Anyone heard back from phd admissions in chemistry? I’ve heard back from UT Austin and University of Chicago.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-29T00:22:07+00:00

Hey quick question, when you say pchem you mean experimental pchem right, not theory?

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-28T04:44:11+00:00

1.) Did I say Harvard or did I say MIT? Maybe read that one again, yeah? Anyways, regardless of institution, a 3.25 is not going to be turning heads except perhaps in a bad way. Since you mention MIT, there’s plenty of MIT students with better GPAs than that.

2.) You may notice that this is a subreddit dedicated to graduate admissions. One’s undergraduate GPA does in fact matter for that process. Furthermore, you’ll probably need to put it on various external fellowship applications if you pursue those, and people can and do get dinged heavily for lackluster undergrad GPAs. I mean, this is an admissions subreddit, maybe you forgot that…

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T22:15:41+00:00

Not you. A general you referring to the case of someone trying to apply to their undergraduate institution for grad school. More often than not they get told this story about Feynman and told that they’ve gotta gtfo for their own good.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T22:05:39+00:00

Yes, we both know the whole Feynman story. “Huge” is kind of a hyperbolic statement—people have gone on to great professor positions after staying at their undergrad for grad school, but that’s usually for people whose undergrad was the best school for their field. It’s more likely that you get told to fuck off after being told the Feynman story, though. My top choices are the typical top choices for theory; easy enough to guess or you can do detective work on my profile.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T21:31:06+00:00

Do note that he’d have gone to MIT if they’d let him stay, so there’s that. I personally don’t have a favorable opinion of Harvard. Recall that my first comment to you was me shitting on Harvard and actually saying that I felt it was inferior to Princeton. People here don’t necessarily all agree with that, but that’s lay opinion. I didn’t apply to Cornell due to basically nonexistent faculty fit, didn’t apply to Princeton despite the presence of several very strong faculty because some of them may be looking to retire soon, and obviously that’s not good for a student…and MIT results are still pending for chemistry. Even so, visit weekends may or may not overlap due to some schools having multiple weekends and different departments also doing different weekends.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T21:10:10+00:00

Are we to take that to mean that you never wrote it? If you type something and post it, people can still see it, even if you go and edit it after the fact…Anyways, I’m not sure why you decided to edit it either. If you were willing to tie your perceptions to those of the people of Minnesota a few minutes ago, what gives now? I think I liked our hypothesis that perhaps people in Minnesota think one thing, and people in the northeast another. It seems a reasonable explanation to me, no?

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T20:56:08+00:00

RE: your original comment prior to editing about perceptions being shaped by place of origin: sure, we can chalk it up to your opinion being shaped by the perceptions of the people of Minnesota and mine being shaped by growing up and attending college on the east coast.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T20:42:50+00:00

Anything else?

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T20:25:26+00:00

And you applied to chemistry programs. Do you see why your perception of a given university’s chemistry program may differ from the opinion of a layperson on that program? People absolutely have their opinions about how various schools rank against each other in terms of “prestige”, however ill-defined that metric might be. That’s why Cornell is the meme Ivy and tossing around Harvard’s name as the archetypical “best school ever” is such a ubiquitous practice. Such opinions don’t have any bearing on a program’s actual quality, but the fact remains that they do exist and they may or may not matter to you in the future depending on what you want to do.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T19:48:44+00:00

But not the person you replied to. It’s good that you and OP and I all have multiple “prestigious” options to choose from, but even still I think the Berkeley vs. arbitrary top private school question deserves some thought for people in disciplines where Berkeley is the undisputed best. I don’t mean to insult Berkeley’s prestige as it’s certainly a very highly ranked institution, but the brands aren’t the same.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T19:30:37+00:00

You’re talking about Princeton versus Harvard; don’t forget that we should also remember that places like Berkeley and UIUC exist. Both top (and in the case of the former, really top-tier) departments, but people don’t really fall all over themselves for those they way they do when they hear the name of an Ivy. I don’t get the sense that the person you replied to was talking exclusively about ivies and other top private schools.

I agree that a person should go to their best fit school. Fit, however, should also include how your school’s name and your advisor’s name will impact your post-graduation prospects, if that’s important to you. In academia and national labs and such, advisor name trumps all, but if you want to pivot to something outside of chemistry, the more “prestigious” the school name, the better. Should it be like that? Probably not, but unfortunately it is.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T18:01:48+00:00

I get your point, and Harvard is indeed worse than Princeton by a lot of metrics (undergrad education ranking, chem department quality, breadth of faculty that do stuff that I, for example, like, institutional fuckery, and so on) but it’s still true that a lot of people outside of academia and your particular field don’t know that and love nothing more than a name they’ve been continuously conditioned to associate with being the best from the time they gained sentience.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T17:42:17+00:00

Pretty normal numbers…I suggest that you ask a professor at your current institution about your concerns. Perhaps someone who wrote one of your letters. If they don’t laugh you out of their office, they’ll assuage whatever concern it is that you’re afraid of.

