What are my chances of admission (Chemistry PhD)?

Graduate School
1

<p>Here's my info:</p>

<p>BA - Chemistry (focus on synthetic organic)
- Boston U, magna cum laude, with distinction (GPA = 3.62)
- 2 years of research with a relatively exciting PI
- 1 summer of research with an organic synthesis Guru (U of Pittsburgh)
- 2 grad-level courses under my belt, received A's in both. </p>

<p>Since graduation, I've spent 2 years in Big Pharma doing organic synthesis. </p>

<p>Drawbacks:
- 2 years of research with no publications (the typical plight of a synthetic chemist...)
- B-'s in Quantum Mech. and Calculus 2</p>

<p>After spending time in Pharma, I realize that employment depends HIGHLY on your PhD advisor/institution. As a result, it appears that really only top 5 ranked schools will be worth me going back to academia for. Here are my only reasonable choices:</p>

<p>MIT (Movassaghi or Jaimson)
Harvard (Myers)
Princeton (Sorensen)
UPenn (Smith or Bode)
Stanford (Trost or Dubois)
Cal Tech (Stolz)
Scripps (Boger or Baran)
Sloan Kettering/ Columbia (Gin or Danishefsky)</p>

<p>I could write a pretty kick @$$ application (I'm quite a fan of the professors at these schools...) and my PI's will definitely pick up the phone for me, but are there any chance of me getting into these top tier institutions? After all, it seems like unless your GPA is above 3.8, MIT and Harvard put your application in the furnace...</p>

2

<p>Based on your list of schools you are going to need the GRE Subject Test in Chemistry. If you have taken it, what was your score or percentile?</p>

3

<p>Well, I haven't taken the GRE yet, partially because I'm not sure I should even bother applying to these top schools with a 3.62.</p>

4

<p>Outside of your B- in Quantum Chemistry, what is your in-major GPA? A 3.62 is on the low side for these schools, but a very strong major GPA may overshadow your shortcomings in other coursework. Also, how did you do in classes relevant to your research area? A B- in Quantum for an Organic Synthesis applicant is a lot different than getting that grade if you wanted to do Physical or Computational.</p>

5

<p>3.74 for Chem courses, sans Quantum.</p>

<p>I have straight A's in advanced organic chemistry courses (2 of 3 were grad level). And again, tons of lab work/synthetic knowledge from my time in industry.</p>

<p>I know they always say "GPA is only one of the factors that we take into consideration, strong letters take precedence...." but after reading the long list of rejections on this board, I'm starting to wonder how much of that spiel is legit...</p>

6

<p>if you have really strong rec letters, i think it's possible to get into those schools.. but your letters have to emphasize your research potential etc etc and highly recommend you.. 2 years of research is pretty good, and they don't really expect publications from undergrad research..</p>

7

<p>Your GPA is fine. I have ~3.5 GPA, but still got accepted from many top programs like MIT.</p>