That whole 'future' thing
The grad school list has been finalized. Requests for letters have formally been sent to my recommenders, along with due dates. Ninjas have been dispatched.
Berkeley, Stanford, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), University of Pennsylvania, UCSF, and UCSB.
That list breaks down like so:
Berkeley, Stanford: Both have absurdly good chemistry programs, and are long shots for people with middle-high GRE scores and no pedigree (like me), even if those people have good letters, an excellent academic record, and a fair amount of lab experience. One of my letters is from Berkeley's biochem dept., and apparantly Lydia knows some people at Stanford, so we'll see.
UCSF: Small school with no undergraduate program. Has some very cool research going on, and many of the same faculty members as Berkeley. Up side: no time wasted on teaching, and no undergrads getting in the way. Down side: lack of teaching probably means I'll be locked into a private sector career.
UMich, UPenn: Both very solid schools with good chem programs and several groups doing cool things. UPenn has pretty deep connections with MERCK, so getting a job afterwards shouldn't be a problem.
UCSB: Small, kinda out of the way. Really only has two people doing things that I want to do, so there isn't much room to move around if I don't hit it off right away.
If I were betting money on this, I would go with a 50% acceptance rate (Michigan, UCSF or Penn, and UCSB). I could easily see anything from getting into all of them to only making UCSB (which might mean another round of cranking out apps for Pharma jobs).
At some point, there is going to be a rant on why the GRE is a bullshit test - but it would be tasteless of me to do that this soon after blowing it.
Berkeley, Stanford, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), University of Pennsylvania, UCSF, and UCSB.
That list breaks down like so:
Berkeley, Stanford: Both have absurdly good chemistry programs, and are long shots for people with middle-high GRE scores and no pedigree (like me), even if those people have good letters, an excellent academic record, and a fair amount of lab experience. One of my letters is from Berkeley's biochem dept., and apparantly Lydia knows some people at Stanford, so we'll see.
UCSF: Small school with no undergraduate program. Has some very cool research going on, and many of the same faculty members as Berkeley. Up side: no time wasted on teaching, and no undergrads getting in the way. Down side: lack of teaching probably means I'll be locked into a private sector career.
UMich, UPenn: Both very solid schools with good chem programs and several groups doing cool things. UPenn has pretty deep connections with MERCK, so getting a job afterwards shouldn't be a problem.
UCSB: Small, kinda out of the way. Really only has two people doing things that I want to do, so there isn't much room to move around if I don't hit it off right away.
If I were betting money on this, I would go with a 50% acceptance rate (Michigan, UCSF or Penn, and UCSB). I could easily see anything from getting into all of them to only making UCSB (which might mean another round of cranking out apps for Pharma jobs).
At some point, there is going to be a rant on why the GRE is a bullshit test - but it would be tasteless of me to do that this soon after blowing it.