Chemistry Program Advice Needed-Stats Are Attached

Graduate School
1

Hello all:

I was hoping to gather advice from others regarding chemistry graduate school admissions and possibly delaying the application process.

My stats are as follows:

Area of interest-Synthetic Organic

B.S. Chemistry 2012 (Top 25 public university, not renowned for its chemistry program)

American student

Cumulative GPA-3.36; Major GPA-3.62

Three semesters of undergraduate research. However, no publications.

Participation in student ACS chapter including a poster presentation at a national meeting.

One departmental scholarship and one departmental award.

Chemistry Subject GRE-75%; General GRE- Have not taken yet.

Currently, I work in industry for a medium-sized (global presence) chemical company. I have over three years of research experience here working on synthetic projects, research and development, and process optimization. During this time I have greatly expanded my synthetic skillset and characterization knowledge (2D NMR, GC methodology, etc.). I have received various awards and a promotion in my current role.

My initial plan was to apply for the Fall 2017 programs when they open. However, based on my ambitious graduate school list and my objectively poor GPA and lack of publications, I’ve considered postponing until 2018. I may try to use my contacts at my undergraduate institution to work in one of the labs of the organic faculty members over the weekends for a year given that I still live in reasonable proximity. My goal would be to have at least one publication to reinforce my application for Fall 2018.

I should point out that I will have three highly endorsing LOR from both academic and industrial chemists (albeit not Nobel Laureates!) that can attest to my research capabilities.

Each of the graduate schools on my list contains multiple investigators that strongly interest me. My top school is Scripps (La Jolla). A comprehensive list follows below:

UI-Urbana Champaign, U Penn, UNC Chapel Hill, Princeton, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UW-Madison, Ann Arbor.

To summarize and clarify, do you all think that I should keep working for one more year and put in the time during my weekends towards a publication? Or do you think that I should just move forward with the Fall 2017 application process? I’ve considered applying for 2017 and then re-applying in 2018 if things go poorly. However, I would hate to put my recommenders through the same process only a year later.

Many thanks for your thoughts or advice.

2

You should definitely go ahead and apply. I just checked out UIUC’s graduate page and their minimum GPA is a 3.0. Scripps doesn’t even have a minimum. You have a lot of research/industry experience which will look fantastic on your application. Plus, since you’re thinking about applying this early, you have a lot of time to prep for the GRE! Just go for it!

Answer this for others that want to chime in—
Are you planning on pursuing a PhD or a Masters?

3

Your GPA is good but not exceptional, same for your Chemistry GRE. Your work experience will be a plus as will your letters of reference. If you really want to go to graduate school, then by all means apply, but please consider other programs which are not so selective. Yes the minimum GPA is 3.0 but selective programs have many applicants and they will short-list the ones with the strongest academic qualifications. There is no guarantee that you can get into the schools you aspire to so having a safety or two that are acceptable options will be key.

4

Thank you both for replying. To clarify, my intent is to pursue a PhD. Aside from research interests, the primary reason that I’ve compiled such a selective list of schools is because I know that the organic route is more competitive/saturated. However, I agree that having a few safety schools is a good idea. I’ll start thinking about these!

5

Sure, your cumulative GPA is not great, but the rest of your nascent package looks great - high grades in your chemistry classes, undergraduate and industry research experience in your area of interest. You could probably raise your chemistry GRE score, and make sure you do really well on the general GRE. But with a great statement of purpose that really clearly articulates your research interests and career goals, I think you have a good shot. You don’t need publications to get into PhD programs, and most people don’t have them, although they can be the cherry on top.

Why don’t you do this: why don’t you apply to a curated short list of your very favorite programs for fall 2017 while also improving your application for fall 2018 just in case? Pick like your top 5 PhD programs, the ones that you’d really, really love to attend. Apply there. Simultaneously, work on improving your package. If you get into one of those top programs, great! If not, you’ve already done what you need to do to improve and reapply next year.

Also, as a side note - working on the weekends at a university lab is no guarantee that you will get a publication by next December (which is when you’d have to have it for it go on apps). First of all, many university labs may not have anything for you to do on the weekends. It kind of depends on the culture of the lab and the PI; I’m sure some grad students are there on the weekends, but most of the work probably happens during the week. Secondly, even if you did get into the lab on the weekends, you’d have to enter at the exact right time to actually have a publication on your record by December 2017. Papers themselves can take several months to write. Then the review process can take several months, then there’s usually at least one round of revisions and re-review. Even assuming a relatively short cycle, we’re talking probably at least a year and a half to acceptance. And that’s a really acelerated schedule - it usually takes longer than 3 months for the initial write and the review period can be really long (I once had a paper sit in review for 8 months). And that’s from the time you start writing, not from the time you start the research. If you are only volunteering, say, 5 hours a week on Saturdays, it’s unlikely you’ll have constributed substantially enough to get an authorship on a paper. Possible, but unlikely.

That said, that doesn’t mean volunteering on your weekends is a bad thing; and a paper in prep or submitted can be almost as valuable to a doctoral applicant as a published one. That’s because nobody really expects you to have published something yet.