Chemistry Ph.D program

Graduate School
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<p>I’m planning on getting a Ph.D in some kind of chemistry discipline (probably organic). A friend of mine told me that because there are so few people that are fluent in english and White that want to puruse a chemistry Ph.D that getting into many great Ph.D programs is easier than most disciplines. Is this true? Are there any chemists out there that know a lot about this situation? I am looking to go to a top grad school and would like to know what i can do to increase these chances (i assume keep a stellar GPA while getting some publications). Does the undergrad university you choose make a huge difference in admissions (even if you keep a great GPA at a state school)?</p>

<p>any information would be greatly appreciated!</p>

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<p>I don’t know that being white and fluent in English is going to help you very much in getting into a PhD program in chemistry, especially at a top program. The criteria for getting into such a program is simple - are you, or are you not, good at chemistry? Being white and being fluent in English has nothing to do with that question.</p>

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<p>How common is it for people with ChemE B.S. degrees to enrol in a Chemistry PhD program? Is there a lot of “catching-up” work that has to be done?</p>

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<p>It happens sometimes. There may be some catching up to do, depending on your chemistry depth of knowledge.</p>

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<p>Hey, I just went through the application process for chem phd programs. I don’t know where you got this information about fluency in English correlating to better admissions chances, but it’s not true. There are plenty of PhD hopefuls that speak English :). Competition is tough, but if you have good grades and good research then you have a good chance at many top programs. Going to a state school won’t hinder your chances at all. The key is having great research experience.</p>

<p>I personally know of one ChemE that is enrolling in a chem PhD program. I myself am a physics major. I’m going to have a lot of catching up to do with regards to the PhD qualifying exams. I know a ChemE has to take orgo and p-chem but he or she would probably be lacking in inorganic. It isn’t too hard to catch up and learn any material you missed. The main problem is knowing enough chemistry for the PhD qualifying exam, but with a little bit of hard work it shouldn’t be a problem.</p>

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<p>ChemEs have orgo and p-chem. Believe me.</p>

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<p>I would also point out that a lot of chemistry foreign-national graduate students have only a limited command of English, especially the ability to speak English (their reading+writing may be OK, but speaking is an issue). So that at least shows that the admissions process must not weigh language skills THAT heavily, otherwise, those foreign-nationals would not have gotten in.</p>

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<p>How much catching up does one need to to if one gets a B.S. in Chem and go to PhD for ChemEngineering? (a lot probably)</p>

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<p>I just realized you said orgo and p-chem but inorganic is the first year. they have that too.</p>

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<p>more on this topic…</p>

<p>How many years is a typical PhD program?</p>

<p>WHat’s the average GPA for admissions?</p>

<p>Chances of attaining the PhD when admitted?</p>

<p>thanks</p>

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<p>1) Anywhere from 4-7 years, depending on the field. Technical PhD’s tend to be quicker to do than non-technical ones (i.e. the humanities). There are some (ingenious) people who get a PhD done in a year or less. Then there are some who literally can literally take decades (that is not an exaggeration). </p>

<p>2) As you can imagine, pretty high. Although it should be clear that what is really important is your GPA in classes relevant to the field. If you’re going to go for a PhD in Chemical Engineering nobody is going to care about what your grades are in a Art History class. Admissions also depend very strongly on your research potential. If you have stellar grades, but you can’t demonstrate strong research potential, you will have difficulty in getting admitted to the better programs.</p>

<p>3) Roughly speaking, I would say that about 1/3 to 1/2 of all people who enter a PhD program will eventually get their PhD. It depends on the field - technical fields tend to have higher rates of successful PhD attainment than nontechnical fields. This is true for a number of reasons - the greater research funding available in the technical fields which means that there is a great availability of stipend money and RA-ships that can keep students fed and clothed, the shorter time it takes to get technical PhD’s (the longer a program, the greater the chance that people will drop out along the way), the greater proportion of foreign students in technical fields, who tend to be highly dedicated toward completing the program (if for no other reason, then because if they drop out of the program, then their student visa is voided and they have to go home). I’m sure there are other reasons as well.</p>

<p>Generally, those who don’t complete the PhD will get a master’s degree. Hence that’s why you sometimes hear of the master’s degree as a “consolation prize”. Incidentally, that’s also why you sometimes (not always, but sometimes) hear of master’s degrees as having a bad connotation to them, especially from people who do have their PhD’s, because they sometimes see a guy with a master’s degree as somebody who tried to get his PhD, but wasn’t good enough. One should note, however, that this attitude is certainly not a common one. However, you should know that that attitude is held by some people out there.</p>

