<p>I'm currently a junior at a research intensive public university and I am looking to apply for a PhD in inorganic chemistry for 2012. I was wondering what types of schools you might suggest based off of my credentials.</p>
<p>GPA: 3.55/4.00
Honors Degree
ACS Member
Research poster presentation at a NE ACS meeting, school presentations, etc.
5 semesters of research in microwave spectroscopy with one publication
2 semesters of research in inorganic/materials chemistry on biodiesels, fuel cells, bioimaging, 2 more semesters to go in that lab and hopefully 1-2 more publications
SAACS member
Some lab training with X-ray diffraction, atomic absorbance, gas chromatography, gas chromatography mass spec, NMR, Raman spec, pulsed-jet microwave spec, scanning electron microscopes, etc. in addition to the regular undergraduate lab training
No GRE scores yet.
1 Summer research experience (grant)
I'll be taking my GRE's this upcoming summer and fall and will be applying in the fall.</p>
<p>I know my GRE is somewhat uncompetitive (I kinda dug myself a hole during the first two years) however I'm not sure how much my research could recover for that.</p>
<p>Any input would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Semi-bump. As added info I’ve just taken my GRE’s 780Q 680V 1460 total and haven’t heard back about writing but I’m expecting 5-6 (hopefully). My GPA is now 3.59 with a approx. 3.77 for junior year.</p>
<p>I’ve looked into schools and I’m so far interested in reach programs at Yale (Crabtree), MIT (Cummins, Nocera), Northwestern (Sattelberger, Poeppelmeier), Harvard (Whitesides), Illinois (Rauchfuss, Wieckowski), Cornell (Abruna), Stanford (Solomon), and Princeton (Bocarsely) (obviously these are all reach schools at best). </p>
<p>I’m interested in inorganic/materials work, perhaps with environmental connections or energy topics. I am interested in transition metal chemistry, alternative fuels, green chemistry, nanoscience, solid state chemistry, and catalysis as some potential areas. I’m not particularly fond of bio-inorganic chemistry. </p>
<p>Any suggestions of potential match schools or prefessors to look into?</p>
<p>Thank you for your time.</p>
<p>(P.S. in the first post I meant to say uncompetitive GPA, my GRE is fine.)</p>
<p>You have good numbers… how are your letters of reference? BTW, asfaik, Some of the people you mentioned stopped accepting new graduate students.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply.</p>
<p>yeah, to be honest I haven’t looked into who is accepting students or not yet. I’ve only just started looking into who sounds interesting to me so my research into the groups at this point is meager at best. I gave those professors to give an idea of the areas and types of research that interest me.</p>
<p>My letters of rec will hopefully be from my two research advisers; a physical chemist (now retired) and our department head who does inorganic chemistry/materials and is fairly well known both of whom I will work with or have worked with for 1.5-2.5 years each at the time of my applications. My thesis will be with our department head. The third letter will most likely be from one of my professors, perhaps my inorganic chemistry professor (I received one of the highest, if not the highest, averages in the class).</p>