Retake GRE? Chances for grad school?

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I am a 4th year chemical engineering major at UC Berkeley. I want to attend graduate school for the same subject. Here are my stats:</p>

<p>GPA: 3.65
GRE: 690 Verbal; 800 Math (don't have writing score yet)
2 year of research in an old group.
1 summer and this fall semester in a new research group.</p>

<p>First question is should I retake the GRE? The verbal score is low, although I know it is considered high for engineers. I am just concerned because my GPA isn't high enough to compensate for it. Should I retake the test?</p>

<p>Regarding my GPA, I didn't do well my first two years. I did not perform well in my second semester of organic chemistry (I didn't do well in the first semester either) and second semester of inorganic chemistry. I had a B and B- in those classes, respectively. I also took some superfluous classes (English), because those were requirements for a chemistry degree (I later transferred to chemical engineering). I didn't do well (B+ for both English classes) in that it lowered my GPA.</p>

<p>So I don't know if my GPA is competitive enough. Some of the schools I wish to apply to (UC Santa Barbara) have average admitted student GPA's of 3.8: ( UCSB</a> - Chemical Engineering - Graduate Program )</p>

<p>But I did work really hard my third year:</p>

<p>Fall 2007
CHM ENG 141 (Thermodynamics): A-
CHM ENG 150B (TRANS & SEPARA PROC): A
CHM ENG 170 (BIOCHEM ENGIN): A
CHEM 201 ( FUND INORGANIC CHEM): A (This and 250A were only 1-unit grad classes)
CHEM 250A (INTRO BOND THEORY): A-
ENGIN 198 (DIRECTED GROUP STDY): P
MAT SCI 102 (BOND CRYS & CRY DEF): A
MAT SCI 120 (MATLS PROD): A
PHYSICS H7C (SCIENT ENGIN PHYS): B+
UGIS 192D (RESEARCH PHYSIC SCI) P</p>

<p>Spring 2008:</p>

<p>CHM ENG 142 (CHEM KIN REACT ENG): A-
CHM ENG 157 (TRANSPORT LAB): A-
CHM ENG 170B (BIOCHEMICAL ENGIN): A
CHM ENG 176 (ELECTROCHEM PROCESS): A+
CHM ENG 179 (SOLID STATE DEVICES): A
CHEM 135 (CHEMICAL BIOLOGY): A-
CHEM 250B (INORG SPECTROSCOPY): A (this and 253AB were only 1 unit)
CHEM 253A (MATERIALS CHEM I): A
CHEM 253B (MATERIALS CHEM II): A-
MEC ENG 151 (ADV HEAT TRANS): A
UGIS 192D (RESEARCH PHYSIC SCI): P</p>

<p>I boosted my GPA from a ~3.53 to a 3.65. I also took some graduate courses in inorganic chemistry to compensate for that B- in my undergraduate course. The chemical biology course was to atone for my organic chemistry grades (but that class didn't have too much Ochem). But is this too little, too late? I took so many classes, but my GPA is still not nearly as good as the average admitted student of a top school. I don't know how a school is willing to look over the fact I wasn't studious enough my first two years (I lived in the noisy dorms and couldn't study, and was depressed over a girl). And I've generally been only able to get A-'s, at best, in my core chemical engineering classes (the actually hard classes).</p>

<p>I might do well enough this semester to boost my GPA even more. Since my finals are in mid-December, I might get my grades before the grad school application deadline (near January). Should I really wait to send in my application that long? Do those schools even care?</p>

<p>My research has also been not the best experience, too. My first year, I rarely showed up because it was boring. When I had to do a presentation at the end of that year, my lack of data (I didn't show up enough to do a sufficient amount of experiments) resulted in my adviser criticizing me extremely. The second year, including the summer, I decided to work harder, even though the research was ass-boring. I felt I did well, but when I presented my findings and proposed a new project (the current research was just so boring), my adviser didn't seem keen towards my proposal. Instead, he asked me if I liked the current research. When I told him no, qualifying that some of the previous experiments were worthwhile but the current project was a dead end, he told me to either leave or work on a new project with my grad student. I cried after the professor left the presentation; I felt he wanted me to leave and that he mentioned working on a new project only to be diplomatic. I eventually left the group because indeed no new project materialized, and I didn't feel the professor could ever write a good recommendation for me. </p>

<p>Now I work in a new group. The professor definitely communicates more with me; the lack of communication might have been what caused the split between the old adviser and me. I haven't done anything substantial in the new group yet, though, so I am worried a lot. I don't know if I have enough research experience for grad school. And the new adviser is extremely nice; I don't know if that is preparing me for grad school.</p>