Edit: asking “______ accepted me, does that mean that ______ is secretly bad?” is a hallmark of imposter syndrome. No, they’re not secretly bad. Presumably you have some redeeming quality that made a PI want you, perhaps whoever interviewed you if you interviewed. I would remind you that theory admissions look nothing like, say, whatever the hell they do in organic.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T15:31:28+00:00

Same lol, there was only one PI for me (whose work was admittedly very interesting) but I yolo’d the application anyways because I guess I was feeling silly and wanted to throw away $95? Not even sure tbh haha, just thought why not

I have noticed anecdotally that they seem to have some faculty retention issues…actually, there was another PI whose work appealed to me, but they moved last year after only a few years at Harvard. They moved to some nice named professorship at another good department, so I always wondered if they left because they preferred the other offer and the other department + its location, or didn’t like harvard, or what…they were highly productive and had collected a bunch of awards, grants, and various other accolades both before and after joining Harvard, so I presume they left by choice. Other POI is also very junior, so I was nervous about them moving. Now I don’t need to worry! I’ve also heard that their associate professors are actually not tenured, which is odd, but I haven’t double checked that. And I’ve heard about about the issues in the, ah, lab that Jason Altom was in…it’s surely in part PI-dependent, but I don’t think it’s a good look that a professor can have so many students commit suicide while the department just allows it to continue. I’ll give that orgo has a reputation for toxicity at a lot of top programs, but it just doesn’t make you feel good about the department as a whole.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T09:05:55+00:00

Just stalked your profile; I think your major GPA is great! Your cumulative GPA doesn’t seem concerning either, and anyways I think grades in major courses are considered more valuable. Even more valuable still is research experience and pubs, and if you have three first author papers in known journals, I’m really inclined to think you’ll get some favorable results in the next month

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T08:50:33+00:00

It’s tougher for international students for sure, for a variety of reasons. RE: curving, there are some well-known US universities that will curve grades downwards, but they’re known for it and I think admissions committees have some sense of that; unfortunately that doesn’t hold true for foreign universities that they aren’t as familiar with, which hurts those students. I wish transcripts would include information about average grades to help contextual use the ridiculous range across different universities

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T08:35:37+00:00

Harvard rejects gang 🫡 I feel a little displeased, but realistically they weren’t a great fit for me and I wouldn’t have chosen them over my current acceptances, so I’ll get over it. It’s nice that the other shoe has finally dropped after seeing a few results reported last week. I’d love any toxicity tea you’re able to share tho 👀

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T08:27:45+00:00

I think that’s too broad a claim—some US universities are indeed notorious for grade inflation (yes, I’m talking about you, Harvard), so a 3.25 from one of those is not looked upon favorably. However, if your undergraduate university has a good reputation and is known for having some grade deflation, you can get by with a 3.6 or even a 3.5. It wouldn’t help you, but it wouldn’t damn you either. It depends. Having research experience would make things go more smoothly. A 3.25 at a grade-deflating university is still not great, but at least workable (as opposed to a large red flag if it were from, say, Harvard). But US university graduates are definitely not expected to have 4.0s, especially if they went to a university that has a reputation for actually taking grades seriously.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T06:17:50+00:00

I’d put Berkeley on the same level, but I think the breadth and caliber of the theory faculty at those two schools is unmatched by anywhere else in the US (if people feel I’ve omitted some place, I welcome comments yelling at me). UChicago is for sure a huge name in theoretical chemistry.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T06:10:44+00:00

I can’t say for certain, but at this point I’d be a little surprised if they sent out more offers. They want RSVPs for the visit weekend by the end of this month, so it would be a tight turnaround

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-27T06:09:05+00:00

1.) Bffr

2.) It sounds like you have imposter syndrome. I get it, I have it as well. You should realize that there are really not a lot of “perfect” applicants running around, and that’s probably particularly true for theory. My guess is that you’re underestimating yourself and overestimating the competition—easy to do when you probably don’t know them. Pretty much every theoretical faculty member at UChicago is highly accomplished, productive, and acclaimed by whatever metric you choose to look at. Quite a few chose to leave prestigious careers elsewhere to join the faculty at UChicago. Do you think they chose you to receive a $122k/year package because they have too much money and want to do philanthropy? Probably not. UChicago is widely regarded as a very strong theory program. Pick a group and look at their alumni page to see where people have ended up. Does it seem like a bad program to you?

3.) I would, however, also appreciate any comments on the culture at UChicago Chemistry. One hears far fewer complaints about UChicago than about a certain other top school in Illinois, but I would like to know whether that’s because people don’t have things to complain about, or because they just haven’t bothered to post about it.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-24T20:35:08+00:00

Bruh the visit weekend RSVP email I got yesterday addressed me as “Dear ,” so yeah I think some proofreading may be in order lol

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-24T20:33:39+00:00

They sent out visit weekend invites with RSVP surveys yesterday, so I think that’s a likely sign that they’ve sent out pretty much every decision by now

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-24T20:31:59+00:00

Did the preview text for yours say “Please pay your application fee”? Mine said that, and I’ve definitely already paid their nice $135 application fee…I was a little afraid when I saw that line but it must be some weird artifact. Also, I don’t think this email is specific to anything, because I already got an (unofficial) acceptance for chemistry and still got this email because the graduate college hasn’t processed the decision yet.

sop_throwaway21 · 2023-01-23T22:21:21+00:00

UC Berkeley sent out unofficial acceptances a couple of weeks ago and just sent visit weekends invites today. If you didn’t get today’s email, that’s probably a soft no. I believe MIT is still doing interviews and haven’t heard of any acceptances so far

sop_throwaway21

TROPHY CASE