<p>Hi!</p>
<p>I'm an undergraduate chemistry student form Austria and I'm thinking of going to an US ivy league school for graduate study.</p>
<p>I didn't find any useful department statistics on the web, so I'd like to ask whether someone knows which universities are best in chemistry at graduate level.</p>
<p>Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>The way I would rank the top graduate programs in Chemistry:</p>
<p>IN A LEAGUE OF ITS OWN
University of California-Berkeley</p>
<p>EXCEPTIONAL
California Institute of Technology
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University</p>
<p>VERY GOOD
Columbia University
Cornell University
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Chicago
University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Yale University</p>
<p>GOOD
Indiana University-Bloomington
Johns Hopkins University
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University
Purdue University-West Lafayette
Princeton University
Rice University
Texas A&M
University of California-Irvine
University of California-San Diego
University of California-Santa Barbara
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester
University of Texas-Austin
University of Washington</p>
<p>I am sure I am missing a couple, but it's a good start. You obviously want took at each department closely to see which one fits your interests and your needs the best.</p>
<p>No U of M on that list Alexandre? Maybe you are truly a partial observer LOL</p>
<p>Fret not JOEV, I decided to add another group (the GOOD), because many decent programs, including Princetonl, Rice, Michigan Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Penn and (dig this, Tosu), are worth looking into.</p>
<p>From what I've seen on departmental rankings by the National Research Council you have some misplaced schools:</p>
<p>UPenn is considerably stronger in chemistry than Yale or Columbia (considered by the NRC to be 52 and 50 respectively). There are also a surprisingly large number of public schools in chemistry rankings including Oklahoma, Florida State, Florida, Georgia Tech, Arizona, South Carolina, and Southern California.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I am new in this forum and the email reply didn't work so I am very late to say thanks for helping me!</p>
<p>University of Southern California is a private school, thiticalcrinkin.</p>
<p>That is true...I always forget that UCLA is public and USC is private.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction</p>
<p>BTW, Alexandre -- It's THE Ohio State University ;)</p>
<p>Chemist133,</p>
<pre><code> UC Berkeley is THE school for Chemistry. Alexandre's rankings were right on the money. There are several excellent, but if you wanted to attend a school that is insanely renown for their Chemistry research it's Berkeley. They discovered at least 8 elements and have been internationally regarded as the leader for several decades.
</code></pre>
<p>I keep seeing UC-Berkeley as the best graduate program in the opinions of most...do you think that also applies for undergraduate? I'm very interested in Berkeley, but I can't tell if it's a school where all of the funding and attention is placed solely in the graduate program.</p>
<p>I'd put Northwestern "very good" and Yale "good" instead of the other way around. Northwestern's inorganic chemistry is very strong.</p>
<p>i think Caltech is better than UCB in training PhD chemists - just take a survey of which department produces most people who go into academia later on in chemistry and you'll see that Caltech beats UCB even though they graduate less people</p>
<p>UCB has a much greater population, so granted that so many professors and students spend their research days at UCB there have to be more discoveries, papers, more science going on - but that is on the bulk level</p>
<p>on a per person basis, Caltech gives a better individual training and produces more independent thinkers than UCB</p>
<p>Kihyle, how do you figure that Caltech produces more "independent thinkers" than Cal? Caltech is obviously an amazing university, in some ways, the best university in the nation. But in many other ways, Cal is better than Caltech. Overall, I would say they are pretty equal schools that are equally capable of developing and cultivating brilliant minds.</p>
<p>US News PhD ranking:
1 University of CaliforniaBerkeley 5.0
2. California Institute of Technology 4.9
Harvard University (MA) 4.9
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.9
5. Stanford University (CA) 4.8
6. Scripps Research Institute (CA) 4.5
University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign 4.5
8. Columbia University (NY) 4.4
Cornell University (NY) 4.4
University of WisconsinMadison 4.4
11. University of CaliforniaLos Angeles 4.3
12. Northwestern University (IL) 4.2
University of TexasAustin 4.2
14. Princeton University (NJ) 4.1
University of Chicago 4.1
University of North CarolinaChapel Hill 4.1
Yale University (CT) 4.1</p>
<p>Specialties ranking according to US News (ranked in 2002)
Analytic:
1. University of North CarolinaChapel Hill<br>
2. Purdue UniversityWest Lafayette (IN)
3. University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign<br>
4. Indiana UniversityBloomington<br>
5. Iowa State University<br>
Inorganic:
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
2. California Institute of Technology<br>
3. Northwestern University (IL)
4. University of CaliforniaBerkeley<br>
5. University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign<br>
Organic:
1. Harvard University (MA)
2. Scripps Research Institute (CA)
3. University of CaliforniaBerkeley<br>
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
5. California Institute of Technology<br>
Physical:
1. University of CaliforniaBerkeley<br>
2. California Institute of Technology<br>
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
4. Stanford University (CA)
5. Harvard University (MA)</p>
<p>i just looked at proportion of professors who started out recently at chem departments in good universities and where they graduated from with a PhD</p>
<p>when i was picking schools to apply to i thought that rankings may not be the way to go about it so I took a survey of where young professors got their PhD's from in my field - it took some time on the net but Caltech came out on the top even though Berkeley graduated more students each year</p>
<p>now i've worked in academia and industry and i know that it is tougher to become assistant prof at a good place than find a job in the industry - industry has more of team effort going on - you're likely to be working with people who are on your level - your goals are set for you - you'll have a salary for sure - starting out as an assistant professor is hard - it requires more effort, more independent thinking, more creativity and multitasking on your part - you have to come up with your own goals, train your own group, and get yourself and others funded all by yourself</p>
