Hi all,
I am a new member. I have a question regarding admission in phd chemistry in USA. I am trying to get admission in Phd last year. But I got rejections in all the universities. I don’t know the reason for the rejections as I am new to this system. I am a permanent immigrant to this country. My whole education is from India. I gave my GRE last year. Any body from central America specifically from Texas. Will I get chance to get admission in Phd.AS my application is still under review and no answer from the department and admission office. Can anyone guide me for this? What is the procedure to get admission? Is it really worth to meet professors of university before the admission in the phd? As I am totally new to this system.
Thanks,
One problem may be language skills, as I am having trouble even understanding your post. Is this right:
=>You did your undergraduate degree in India and now live in the US
=>You took the GRE last year and applied to some PhD programs, but were rejected from all of them
=> You have applied someplace for this year (it sounds as if it might be in Texas) but have not had a response from admissions and no response from the university.
If those things are right, then I have some questions for you:
*When you say “permanent immigrant”, do you mean that you have a Green Card?
- What were your GRE and GRE-Chem (if you took it) scores?
*What universities did you apply to?
As to how to apply, the instructions online are pretty clear. For example, here is the process for the University of Texas: https://www.cm.utexas.edu/academics/prospective-graduates/how-to-apply
If you think that you applied for this fall and have heard nothing at all then I think that somehow your application wasn’t completed. It would be unusual for a department to simply ignore an applicant, so perhaps there are problems with the numbers or addresses you are using.
Hi,
Thank you for your time. Let me brief myself first. I have done my BS in Science and MS in Chemistry. I have experience in teaching in India. After getting greencard, I came to US two years back. Then I prepared for GRE and gave test last year. I did soem online courses in Chemistry. Then I applied for phd program for fall 2015. I applied for 3 university. But, unfortunately I got rejection, after getting success into waiting list. I don’t know the reason. Some people are saying that I should meet with professors before applying to phd which I haven’t any idea taht it is the trend. I have GPA 3.80 in MS. In one university my application is still under review. And this is my second address which I have already informed to the university. So, my question is what are my chances to get admission to phd. It is my dream to do Phd in USA.
Thanks,
Does that mean that you have moved, but you have given your new address to the university?
That is always a hard question, but impossible without knowing both your GRE score(s) and what universities you are interested in.
A PhD is not an end in itself. What do you want to do with your PhD? teach? commercial research? academic research? what kind of chemistry do you want to specialize in - electrochemistry / organic / theoretical / etc/
Did you match your interests to the interests of the PhD programs you applied to? Did you investigate the research interests of the faculty?
Thanks for your time. Yea, I have informed the university about my relocation. I am interested in organic chemistry. Iam interested in research. I know about my permanent immigration will happen during my graduation. This is the reason I joined teaching profession instead of phd in India. As I wanted to be part of research in US. So, in short I wanted to know about the procedure used in US during application and admission. May be I have done some mistakes during my application. The most important question, I wanna ask is it required to meet professors before admission in specific university? Many people are blaming me that I should visit the university after applying for phd. How is possible to visit–if a person is at east coast and specific university is at west coast? I don’t understand. Is it so hard to get admission in the unversity for the immigrants?
It is not about immigrants, but this:
is confusing. In post #2 you said that you have a Green Card, but that says that you don’t know yet about your status. What graduation are you talking about? Are you trying to get into a PhD program to get a Green Card?
It is not required to visit the university or meet the professors, but it is a good idea: an important part of your PhD is how you work with the people- especially your supervisor. If you cannot get to a university because of costs, you can contact the professors- with specific questions about their research and how it fits with your research interests. If you email ANYBODY find somebody whose English is better than yours- that is not to be mean, but because I find your writing hard to understand, and it is a good idea not to make it hard for people to help you.
The application process is straightforward: every university has the information online (like the University of Texas I posted earlier). The homework is what you need to do: identify universities who accept PhD candidates with your test scores (GRE and TOEFL), grades and research interests. Then write up a statement of interest, and start contacting people in the those universities.