<p>I am tempted to ask my former grad student/mentor for a letter of recommendation, since I did two years of research under him. But then he saw my lack of passion the first year and my breakdown at the end of the second year. Would he mention I cried under pressure by my old adviser? The one thing he did tell, when I left, was that I had on my ability to focus on tedious tasks; I was willing to do some of the most boring experiments for the overall project (grunt work?). And for some reason, the old adviser nominated me for a scholarship (I did get it), possibly because he saw my course grades or felt bad.</p>

<p>So, what are my chances at the following schools:</p>

<p>UC Santa Barbara
UC Davis
Caltech
University of Minnesota
University of Michigan
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Stanford
MIT (Not holding my breath for this one)
University of Wisconsin</p>

<p>I've actually just started looking at grad schools/applications. So some other schools have caught my attention (McGill). Can you guys recommend any schools that might fit me more?</p>

<p>I've actually got a ton of more questions about rec letters, so I'll post that soon, too.</p>

2

<p>Averages are averages, some have higher gpa's (like people who went to schools that freely give out A's in all the classes) some went to more exacting schools like Berkeley. Don't freak out about your grades.</p>

3

<p>I'm pretty sure you can get into U.C. Davis and U.C. Santa Babara easily. Don't know about the others though...</p>

4

<p>Honestly I hadn't bothered reading the dense text of your first post, but I just read it and I should say that your old PI sounds like a prick. I had a situation like that when I was first doing research as an undergrad. I had been slacking off on my project and had a poorly received lab meeting presentation. Instead of warning me about not putting enough time in or asking me about what would make the situation better/how I could improve my work, he effectively fired me. I took great joy in finding out that he left academia because he couldn't hack it. I never asked him for a lor as I can only imagine that since a good lor is so hard to come by, there would be no way to get that from him.</p>

5

<p>Man, you don't have a lot to worry about. Look, you got a 3.65 at a really difficult school. Getting a GPA at a school like UCB means something, unlike a bunch of places that give out good grades with little work put in. You have to understand that there are colleges out there where getting A's is easy. I'm going to assume you didn't have this experience.</p>

<p>Your GREs are fine, I don't know what the percentile is for the verbal. I know the 50th percentile is between 450-480, so you are set. You got a good shot at a lot of those schools. Aside from CalTech, MIT, and Stanford you got a good shot at all of those. Cal, Stanford, and MIT will be reaches but you still have a shot.</p>

6

<p>Thanks, guys.</p>

<p>I'll update with more questions and where I go from here.</p>

<p>I really appreciate the feedback. I'll start working on those applications now.</p>

7

<p>ethylenediamine:</p>

<p>I think your GRE and grades are fine, and I'm sure you'll find someone that's willing to write you a great recommendation.</p>

<p>I'm more concerned about this though:</p>

<p>"My research has also been not the best experience, too. My first year, I rarely showed up because it was boring. When I had to do a presentation at the end of that year, my lack of data (I didn't show up enough to do a sufficient amount of experiments) resulted in my adviser criticizing me extremely. The second year, including the summer, I decided to work harder, even though the research was ass-boring."</p>

<p>Graduate studies is mostly research work. Are you sure this is what you want to do? If you could not find any interest to do the sort of research work within your field for 2 years, how do you propose to continue doing this for approximately 5-7 years of graduate studies, and excel in them? In short... what is your rationale for doing graduate studies?</p>

8

<p>There were sometimes when I found the research interesting. But that period occurred during mainly the first summer. I was working with one particular compound and measuring some of its physical properties. I was getting actual, meaningful results, despite faulty, ancient equipment.</p>

<p>Once I did that, I moved on to a whole new class of compounds. But the experiments were pointless other than showing that I should move on to new experiments. So I did a literature search, designed a possible experiment, found freely available chemicals (my campus has a chemical reuse resource), and was prepared to do the experiments. I even took a class that would help me conduct some research. I got an A+ in the class.</p>

<p>I felt pretty confident and was ready to convince my adviser that I was ready to do this research. Maybe I didn't sell my proposal well enough. Even when he rejected the idea, maybe I should have pushed it some more. I didn't tell him that the grad student and I already found many of the required chemicals.</p>

<p>I just felt that what I was doing at the time was so simple and boring. I wasn't even doing anything that I had intended to do when I first joined the group. I knew I wanted to work on a particular subject of the research, but they just wanted me to do grunt work.</p>

<p>The professor did tell me in an email that he didn't intend to say that I should leave the group, but nothing ever materialized after wards. He told me he was not disappointed in my work. But I knew that all the research up to that point was not groundbreaking. The experiments I conducted just showed that I shouldn't continue with the current experiment. And they didn't know what to do with me.</p>

<p>They had just kept me using an inaccurate, old instrument, doing experiments nobody wanted to do. As I said before, the grad student later remarked that he admired that I could do those tedious tasks.</p>

<p>I'd write more about this, but I am actually working on a current project I am doing in my new research group. I have actually accomplished more in this short time than in those two years in the old research group. And I do like the new project. I also wouldn't mind working on the same field in grad school.</p>