Fall 2011 Chemistry

[SyntheticOrganiker]

As I reach the denouement of my grad school tours, I just wanted to provide a quick recap for future applicants.

1. Don't get stressed out about not getting into a summer research program. I had an immensely dififcult time in getting into one, but got into all of the graduate schools I applied to.

2. As expressed exhaustively, you can get into any graduate (and medical/law/whatever) school from not the greatest undergraduate institution. I was really concerned about not having connections to the synthetic community, but it has apparently not mattered too much (however, connections will not hurt).

3. While tons of visitation weekends may sound fun (and are fun), they can be quite exhausting (the traveling, discussing science, and literally constantly being asked if you have any more questions) and if you procrastinate (like me), final school work can pile up. Therefore, be careful about how many you plan to go to..

4. Don't be concerned when you get PIs you didn't sign up for on visitation and others you wanted to meet with are not on your schedule, it could just be too many people wanted to meet them (and often you will be allowed to meet with them if you just ask the coordinator). I found that I had the most interesting conversations with people that I didn't initially think about talking to.

On a totally unrelated topic:

Chaospaladin, the forum is an excellent resource for getting questions answered. That being said, constantly asking questions that can be easily answered through google, or common sense in some cases, and then acting as if people should be constantly answering your questions, is annoying. It is also concerning because in graduate school you will be expected to find the answers mostly for yourself. While other people will help you, you need to learn how to answer these questions yourself. Good luck.

[Eigen]

On a totally unrelated topic:

Chaospaladin, the forum is an excellent resource for getting questions answered. That being said, constantly asking questions that can be easily answered through google, or common sense in some cases, and then acting as if people should be constantly answering your questions, is annoying. It is also concerning because in graduate school you will be expected to find the answers mostly for yourself. While other people will help you, you need to learn how to answer these questions yourself. Good luck.

I'll tag onto this: If someone doesn't have the program they're attending in their profile, there's probably a reason. Some of us like to remain somewhat anonymous (though any of my peers could probably pick me out from my posts). Asking someone you've developed no real relationship with a lot of personal questions can be quite offputting.

[chaospaladin]

I'll tag onto this: If someone doesn't have the program they're attending in their profile, there's probably a reason. Some of us like to remain somewhat anonymous (though any of my peers could probably pick me out from my posts). Asking someone you've developed no real relationship with a lot of personal questions can be quite offputting.

How about if I send you a new PM asking you if you remember any PhD programs you applied to that does not have a GPA 3.00 cut off and an application fee waiver regardless of student's family's income? I know in the previous PM I sent you, I asked you this question + two more personal questions I believe so just disregard that one.

Also I have been research programs on my own and answering as many questions on my own as I can. There's probably over 200 PhD Chemistry programs in the US and I've only looked at 50 of them online so far. I'm not asking anyone to do "research" on Chemistry PhD Programs for me. I'm just asking people what schools they applied to that they remembered off the top of their head that had an application fee waiver regardless of income and didn't have a 3.00 GPA cut off. Yes, I know I have asked some people questions that could have easily been found online in the past and I pretty much stopped doing that after Waddle told me not to, but expecting an applicant to look at over 200 PhD Chemistry Programs in detail and analyze every page on their web site is a bit much. Don't you think?

I'm not asking people to research on over 200 programs for me, just to give me input on stuff they remembered on certain programs when they applied.

[Eigen]

How about if I send you a new PM asking you if you remember any PhD programs you applied to that does not have a GPA 3.00 cut off and an application fee waiver regardless of student's family's income? I know in the previous PM I sent you, I asked you this question + two more personal questions I believe so just disregard that one.

Also I have been research programs on my own and answering as many questions on my own as I can. There's probably over 200 PhD Chemistry programs in the US and I've only looked at 50 of them online so far. I'm not asking anyone to do "research" on Chemistry PhD Programs for me. I'm just asking people what schools they applied to that they remembered off the top of their head that had an application fee waiver regardless of income and didn't have a 3.00 GPA cut off. Yes, I know I have asked some people questions that could have easily been found online in the past and I pretty much stopped doing that after Waddle told me not to, but expecting an applicant to look at over 200 PhD Chemistry Programs in detail and analyze every page on their web site is a bit much. Don't you think?

I'm not asking people to research on over 200 programs for me, just to give me input on stuff they remembered on certain programs when they applied.

You shouldn't be looking at over 200 programs. You should be looking at the programs that have professors who are doing research in your particular area of interest.

The mechanical details of a programs admissions process aren't what should be driving your interest in a school... The research is. Once you get several schools where you have research/a PI that interests you to work with, then you can look at that schools admissions process and decide if it's worth it for you to to apply.

At this stage in your application, knowing which schools offer fee waivers/have GPA cutoffs really isn't important to you (or shouldn't be). Those criteria should only be used to narrow down your choices of schools with attractive research programs.

::edit:: In other words, you're going about this backwards. Find research that interests you, trace it back to a professor/group, and then look at their program. Then once you have a collection of these programs you've looked through, decide where to apply. I think you will have a lot more success that way.

