Chemistry Fall 2019 cycle

[BakingChemist]

15 hours ago, SCRY30 said:

I'm wondering if I can still visit a school after accepting the offer from another program. Does anyone know about this?

If I had to guess, I would have to say no since the purpose of the visit is to show you the school and convince you to attend while assessing you for additional fellowships/scholarships. If you’ve already accepted another offer they’re spending money on you when you definitely won’t be attending their program in the fall. 

[ghost_passenger]

Just got rejected from Northwestern, my reach school. But I'm finally done waiting to hear back from schools! 5/6 acceptances ain't bad at all. 

[nikit96]

Undergrad Institution: Southern Oregon University
Major(s): Biochemistry
Minor(s): Biology
GPA in Major: 2.97
Overall GPA: 3.22
Position in Class: IDK
Type of Student: Domestic, female, first-gen, hispanic

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 155
V: 149
W: 4.0
S: 

Research Experience: 

- Summer 2017 MUSC SURP

- Summer 2018 U of A UROC 

- HPLC research for epinephrine degradation

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: (Within your school or outside?)

McNair Scholar

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: (Such as tutor, TA, etc...)

Math tutor

Gen Chem Lab TA

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Special Bonus Points: 

Publicly presented posters and lectures at multiple conferences

Published twice through McNair

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

UCSB

UC Davis

UCLA

UC Berkeley

UW

Washington State

U of Oregon

Oregon State

 

 

Been accepted to USCB and UC Davis. Sounds like been unofficially rejected from Berkeley and UW. Got a no from UCLA.

[wwwwwwww]

Just curious, but to those of you that got into a big name school, what are you going to do about the cost of living? I know that for most schools I applied for the cost of living in the area was pretty high.

[atmospheric_chem]

Has cu-boulder sent out acceptances for analytical chem? Wondering if anyone's already gotten their decisions, I haven't heard anything yet

[ghost_passenger]

1 hour ago, wwwwwwww said:

Just curious, but to those of you that got into a big name school, what are you going to do about the cost of living? I know that for most schools I applied for the cost of living in the area was pretty high.

The stipends are usually higher at schools in areas with a greater COL. For example, $27k in Madison vs $34k in Chicago are appropriate stipends for the COL in those areas. This really depends on the school though. For example, UW offers only ~$30k even though Seattle has such a high COL. 

Edited February 5, 2019 by ghost_passenger

[chemphysbus]

1 hour ago, wwwwwwww said:

Just curious, but to those of you that got into a big name school, what are you going to do about the cost of living? I know that for most schools I applied for the cost of living in the area was pretty high.

For the most part, the stipends seem to be enough. Looking at rents, though, a roommate will probably be needed, the studios and one-bedrooms look like they would use up nearly all of the after-tax monthly stipend.

[ghost_passenger]

I figured I might as well post this since I know all my results.

Undergrad Institution: Large public research university in the US
Major(s): Chemistry, ACS-Certified
Minor(s): n/a
GPA in Major: 3.76
Overall GPA: 3.78
Position in Class: n/a
Type of Student: international, female

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 166 (90th %)
V: 161 (88th %)
W: 4 (59th %)
S: 720 (58th %)

Research Experience: 18 months of experimental undergraduate research in pchem (in a niche field so my experience is a little unique), no publications, 3rd author on a conference presentation (did not present)
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Quarterly and annual Dean's list; member of honors society

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: n/a
Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: n/a
Special Bonus Points: n/a
Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: n/a

Applying to Where:

Applied for pchem

[School name] (w/ date of notification)

Accepted: UT Austin (12/14/18), UW-Madison (12/19/18), UCSD (12/21/18), UChicago (1/4/19), IU-Bloomington (1/4/19)

Rejected: Northwestern (2/5/19)

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my results, even though I aimed a little too high with Northwestern. Time to have fun and start visiting schools! Maybe I'll see some of you at UChicago this Thursday lol.

[wwwwwwww]

2 hours ago, atmospheric_chem said:

Has cu-boulder sent out acceptances for analytical chem? Wondering if anyone's already gotten their decisions, I haven't heard anything yet

I’m hoping for the same. I’m not sure if they hand out acceptances depending on area?

