<p>Hey all,
This forum is great, Really helped me know stuff about studies abroad.</p>
<p>I'm a First year Undergraduate Student from India at Institute of Chemical Technology,Mumbai. My course is a 4 year B.Tech. Chemical Engg.+ Specialisation in Dyestuff Technology. It has huge amounts of Organic Chemistry.</p>
<p>I would like to pursue a PhD in Chemistry (Most likely Organic) at a reputed institute like MIT (Building castles in the skies) or Caltech, Maryland, UCB, and the others. (PhD programmes in India aren't upto the mark compared to the ones in the US.</p>
<p>So what should I plan on doing these four years?
Is the GPA (out of 10 here) very weighted for admission abroad? How much should I score?
Going by my current performance, I'm likely to score somewhere around 8-8.5 in my first semester.</p>
<p>Now my current institute, ICT (Mumbai), emphasizes on research a lot,So much so that there are around 150-170 international papers published a year. So my main aim is publishing 1-2 international papers during the course of my 4 year study here.</p>
<p>Regarding the GRE, Chemistry-GRE and the TOEFL, I plan on giving them in my 3rd year. So when should be an appropriate time to start studying for them?</p>
<p>Regarding my financial aid, Can someone specify a range of the stipend per year? I'm able to pay around $10-15k by myself. Does the stipend fully cover our expenses?</p>