<p>there are really great people who would be successful anywhere - i'm not prejudiced about anyone who went to UCB - i think it is a great school overall and they pick out top applicants - but many of us need some more individual guidance when we start out on the road to PhD - UCB just does not do a very good job of it - they use stress to weed people out - get a class of 80 with the aim of geting it down to 40 in the next two years - some fall out after an academically stressful 1st year, others after 2nd years exams - caltech gets a small class size in the beginning - then they really work on the people they get to make them shine - there is less emphasis of what grades you get your 1st year - instead they want you to work 14/7 in your lab and they want you to write more independent proposals than any other school - that gets you to think on your own for a change - they keep their size small so your interaction with professors can be much more involved (+ you have more space and time on the instruments while UCB is much more cramped)</p>
<p>so my idea that caltech graduates more independent thinkers is based on the above observations - you can disagree with me, Alexandre, and may be i'll even change my mind, but for now this is how i see it</p>
<p>I have been accepted to the Ph.D. program in Chemistry at the University of Southern California and Georgia Tech. As I read the above posts, both schools are decent in this field. I am currently attending a small, liberal art college, so going to either school (which are both very large in size, and both locates in big cities) would be a huge change for me. I don't have any basis to compare USC and GATech in many aspects. Can anyone please give me some guidance?</p>
<p>I also got in the Ph.D. program in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas. I thought I would try something different than "pure Chemistry", and luckily was accepted to KU. Ultimately, I want to work in the pharmaceutical industry, but I am not sure if getting a Ph.D. in Pharm. Chem or in Chem (with a medicinal/pharmaceutical-related research project) would make any difference. Kihyle, you have worked in the industry before, can you help me out?</p>
<p>Thanks so much!</p>
<p>the following is in my, and only my, humble opinion only:</p>
<p>you know, i do not think it will make much of a difference which degree you will finally obtain - some people will disagree with me here in that for the people who are hiring you "pharm chem" in you degree will sound like an alluring combination .... i worked for about a year in a pharmaceutical company doing the so called medicinal chemistry - there we had chem PhD's and PharmD's working on the same floor doing the same thing (i don't know about the same salary) .... of course, if you plan to work for a pharmaceutical company, while you'll be most likely assigned to do just one specific set of tasks (chemists do their synthesis and biologists do their testing) it helps to be multidisciplinary because the prime targets of all of the drugs you make are biological in nature - so it helps being able to read the literature you boss will bring in and understand it too .... i have known of one person who said that his background in both chemistry and biology helped him succeed in the company he had joined - that the drugs he made have been incredibly active [but i have very high doubts about one person being able to engineer a drug with a knowledge of the active site conformation as well as potential metabolism going on because in modern times this is very hard to do (even with computational aid)]</p>
<p>you have also not specified what is it exactly that you see yourself doing in a pharm company? at the very entry-level position people usually work in very specific areas - here, if you plan to do chemistry (translate synthesis and purification) you need to be firmly grounded in you chemistry basics - you should know things from your Corey-Fuchs reaction to some mechanical things like fact that HF reacts immediately with glass, may be know how to use some instrumentation - when they are hiring you they want to see a nice presentation on the kind of chemistry you did for your graduate degree as well as what kinds of problems you solved on your own and how you solved them .... beyond the entry-level, as a PI you need to have a more complete picture in perspective because you are the one who chooses what problems to work through, which compounds to pursue, where to direct each person's effort - as a chemistry PI you should have a firm grounding in chemistry, but it is relevant to read & understand the literature concerning your area of pharmacological focus, literature which is not all synthetic chem talk</p>
<p>and of course, also remember that a PhD should be done in the more widely known program with the more famous group leader - sadly, it has always been true that people react very strongly to where and under whose direction you have completed your graduate studies and less strongly to what kind of work you have done (they start getting into it later in the interview, but at first it is good to impress them with someone's name, with whom you associated during your work - sometimes a company might favor some professor over others having a very good experience with students his or her lad produces) - so you have to sort of build-up your "pedigree", and this goes for both industry and academia</p>
<p>you should also hold in mind where you will end up after you finish PhD - now california has a very nice flourishing biotech and pharm industry thing going ... i have not lived anywhere in kansas neither atlanta but i have a feeling that their surrounding area may not be as supporting of your professional goals</p>
<p>i have not been to any of these three schools (except USC campus once) so sorry i cannot give you any more detail than this - in my own opinion it does not matter very much if you obtain a PhD in chem or pharm chem because it will still be PhD work which is similar school to school - you can take the biochem and toxicology classes at any school which has a somewhat developed biochemistry department or otherwise learn it on your own - anyhow, i hope you visit all these schools and talk to faculty and graduate students there to check out the overall environment of the school - make sure that there are at least a few faculty with whom you'd be interested to work with - ask how many students they have graduated and where those students ended up (which companies) - otherwise it is much more important how good of a work you will do and who you'll do it with rather than the title of the PhD you'll get in the end</p>
<p>The University of Rochester has an amazing undergraduate program. We also have some hot names in the field of inorganic chemistry. I am proud to be a graduate.</p>