Edited March 13, 2011 by Eigen

[chaospaladin]

In other words, you're going about this backwards. Find research that interests you, trace it back to a professor/group, and then look at their program. Then once you have a collection of these programs you've looked through, decide where to apply. I think you will have a lot more success that way.

How should I go about in tracing it back to a professor or group? How should I go about in finding research that interests me? Are you trying to say I should start out from reading from a scientific journal of like a search engine of Chemistry articles, papers, posters, and publications, etc. and then find out who the journal article, paper, poster, or publication is written by and then look up the affiliation of the authors and trace it back to their university like that?

Thanks.

[waddle]

How should I go about in tracing it back to a professor or group? How should I go about in finding research that interests me? Are you trying to say I should start out from reading from a scientific journal of like a search engine of Chemistry articles, papers, posters, and publications, etc. and then find out who the journal article, paper, poster, or publication is written by and then look up the affiliation of the authors and trace it back to their university like that?

Exactly. That is how I did it. I started off with no idea that the subfield of research I'm interested in actually existed. But I was doing research (see, here's the key: do more research), so I read some papers to boost my knowledge. In browsing through recent issues of some journals (I really like PNAS for general science), a few papers with interesting titles caught my eye, e.g., "The Retrosynthesis of Cute Kittens". So I looked at the author & affiliation list, and Google-stalked each of the authors to find out who the main person (i.e., PI) was (usually they're listed as the corresponding author, but not always). Then I looked at their websites. If their research looked interesting, I bookmarked it, and looked at the website of the department with which they're affiliated, to see if anyone else's research looked interesting. Sometimes faculty will also have links to their collaborator's webpages on their site--I usually check them out too. (And I read the CV's of new professors, to get a sense of where they get their Ph.D.s, i.e., where are the good places to go in the field.) Repeat ad nauseum.

Edit: You'd be surprised at how many names you start recognizing within a few months of doing this ... I sometimes go looking for a paper in, say, Nature, and come across a name I'm familiar with. And I go "hey! I know (about) John Biglab! He's a new hotshot professor at the University of Giants! And he did his Ph.D. with I. M. Prolific at Awesomeness University!" and so on. It's pretty cool.

Edited March 14, 2011 by waddle

[Eigen]

How should I go about in tracing it back to a professor or group? How should I go about in finding research that interests me? Are you trying to say I should start out from reading from a scientific journal of like a search engine of Chemistry articles, papers, posters, and publications, etc. and then find out who the journal article, paper, poster, or publication is written by and then look up the affiliation of the authors and trace it back to their university like that?

Thanks.

Yup.

It's usually really easy- most papers list the author affiliation, and you can google the corresponding author name + their affiliation.

For you, I'd recommend doing a lot of reading in J Phys Chem A & B, J Chem Phys, JACS, and Angewandte Chime International Ed. Maybe Chem Rev and Chem Soc Rev as well. Most can be found via either the Royal Society of Chemistry or the American Chemical Society publication pages... Or you can use your institutional subscription to access them that way. If you're an ACS member (you should be) you can use that for easy access/searching of all the ACS journals.

If you just have schools you're really interested in (location, reputation, someone recommended it, etc) I encourage you to check them out as well- go to the website for the Chem Department, and then look at faculty research. Most programs will have a page for each research group (usually linked off the faculty members page) with recent publications/research descriptions. I'd read the last 5-8 articles for each group you're interested in to get a good feel for the group- methods, areas, etc.

Edited March 14, 2011 by Eigen

[chaospaladin]

Welcome, all chem applicants!

You all seem very ambitious. Doesn't anyone here have a "safety school"? Or are you just a really different bunch than the last 2 groups (2009, 2010) of applicants here at GradCafe?

What made the Grad Cafe PhD Chemistry application bunch in 2011 different from the groups in 2009 and 2010?

To facilitate the discussion, I guess I'll give my numerical stats:

GRE: 1400 composite (>700 quant)

GRE Chem: 95%

GPA: 4.0 at R1 university

~10 grad courses

3 years of research (2 different research groups)

1 summer research project

1 publication in a specialized journal (not 1st author...)

My letters will be great.

We shall see if these are good enough for where I applied.

What does "R1" mean?

[Eigen]

What made the Grad Cafe PhD Chemistry application bunch in 2011 different from the groups in 2009 and 2010?

What does "R1" mean?

To the former, she's saying that lots of people seem to be only applying to top schools, as opposed to a wider selection in years past.

R1 denotes a first tier research university.

Edited March 17, 2011 by Eigen

[UnlikelyGrad]

To the former, he's saying that lots of people seem to be only applying to top schools, as opposed to a wider selection in years past.

Ummm, "she"...but yes, that's exactly what I was saying. When I was applying in 2009 a lot of people had top schools (UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, etc.) but they usually also had several safety schools, frequently the sort of places most people don't associate with hard-core chem programs.

Personally, in today's competitive application climate, I feel that applying only to top schools is a bit risky. Even if I had rock-star GRE scores (actually, mine weren't too bad) and a killer GPA and lots of research experience, I would still want to find a second-tier school or two that matched my research interests, just in case.

Maybe the rock stars just posted first and all the "normal people" were too embarrassed to say that they were applying to Florida State or wherever?