[PCCP]

Anyone know what percentage of our stipend will be taken after taxes?  I know it varies by state but just have no idea of a ballpark.  Is 7% too high?

[chemphysbus]

22 minutes ago, PCCP said:

Anyone know what percentage of our stipend will be taken after taxes?  I know it varies by state but just have no idea of a ballpark.  Is 7% too high?

I would guess 20% on average would be withheld to federal and state taxes and other deductions. I checked with some online calculators for every place where I got an offer, and the net tax rates were 17-23% depending on location and stipend amount. This left me with $2,200-$2,700 per month.

[PCCP]

2 hours ago, chemphysbus said:

I would guess 20% on average would be withheld to federal and state taxes and other deductions. I checked with some online calculators for every place where I got an offer, and the net tax rates were 17-23% depending on location and stipend amount. This left me with $2,200-$2,700 per month.

Cheers!  Always good to verify, but I also heard after filing you would get some of that money back.  Any leads on how much you would get back in tax returns?

[AntiSpinel]

27 minutes ago, PCCP said:

Cheers!  Always good to verify, but I also heard after filing you would get some of that money back.  Any leads on how much you would get back in tax returns?

Would be a great question to ask during your visit weekends - stipends, tax filing, cost of living 

[chemphysbus]

29 minutes ago, PCCP said:

Cheers!  Always good to verify, but I also heard after filing you would get some of that money back.  Any leads on how much you would get back in tax returns?

To wager a guess, you wouldn't get anything significant back from filing tax returns. But there may be different considerations for graduate stipends, so I definitely agree with @AntiSpinel that these are perfect questions for visit weekends.

[ChemApplicant44]

Did anyone else apply for chemical biology at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor? I have not heard anything back, but I noticed many people already received their acceptances in different disciplines.

[do0112]

Anyone hear back from CalTech after their initial round of acceptances? At this point would like some kind of response haha

[agamoto]

5 hours ago, ChemApplicant44 said:

Did anyone else apply for chemical biology at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor? I have not heard anything back, but I noticed many people already received their acceptances in different disciplines.

Yes, I got a call from the program director mid-December inviting me to the interview week, which is this weekend Feb 8-10. 

[wwwwwwww]

Just got rejected from Michigan. Darn.

[jeter59]

Would it be bad to email Columbia again to check in on things? I emailed them 3ish weeks ago, and they said they were hoping to have their offers "finalized in the next two weeks". Not sure if now is too soon, but many people seem to be wondering the same...

[fernan]

7 hours ago, jeter59 said:

Would it be bad to email Columbia again to check in on things? I emailed them 3ish weeks ago, and they said they were hoping to have their offers "finalized in the next two weeks". Not sure if now is too soon, but many people seem to be wondering the same...

That is funny that you say that because I emailed them about three weeks ago with the same thing. We're all in the same boat so I don't think it would be bad emailing them again. Let me know what they say if you do. 

[jhopp_]

Anyone still waiting on UT Austin?

[SCRY30]

40 minutes ago, jhopp_ said:

Anyone still waiting on UT Austin?

I am, I emailed them last week but no response. I guess I was rejected.

[jhopp_]

@SCRY30 There's still hope. Best of luck to both of us.

[jmchem]

10 hours ago, jhopp_ said:

@SCRY30 There's still hope. Best of luck to both of us.

Also waiting on UT Austin, glad to see it's not just me. At this point I'm not very optimistic. UT was my first choice but at least I got into my second choice, oh well. May try emailing them just because. 

[Army101]

On 2/6/2019 at 11:48 PM, fernan said:

That is funny that you say that because I emailed them about three weeks ago with the same thing. We're all in the same boat so I don't think it would be bad emailing them again. Let me know what they say if you do. 

Columbia is having their visit weekend right now and they have around 50 students. The next visit weekend is in March and apparently they already know that about 19 students are scheduled to visit. I know because I am doing a post-bac program at Columbia. If you haven't heard anything yet, it might not be good news. I think it will all depend on how this visit weekend goes.