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<p>thanks for ur time, very comprehensive and informative response.</p>

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<p>It has to be much much much higher than a 33-50% graduation rate for PhD candidates. It’s a gigantic waste of money and time for a school to not hand out a PhD. Consolation master’s are pretty rare.</p>

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<p>Is it really that much of a waste of money and time for the school? I agree that it’s a big waste of time (and perhaps money) for the student. But for the school? Keep in mind that research universities LIVE off of their graduate students. It’s the graduate students who are the TA’s. It’s the graduate students who are the RA’s. Basically,graduate students are a pool of very cheap and highly skilled labor for the school. What do you have to pay them, really? A living stipend and tuition? That’s less money than these people would make in the private sector. So really, when you look at it that way, you could say that schools are actually MAKING money off of their graduate students.</p>

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<p>Free tuition + stipend might not seem a lot, but if you do it for 20 students, it ends up being a considerable amount of money. Schools take you in and train/teach you the first two years with their own time and money so that you can make a good contributition in both research and teaching for the later years. That’s also the reason why science programs rarely take in master’s only students. There is no point in spending money on someone without ever reaping the benefits of it.</p>

<p>True, a school sort of makes money off the grad students. The gritty research a student does is worth more than the stipend, which barely covers cost of living. However, at the end of your 4-6 years you get rewarded with your title of PhD, which is fair compensation in my opinion.</p>

<p>Here is also a tidbit that my research prof was talking about. In the past, grad students would get their master’s from one school and then transfer to another to finish their PhD. It was usually international Chinese students that did this in order to slip their way into a better ranked school. This is a big blow to the Master’s school because of the resources they put into the student, so schools have unofficially agreed to stop allowing students to jump ship so to speak unless there is a compelling reason they want to leave.</p>

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<p>Shizz, I think you proved my point with your quote of “The gritty research a student does is worth more than the stipend, which barely covers cost of living”. That’s exactly what I was getting at - that while the department may be paying a good chunk of change, what they’re getting back is worth quite a bit more, so you could say that the department is actually making a profit from its graduate students.</p>

<p>And I would question your contention of schools taking you in and teaching/training you for the first two years. This tends to happen in the humanities, and even then, not that much. Usually, graduate students get immediately thrown into RA/TA-ships. At MIT, for example, if you’re an engineering graduate student, unless you are a rare student on fellowship, you are basically expected to find funding through a TA/RA-ship from the get-to. The same tends to be true for engineering and natural-science graduate students at most schools. Hence, there is minimal teaching/training involved. The school is extracting value from day 1. </p>

<p>I would also point out that there are plenty of students who work as RA’s for 4-6 years and are still nowhere close to getting their PhD. In fact, all their RA work actually harms their efforts to get the PhD, principally because it takes up so much time, time that could be better spent on their own studies. It would be nice to say that it’s fair compensation for a person to be an RA for 4-6 years and get the PhD in return, but the sad reality is that many don’t. </p>

<p>I would also point out that at most top-ranked schools, master’s degree students are financially unsupported. At MIT, for example, if you come in as a master’s degree student, you gotta take care of your own bills. Same at Harvard. You can get an RA/TA-ship, but if you don’t, then you’re racking up debt. Furthermore, if you’re coming in as a PhD student, then unless you’re on full fellowship (which is rare), then, again, you’re expected to work as a RA/TA to pay your way. So for the most part, I don’t see the harm in having a person get a master’s and then transfer away. The school benefitted during all that time the student was getting the master’s - either through regular tuition, or through RA/TA work. The only ‘harm’ I can see is with those rare students who come in on fellowship and then leave. But that is no different from a guy who mooches off the fellowship and does nothing until the fellowship until it runs out, and then drops out of school to get a job. And I know plenty of graduate students who do just that. The fellowship basically becomes nothing more than a free handout.</p>

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<p>easier than some – harder than others – admission has nothing to do with language you speak or color of skin</p>

<p>generally the admission rates are higher for all prestigious schools such as Caltech and MIT and Berkeley than they were when you were applying to these as an undergraduate – few people want to major in chemistry choosing some other lucrative fields such as medicine, psychology, management, etc. – especially in the USA where science education is rather weak in high school and college and a lot of people end up being scared off because they think chemistry is “hard” – so you’re probably twice as likely to get into top chemistry program as an undergraduate going for an ivy </p>

