How competitive am I for Chemistry Grad School?

[madchemist_04]

I took the GRE this Novemember and felt confident, but scored 153 V and 152 Q. However, my GPA is 3.4 and Chem GPA is 3.6. I recieved a grant, my senior year and did eight months of research on an orginial project that I designed myself (Treatment of bipolar disorder through inhibition of GSK-3B). I'm working on submitting for publication and will be a first author on this. I also have wonderful letters of reccommendation from professors, research adviosrs, and scientist that worked with me during my project. At my local university I am also teaching the laboratory section of the "Advanced Organic Synthesis" class and in the spring will also be teaching the Analytical Labs in the spring. I'm applying to Vanderbilt, Hopkins, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Chicago. I have also applied for the NSF GFRP. I'm worried my GRE is not good enough and I really just don't know where I stand as an applicant any advice would be very helpful.

[Chai_latte]

What's 152 quant equivalent to on the old scale? How does it compare it to the avg. scores at Vandy etc.? My gut says 152 is rather low. However, the rest of your app looks good to me. If you don't want to re-test, I'd apply to a wider range of schools. Surely, those four aren't the only ones that would provide a solid research fit.

[madchemist_04]

It would be about a 500 V and 500 Q for the GRE score

[Chai_latte]

For the schools you're going for (and really any school), you need to take the exam again IMO. I really do think you current scores will hurt your app.

[Quantum Buckyball]

I took the GRE this Novemember and felt confident, but scored 153 V and 152 Q. However, my GPA is 3.4 and Chem GPA is 3.6. I recieved a grant, my senior year and did eight months of research on an orginial project that I designed myself (Treatment of bipolar disorder through inhibition of GSK-3B). I'm working on submitting for publication and will be a first author on this. I also have wonderful letters of reccommendation from professors, research adviosrs, and scientist that worked with me during my project. At my local university I am also teaching the laboratory section of the "Advanced Organic Synthesis" class and in the spring will also be teaching the Analytical Labs in the spring. I'm applying to Vanderbilt, Hopkins, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Chicago. I have also applied for the NSF GFRP. I'm worried my GRE is not good enough and I really just don't know where I stand as an applicant any advice would be very helpful.

What you can do is that you could apply for their Masters program to see if you can get your foot in the door or not and then work your way up.

One of my professors from undergrad had a GRE score around 1000-1100ish (around 2003?), and she got in Yale's MS Chem program and did really well. Then, she got accepted to the Yale's PhD program in Chem...It might take you couple more years to finish, but it'll all be worth it in the end

Edited November 17, 2012 by Quantum Buckyball

[Chai_latte]

One of my professors from undergrad had a GRE score around 1000-1100ish (around 2003?), and she got in Yale's MS Chem program and did really well. Then, she got accepted to the Yale's PhD program in Chem.

Really? Wow...b/c on paper, Yale doesn't have a terminal MS. I didn't know they did that. Very interesting.

[Quantum Buckyball]

Really? Wow...b/c on paper, Yale doesn't have a terminal MS. I didn't know they did that. Very interesting.

I don't know if they still do that or not but at least it was like that back in 2003. I saw it on her CV and it was not a terminal MS.

[Pyridoxal_phos]

I don't know if they still do that or not but at least it was like that back in 2003. I saw it on her CV and it was not a terminal MS.

Well often people list the Masters on the C.V. even if they were not in a terminal masters program. When you are in a Ph. D. program you get a masters along the way, so just because it is on her CV, that is not a guarantee that she went through a terminal masters program there.

And to OPs original question, I agree with Chai_latte. While you can get away with a verbal score of ~500-550, you would really like your quant score to be 700+.