for MS programs?

Schools do rescind offers sometimes, especially if you received a "conditional" acceptance letter meaning you need to finish your degree (or take certain classes) before you're officially admitted to the program.

I'd go for quantity... It's nice to have high-end instruments but how many times would you actually get to use it? once/month...once/year...or never? My department got a brand-new high-end MS last month, and they aren't even letting graduate students to use it. They hired professionals to run our samples instead.

Virginia Commonwealth

Questions you should ask... 1) publications (how first authorship is determined) 2) teaching assignments (how many semesters) 3) average hours/week expected to be in the lab 4) how many years before you can graduate (sometimes this is group-dependent) 5) what happened to the former students in term of job placement(either PhDs or MSs)