Thanks for your advice.
one more question-what is this “apply texas” ?
Further, my English is neither bad nor supre excellent. Actually, this is a public platform. So, I am not sure how much information, I need to share here. 
. I just wanna know about the steps required for the admission. Also, after getting rejection from one of the prestigious university, I asked for the feedback on my application. According to them, phd is a fund program. Rejection and selection is based on the funds in the department besides the competition during admission. And they advice me to apply again in the next session. So, I just wanna gather information for the application.
? I don’t understand what your question is? I am not suggesting that you apply to a Texas university- I asked if you had because in your original post you said
. That’s why I posted the link to the University of Texas- it is just for an example.
Also- when people say central America they usually mean the region of Central America (the countries of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama). If you are referring to states in the middle of the US, you might say central region of America.
I completely agree with @collegemom3717 that your grammatical skills may be the problem.
I also had difficulty following what you were trying to ask and say. Are you saying you have to get a Ph.D. to gain permanent residency? I didn’t understand what you were trying to say.
I’m going to be very honest and upfront, so please understand that this is how I see it:
As a researcher, seeking a Ph.D., you have to be able to write your dissertation in clear English and report on your results in a manner which can be understood by the reader and the committee. Your written English skills here are extremely weak, such that your current skills require translation and interpretation. If we, on this forum, can’t understand you in a few lines, imagine how difficult it would be to interpret your research and dissertation.
It doesn’t really matter how talented you may be in your field because, in the long run, if you can’t communicate effectively, either in written or in speaking skills, in clear English, the universities have to reject you. I work in the field of communication, and this will be a huge problem for you.
It doesn’t matter that it is YOUR dream to do research, and that you’ve taught in India, because your weak English skills will reflect poorly on the university. The professors don’t have time to try to figure out what you are trying to say; they are kept very busy by their research and teaching obligations at their universities. What kinds of pressure are you under that people are “blaming you” for not traveling to meet with university professors?
Additionally, students have to be able to understand what you are trying to say in English. I’m sorry to be so harsh but these are American universities, if you don’t communicate well, and test poorly on the GRE, you wont be admitted.
Hey, wait wait… why are y’ll so criticizing me? I’m here for help. So my GRE scores are 325 and TOEFL scores are 7.0 out of 9.0. what’s the matter with y’ll? what y’ll are here for show off or for the advice to somebody. Very disappointed with y’ll responses. Anyways, thanks…whatever your department will be? But you are perfect only in your own department? you might face the same bumpers if y’ll try to move in different tracks…Thanks for your responses…One thing more if you can’t advice anybody,don’t discourage anybody…Many of my high school students are enrolled in different prestigious universities. They know better their teacher.Thanks for y’ll responses.
“Is it really worth to meet professors of university before the admission in the phd?”
If it is physically impossible to meet them, you should email a few of them before you apply and ask them about their research, and tell them you are interested in applying to their programs. It is VERY important to understand that there is a huge advantage for students who apply and:
- have English as a native language and/or have attended an American or other university that teaches courses only in English
- meet personally with professors either in person or online, and discuss the professors’ research and what their thoughts on proposed doctoral research
- carefully review the universities’ admissions statistics, to see if their test scores and GPA meet the criteria (this would include TOEFL for you)
I teach college, including graduate courses, and can tell you that your English skills based on these posts is “bad” (and you mean “poor,” and “supre” is not an English word). You cannot compare yourself to your friends or colleagues in India, you have to realize that in the US you will either be dealing with native English speakers or a mix of native English speakers and those whose original language was not English. Either way, if you misspeak or write something wrong, as a student it is one thing, but as a PhD student who is a teaching assistant, that might be another.
That is, you need to work on your written (and spoken if necessary) English if you want to succeed in a PhD program in the US. Most PhD programs have significant funding and tuition remission (you do not pay tuition fees and you get a stipend somewhere around $15,000 - $20,000 for two semesters). The problem that you will have is that new PhD students are almost always expected to become teaching assistants.
