Applying to grad school soon and would appreciate input

[Herbert West]

Hello!

I will be applying to graduate schools for the fall 2017 semester. I am interested most in UC Berkeley, University of Illinois, MIT, CIT, Ann Arbor, Indiana University, and Ohio State, where I would like to work in an organic lab. I have gone through grad schools and chosen schools where there are about three professors with whom I would like to work.

I am taking the GRE tomorrow and have been scoring 159-165/160-169 V/Q on practice tests, have a 4.0 GPA at a state university in Illinois (not U of I), did half a year of research in a physical chemistry lab, a semester of research in a biochem lab, and will have worked in an organic lab for over two years when I graduate in 2017. I do not have a publication in the works yet, but I presented a poster at the ACS meeting in San Diego on the organic work. I have solid LORs from the organic, biochem, and physical chem professors as well as from several other faculty members at my university. I have taken grad level courses in heterocycles, organic synthesis, physical organic chemistry, and structural determination, and I have been an undergraduate TA for a year and will probably be one again next year.

Is my list of schools too overly ambitious for my profile?

Thank you in advance!

Edited July 9, 2016 by Herbert West