What can I consider a safety, and what can I consider a reach?

[IanTheChemist]

I'm a junior at MIT majoring in chemistry with significant academic and research focus on organic catalysis. 

I work for a prominent organic chemist (he's got some named reactions, if that gives any hints) at MIT, and I will have two published papers by the end of this semester (second author on both, one potentially in Science, the other in JACS).

GRE: To be taken, V/Q 160/168 on practice exam. Chem: 880 on practice. (Obviously not hardset, but just to give an idea).

GPA: 3.8 currently, having received a B in quantum chemistry, thermo, and advanced physical organic chemistry, with the rest of my grades being A's.

Ideally I'd like to work for Grubbs at Caltech, Jacobsen at Harvard, or MacMillan at Princeton. Obviously these are all extremely competitive schools, and definitely not safeties. I don't know where I could apply that would give me a reasonable chance of getting in at all, but I hope to get some advice about that from some more experienced chemists here.

Thanks and if you have more questions let me know.

[dells_of_bittersweet]

Get 3 great LORs and my gut tells me you'll get into all three schools. 

If you want safeties, Northwestern, Texas, Michigan, and Colorado are great programs where in the right research group you'll be the equal of the students at Harvard and Caltech. 

Princeton is ranked 15 in chemistry which kind of already makes it a safety school for you. 

You have better stats and experience than me and I got accepted into a program ranked in the low teens.  I was 167/159 V/Q with a 3.53 GPA, no pubs although one in the works. I got 33% on the chem GRE so most places I didn't even report it to. The only advantage I had on you was that I got all As in chem classes and destroyed my GPA elsewhere. 

US News and World Report is a flawed system and I'm sure the next poster is going to be like "ranking doesn't matter." I will say that I found it to be a helpful guide though.

Go through each school that is ranked in the top 25, and look for schools where there are multiple professors doing research you think is interesting. Research you could spend your life doing. Apply to those schools. I recommend applying to about 10 programs. There is a fair amount of luck and random chance involved and your odds improve the more pots you put your finger in .

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/chemistry-rankings

 

[dells_of_bittersweet]

If you want a deep safety school, I think UC Davis at number 35 is underrated

 

Edited February 23, 2016 by dells_of_bittersweet

[St Andrews Lynx]

I don't think you can really determine safety schools by their ranking alone. Even though the schools suggested above are a bit lower in the rankings...every other student who is trying to get in to an elite school will be applying to those as "safeties".

I'd focus on applying to good program where there are 2-3 professors you could see yourself working for (check that Grubbs is actually still taking on PhDs, I've heard that he's close to retirement and most of his PhDs are jointly-supervised). If you're a good fit then your application will be what gets you in, not your fine-tuned definition of "safety" and "reach".

[Orgo for days]

Dude, you're a top student from a top school doing research with a top professor. Academia worships pedigree, for better or for worse. Partially because of this, you're the perfect applicant from the view of someone on the acceptance committee at any school. You could very well get into all of the top 10 schools as long as you don't write terrible essays.

Experience: I've got a slightly worse pedigree than you with no publications, a worse GPA, and a worse GRE score and I still got into 7/9 of the top 15 that I applied to, including Harvard and Princeton (I didn't apply to caltech).

I think the bigger question would be why do you want to work for famous people whose graduate students don't publish very frequently? It would probably pay off better to work for younger, less famous people at your proposed institutions. For instance, the Knowles and Hyster lab at Princeton caught my eye, and there's a new lab at Harvard that might be of interest to you as well (coming later in 2016). But also, working for a famous person will at least guarantee a decent job upon graduation, so you'd have to weigh the pros and cons.

Hope this helps!

[Faraday]

Just as an FYI, Grubbs is no longer taking grad students and he hasn't been for the past few years. Good luck with you applications!

Edited February 25, 2016 by Faraday

[phenol]

2 hours ago, Faraday said:

Just as an FYI, Grubbs is no longer taking grad students and he hasn't been for the past few years. Good luck with you applications!

I hear he recently took a joint student with Harry Gray.  I just think he isn't taking any full-time students.

[Faraday]

19 hours ago, phenol said:

I hear he recently took a joint student with Harry Gray.  I just think he isn't taking any full-time students.

Fair enough. A former postdoc of his said he was done with grad students. I guess if you're really promising he's willing to make exceptions!

[rep+82]

Yeah just went on my CalTech visit a week and a half ago, grad students said he's only taking joint students right now. Wouldn't count on being able to work for Grubbs for the next application cycle, and def not Grubbs alone.