Hello everyone!
I’m currently a junior undergraduate in Chemistry at UCF and I’ve been recently researching graduate schools and faculty within those schools so that I may apply next year. Some of those schools include highly ranked and selective schools such as Princeton, Emory, and Berkeley.
Currently I have a 3.655 GPA (which I plan to bring up); this is because when I first started school I essentially had already completed a lot of Gen Eds and first-year chem courses and essentially shaved a year off my college career, which meant that I started my fall semester of my freshman year in Organic I which I was not prepared for and I ended up with a C. My Spring semester also saw a B in Organic II and Calculus III. Since then, I’ve gotten all A’s in the summer semester and this semester and I’m working on bringing my GPA to at least a 3.8.
I also plan to take the GRE this summer and I’ve been preparing for it hoping for at least a 160 on verbal and quant and at least a 4 on AW. Finally, I do research in a bioelectrochemistry lab and will be published before I apply and will also begin a second project as an optional undergraduate thesis. That work is unlikely to be published (although I would be first author) before I apply and any conferences I would possibly present at would take place after the application deadline.
My question is this: What else do I need to do to make myself a good candidate for these schools? Will the school understand that even though my GPA is low it’s impacted more by lower grades since 45 credits worht of AP courses were not factored into it? How can I comment on my second project without it being published yet in the application.
I know I should contact the professors beforehand and I plan to do that in June. If anyone here has some advice I would greatly appreciate it, especially grad students enrolled in the programs named or in similar schools/similar programs.
P.S. I do understand that with highly ranked grad schools it becomes a “luck of the draw” type deal where they recieve many very qualified candidates and can only fill so many spots, I just want to know what more I need to do to be one of those candidates.