A teaching assistant might just grade papers, so in chemistry, might just be checking structures based on an answer key, or they might be overseeing a lab course where they have to make sure the students are following the lab instructions and are safe. “in” and “on” and “by” can matter a lot in terms of safety.
Remember that if you will be writing your dissertation in English, it will likely be around 300 or more pages, and you are not going to get very much help in your continual English usage.
I’d say unless your English skills improve, use local connections in India to find out where you would have the best chance to get in, and to network to find professors with links to your Indian university or home area.
“But I got rejections in all the universities. I don’t know the reason for the rejections as I am new to this system.”
Most of the responses have given you a big clue as to why you are being rejected. You can’t become angry that people are being honest. Your English skills are very weak. We’re not criticizing your other skills. We are telling you why you are most likely being rejected by the universities : your weak use of English is holding you back.
Is it really that unbelievable to you?
Take some conversational English classes with grammar exercises.
For example: Advice vs. advise.
“And they advice me to apply again in the next session.”
Advice is a noun. It typically means of a list, or suggestions that you use as a guide and might act upon these.
" I will take your advice".
Advise is a verb. It means to counsel someone.
“He advised the President on the security matter.”
So in a sentence, you could use both: “The counselor will advise his student to take the advice suggested by the Principal.”
Your sentence should have been, " and they ADVISED (“counseled”) me to apply again. . . ".
Not "And they ‘list of suggestions’ to apply again. . . . "
“Let me brief myself first.” = Let me inform myself first. <<<<<<<<<<This is your use of English. You are saying in English, Let me tell myself first/let me talk to myself first. This makes no sense, grammatically, in meaning.
.
I can understand that putting your scores out is uncomfortable, but it is helpful.
First, you don’t have a TOEFL score- you have IELTS, and not all universities accept IELTS. When I scanned some chem PhD programs they were looking for a TOEFL scores of 105+, which is about a 7.5 IELTS.
Second, some universities require the Chemistry GRE for international students (which is likely to include you, as all your schooling was done internationally).
Third, I don’t know how to interpret your GRE scores. Most universities will give you some idea of typical scores. For example University of Wisconsin says their minimum expected GRE percentiles are: Verbal: 40%; Quantitative: 70%; Writing Assessment Score of 3.0. I can’t figure out what a 325 means to know how to help you.
As far as meeting professors before you are accepted, some universities won’t let that happen- their profs don’t have the time to meet all applicants. So, whoever is giving you a hard time should back off a little. But- doing homework on research interests, reaching out and making contact, are a good plan.
There is a lot of information on each university website: use it! research, research, research.
Where I work, they admit grad students based on knowing what they have to offer the department, and how much they know about the field they will be spending four or five years becoming more expert in.
If a department, or a whole university, doesn’t let you contact professors to tell them about yourself and ask about their research and if they are looking for grad students, that makes the applicant’s life a lot harder.
As collegemom3717 mentioned, you would have to do a lot of research so you can target a few specific areas that professors focus on.
I have dealt with graduate students who have had poor English skills, and the only way they got into our university is by having a research assistantship set up already with a professor. 95% of our grad students deal directly with undergraduates and must have a significant English capability. And most of our grad students are international.
Applying to graduate school is much different than applying to an undergraduate program. No one expects an undergraduate to know about specific fields of research or professors.
It sounds like you might not be targeting the right schools given your test scores. Ideally one of your grad school professors would be helping you identify the schools for which you have a reasonable chance of admission, but perhaps you have been out of school for a while or your profs might not know enough about the admission requirements for U.S. programs. For some programs, pretty much every PhD student admitted will have GRE scores in the 90 percentile or above. Many of us who teach Indian students are used to seeing Indians with higher verbal GREs than many of the U.S. applicants. A low verbal GRE is a sign that the dissertation will need a lot of work and not every prof wants to assume the responsibility for that. For the university that you still haven’t heard from, you should contact them to ask what the status of your admission is.