(Eigen, didn't you apply in the 2010 app season? What did you think of your cohort?)

[Eigen]

I started grad school in '09 actually... So I guess I was the 2009 application season?

I didn't find the boards here until the end of my first semester, so I can't really comment much on my cohort.

Sorry about the "he" thing... Missed my "s"!

Edited March 17, 2011 by Eigen

[UnlikelyGrad]

I started grad school in '09 actually... So I guess I was the 2009 application season?

I didn't find the boards here until the end of my first semester, so I can't really comment much on my cohort.

Sorry about the "he" thing... Missed my "s"!

Hmmm...not sure what defines an application season. I put my apps in fall 2008 and heard back about now in 2009. We clearly started grad school at the same time, though.

I do remember not feeling stupid--in other words, I wasn't too out of the ordinary despite the fact that I only applied for one top-10 school.

[chaospaladin]

I started grad school in '09 actually... So I guess I was the 2009 application season?

I didn't find the boards here until the end of my first semester, so I can't really comment much on my cohort.

Sorry about the "he" thing... Missed my "s"!

Hmmm...not sure what defines an application season. I put my apps in fall 2008 and heard back about now in 2009. We clearly started grad school at the same time, though.

I do remember not feeling stupid--in other words, I wasn't too out of the ordinary despite the fact that I only applied for one top-10 school.

What exactly does "application season" mean? If I am applying in Fall 2011 for enrollment in Fall 2012, is my "application season" Fall 2011 or is it Fall 2012?

[Eigen]

Hmmm...not sure what defines an application season. I put my apps in fall 2008 and heard back about now in 2009. We clearly started grad school at the same time, though.

I do remember not feeling stupid--in other words, I wasn't too out of the ordinary despite the fact that I only applied for one top-10 school.

That's about what I remember. I applied to a top-10, and two well known but small lower ranked ones..

Interestingly enough, after getting into them all I went to the lowest ranked and am quite happy.

Edited March 17, 2011 by Eigen

[chaospaladin]

@BCchemie

I was accepted at Ohio State with stats not as good as yours. I applied under physical chemistry and there is one person I know for sure is very good and I would work for. I know nothing about the program or it's reputation overall. I applied a week late and was accepted in less than a week.

3.6 GPA

3.8 Chemistry GPA

470V

780Q

4.0AW

750 CHEM GRE

A summer of research experience and 3 normal letters. 2 were DWIC and 1 was a research advisor.

Does "DWIC" mean "Did well in class"? Also if they ask for 3 letters of recommendation, do people normally get 2 letters of recommendation from two professors whom they got an A in the class and 1 from a research advisor? I know some programs that don't give weight to any letters of recommendation that don't comment on the student's research potential. Does the average applicant who is applying to top programs actually get 3 letters of recommendation from 3 different research advisors?

[Eigen]

Does "DWIC" mean "Did well in class"? Also if they ask for 3 letters of recommendation, do people normally get 2 letters of recommendation from two professors whom they got an A in the class and 1 from a research advisor? I know some programs that don't give weight to any letters of recommendation that don't comment on the student's research potential. Does the average applicant who is applying to top programs actually get 3 letters of recommendation from 3 different research advisors?

To top programs? I know the undergrad that applied out of our lab had three letters from research advisors- one from our group, one from an inorganic group they'd worked with, and one they worked with for a year in Paris while they were studying abroad.

Mine varied from program to program- there was the research advisor I had for 3 years of work, the others were professors I'd either done collaborations with, or done independent study work with.

[tso123d]

So now that we're finishing up our visiting weekends, are any of you guys comfortable sharing what schools you are leaning towards, or if you already decided where you want to go? For my part, at the moment Berkeley and MIT are definitely at the top of my list.

[phoenix245]

Does "DWIC" mean "Did well in class"? Also if they ask for 3 letters of recommendation, do people normally get 2 letters of recommendation from two professors whom they got an A in the class and 1 from a research advisor? I know some programs that don't give weight to any letters of recommendation that don't comment on the student's research potential. Does the average applicant who is applying to top programs actually get 3 letters of recommendation from 3 different research advisors?

I don't know what's 'average' for top programs but I had 3 letters from my research PI's and one from my undergrad director of studies. For programs that only allowed 3 letters I missed out one of the research advisors. I think one letter related to coursework is sufficient, your transcript should be enough of a proof that you did the classes, from there on it's about your research interests and experience...

[luce373]

So now that we're finishing up our visiting weekends, are any of you guys comfortable sharing what schools you are leaning towards, or if you already decided where you want to go? For my part, at the moment Berkeley and MIT are definitely at the top of my list.

I still have Caltech to visit this weekend, but I'm probably going to Columbia. I was sick and missed the Berkeley visit, but I'm leaning enough towards Columbia I don't think I'll try to reschedule.

[BCchemie]

Loved my visits at Stanford, MIT, and Columbia. Scripps and Berkeley were both awesome too but the facilities were just not as nice as some of the other schools. Probably leaning towards Stanford at this point.

[tso123d]

I have decided I'm going to MIT. Maybe I'll see some of you there this fall!