309 GRE! Rest credentials fine.Should I apply to top universities?

[MSinChem]

GRE- 309, TOEFL- 99. I had applied for fall 2015 while in my final year of MS in Chemistry at one of the top institutes in India (9.56/10 GPA)and got rejection from Pennstate, UNC. Purdue (after interview), Rochester. Notre dame.

 Completed MS with 9.65/10 and first rank. Currently working as assistant professor in Chemistry for 9 months. I have co-authored a paper in Chemical Physics Letters, have done a 1 yr project and three summer projects. Organised a national seminar and attended a few seminars...

I wish to apply for graduate program in Chemistry in Spring 2017. Do I have chances to get into top universities? I don't have much idea of universities having spring admissions?

Or should I retake GRE and apply again?

[aberrant]

Welcome to the forum. Here are a few things that you should provide in order for the others to provide more valuable inputs to you:

1. Separate the score of GRE Verbal and GRE Quant when you are looking for inputs. Although it means something if you report each of the section in a score out of 170, it is best to report the score in percentile -- that will directly indicate your performance compare to your peers who previously/recently took the exams.

2. What does "assistant professor" entail? It seems to have a different "definition" than that in the U.S. If you are report something other than the "common definition of 'assistant professor' in the U.S.", adcom may find your application suspicious. Worst case scenario is that they will not review your application any further.

3. You didn't say anything about your personal statement/statement of purpose, nor your recommendation letters. Those are some very important criteria as well.

Few things that I would say based on your provided info:

1. If I remember correctly, TOEFL score is out of 120. While some programs do have a minimum TOEFL scores and some don't, I would say that you should try to get at least a 100 in TOEFL. Otherwise, you can/should consider programs that do not require reporting TOEFL score during application.

2. Most PhD programs do not accept students in Spring semester. You probably should be looking at Fall 2017 admission instead.

3. It seems that your research experience is not as extensive as others. Were you a co-first authored on that paper? Did you present your 1 year project? How long were your 3 summer projects? Were there any results from those 3 summer projects? Also, do you mean you organized a national conference instead of a seminar? They are very different.

Good luck!

[MSinChem]

Thanks for your suggestions... I would like clarify a few points. Please have a look and suggest me if I have any chance in top or  avg ranking universities with these credentials. 

1. GRE score is 151 for vebal,158 for quant and 3 for AWA.

2. My current designation is assistant professor in Chemistry and I am teaching Chemistry for bachelor's and master's students in an Arts and Science college in India. (I joined college after qualifying a national eligibility test for lectureship after master's in Chemistry. Doctorate is not required in India to join college as lecturer.) 

3. I studied in an institute which is nationally reputed for science education and research, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE EDUCATION AND RESEARCH BHOPAL. Master's in Chemistry with first rank. One year project was on drug-protein binding using fluorescence spectroscopy. Summer projects are done for two months duration. One on protein folding using molecular simulation and another on photoinduced charge transfer processes in inverted core- shell quantum dots. And regarding the paper, I am not the first author.

4. Strong LORs.

5. Organising committee member of the two day national seminar sponsored by University Grants Commission at the college level. 

 

[Monstercookie]

I would call your current position "Lecturer". Assistant professor means something very different in the US. 

 

A Lecturer is someone who is hired to teach in undergraduate education. 

An Assistant Professor has a tenure track position, implying an independent research group and own funding. 

[MSinChem]

Yeah... I was using the titles in India. Thanks for clarifying. I actually did a search on those nomenclatures.

 

Could anyone answer to my question.

[Cookie]

On 5/22/2016 at 3:26 PM, MSinChem said:

GRE- 309, TOEFL- 99. I had applied for fall 2015 while in my final year of MS in Chemistry at one of the top institutes in India (9.56/10 GPA)and got rejection from Pennstate, UNC. Purdue (after interview), Rochester. Notredame.

 Completed MS with 9.65/10 and first rank. Currently working as assistant professor in Chemistry for 9 months. I have co-authored a paper in Chemical Physics Letters, have done a 1 yr project and three summer projects. Organised a national seminar and attended a few seminars...

I wish to apply for graduate program in Chemistry in Spring 2017. Do I have chances to get into top universities? I don't have much idea of universities having spring admissions?

Or should I retake GRE and apply again?

1. GRE & TOEFL: nothing to write home about. You should definitely retake your GRE.

2. Being a lecturer in India doesn't mean so much in grad school application.

3. Your research experience is rather poor. Organizing seminars is not research experience and again, the committees don't care about that.

4. Your chance to get into top schools is low. Shoot lower.

 Source: My boss is the head of admission committee in one of the schools you mentioned. My peers who are F1 from India have much better credentials (multiple papers, 3-5 years of reseach experience, better GRE).