You have asked what might be wrong with your application and a lot of the answers have focused on test scores which is certainly an important part of the application. However, if you want specific advice you need to provide more information because graduate applications are much more than simply your GPA and test scores. Just as important, if not more, are your personal statement and your letters of reference as well as your demonstrated research experience.
Having been involved in graduate admissions for my university for many years (both physics and chemistry), I can tell you that many professors in India have no idea how to write a convincing and personal letter of reference for a student. This could certainly be an issue for your application, particularly if the schools to which you are applying are highly selective. Believe me that University of Texas, Austin(for example) will have hundreds of applicants for probably no more than 20 funded positions or so each year. And many if not most of the applicants have GRE (and IELTS) scores as good or better than yours. If you do not have significant research experience (as discussed in your personal statement and letters of reference, then you are at a disadvantage).
Your personal statement is the primary way you have of convincing the university that you really want to be there and that you have the ability to succeed there. I routinely see statements which discuss generalities about how wonderful it will be to study physics (or chemistry) and that the applicant has wanted to do so since he/she was a small child. This kind of general statement makes no impression on me and I have a hard time getting through it. What I want to see is a statement that tells me how the student’s preparation is relevant to being in a Ph.D. program and why the applicant wants to come to my university, with specifics. Telling me that my department at Illinois Tech is “world renowned” is not convincing because I know exactly what we are and where we sit in the pecking order. I like to see a statement that clearly shows that the applicant knows about my department, has looked at the research we do, and has identified a few faculty who would be good mentors. I also don’t like to see an application to Illinois Institute of Technology mentioning University of Illinois or University of Chicago. This just means that the applicant has not spent the time to carefully reread the statement. Of course, the statement needs to be written in good English so that I can be assured that the applicant is able to handle the job of Teaching Assistant.
Finally, the letters. The short, one paragraph letter that tells me that the student is “diligent and works very hard” really does nothing to make me want to offer the student admission and a Teaching Assistantship. I need to see a letter from a professor who knows the student well and can provide a personalized assessment of how the student has done in classes and research. Plus, I need three of them. If I only have two, the application is not complete and if I have hundreds of applications, I won’t bother with the incomplete ones.
So you can see that the application is complex and needs to be put together with care.
Furthermore, you need to choose carefully which schools you apply to. You have not told us which 3 schools you applied to and this means that we cannot provide you with ANY specific advice. It is possible that you applied to 3 “top 10” selective schools which have admission rates of less than 10%. Would it be any wonder that you did not gain admission? At these schools you have to pass the first cut with strong test scores and GPA before they will actually read the full application. I advise our undergraduate to apply to no more than 3 of these types of schools and then 2 others where there is a much better chance of being admitted. This is just smart tactics and you will find many threads on this forum where this kind of advice is provided. I understand that you are reluctant to provide detailed information but we do not know your name and no one really cares enough to try to figure it out. In addition, what does it matter if you tell us what schools you applied to? it does, however, make it possible for us to give you a general idea if that school is a reach or a safety for you and to provide you with other suggestions.
thanks @xraymancs…thanks for your information and time. Now I have all the answers regarding admission in different universities. Your information will be very helpful for many other students. I will share this information with other prospective students,too. Yea universities have every information at their sites about the requirements for admission. I was wondering I had applied in the top universities(UNC-Chapel Hill). This might be reason for the rejection. I am not disappointed for rejection. At least, I tried. I will do it again. This time with Toefl. Yea I have given IELTS. thanks again for the information. I really appreciate. Actually, In my opinion the idea for contacting professors before admission was not seems to be appropriate to me. So I was actually confused at this point. thanks for your piece of advise. This time I will do it carefully of course with TOEFL exam or may be with GRE again with improved scores.
thanks@CheddarcheeseMN…for your information. I really appreciate it. thanks again…