<p>what i heard from someone on UCLA admissions, about 50-60 people will get accepted each year from 120-140 applicants, with half of those 50 choosing to stay in the program – Caltech i think has admissions rate that is about 20-25% – generally, if you go to visiting weekend of top schools, such as Cal, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, you’ll see same faces over and over again – so even through the acceptance rate might be 20-30%, if you don’t have a strong application package, the acceptance rate for you personally becomes 0.1% – they are just not going to accept you anywhere – medical and dental schools tend to accept a more diverse variety of people, while chemistry programs zoom in on one group (which is ambitious and applies to every top school)</p>

<p>each year many foreign students apply to chemistry grad school especially for the west coast schools – but you’re not competing with them because schools have limited number of slots devoted solely to international students – you’re competing with other americans – so however many chinese or korean students applied at any given year does not make it more or less competitive for you</p>

<p>schools have limited number of slots for foreign students not because these people speak very little english – some of them are actually quite proficient – most come with better preparation than american graduate students – some studied their behinds off at elite schools back in their home countries and have much better knowledge of chemistry than you – they even score higher on GRE verbal section than many american students – my fellow korean co-worker scored in 95th percentile on GRE speaking very limited english in reality – international students also score very high on chemistry GRE (80-100th percentiles) while for american students 50-70th is considered to be good – nevertheless the department has to pay fees for foreign students – so space is limited for them – department usually pays for 1st year while advisor picks up 2nd and subsequent years – so international students are costly to accept</p>

<p>what makes it very competitive some years is amount of funding chemistry departments receive – if funding is cut, schools will accept as little as a third of the graduate students they normally do and try to go on somehow until better years (this is what happened with 2006 admissions as heard many schools accepted 50% their normal load of students) – so with a given set of qualifications, if someone decides to cut funding for the year you’re applying to places, you’ll end up rejected by some of the schools you would have been accepted to in better years</p>

<p>GPA does not have to be stellar – a 3.4-6 is considered to be good – what has to be stellar are your letters of rec and resume which lists skills you possess – chemistry is a very skill-oriented field so if you worked in industry before and done research for local prof for a year a two, these are all great benefits – graduate schools are looking for technical skills, intelligence and creativity</p>

<p>there is no correlation between GPA and GRE scores of incoming students and success in graduate school – unlike medical schools that know that MCAT and GPA relate directly to student success in the school, chemistry schools have not been able to discover that golden formula to weed people out – obtaining a PhD relies on much more than ability to study hard and pass standardized examinations, as in medical school – so instead grad school admissions go by the most telling factor of all remaining: the rec letters, where instead of numbers which are meaningless for grad schools, another living breathing person describes you hopefully in detail (how do you behave at work, around other co-workers, what initiatives you took and where you contributed to what) – especially if a rec letter is from an advisor whom someone on admissions committee knows personally (or from a very famous prof whom everyone knows) – i’ve noticed that all top programs i was accepted to someone at the visiting weekend knew the people who wrote me letters of rec (it may be just my luck)</p>

<p>years to chemistry PhD
7-8 years: too-long, over 90% graduate by that time
6 years: a little bit on the long side but ok
5 years: perfect, a bit better than average
4 years: you either got lucky, you’re super smart, or you have great advisor or all three of these
3 years: PhD did not involve experimental work but rather something that was guaranteed to work out if you pushed with a lot of effort (programming, robotics, all other non-experimental work)</p>

<p>how many people drop out?
highly dependent on the program
at one of top 5 schools a 4th year told me 6 people left out of class of 38 people (16%) – I am assuming of those who stayed a few more will have some problems – some programs like UC Berkeley purposefully accept more people than they want to keep – they weed out nearly half by end of 2nd year (and this is not a rumor) – the greatest reason for leaving is own incentive – you’re not very likely to be kicked out (unless you’re at UCB) – a few people are kicked out during 2nd year exams – most people leave because they decide chemistry grad school is not for them – nothing that they do works, they lose interest, they decide to apply somewhere else, like medical or law schools</p>
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<p>questions to ask at prospective grad school
<a href=“http://employees.oneonta.edu/pencehe/gradques.html[/url]”>http://employees.oneonta.edu/pencehe/gradques.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;