I’m a freshman biochemistry major going to a relatively average state school and I want to get into a top Chem PhD program (preferably in the Ivies). I have a good GPA so far but I am unable to work as an undergraduate research assistant until the fall of sophomore year. Am I behind on research if I want to qualify for top Chem programs? What can I do to make my application sufficient?
You are not behind. What you need to do is have some decent lab work to show for it. you want to do some kind of work over several years that shows some skills, real depth, and a commitment to research.
Good
- Talk to professors soon and get into someone’s lab doing research as soon as feasible for you.
- Summers - if you are able to afford it, stay on campus to do research or go to another college to do something research based. Alternatively get an internship in a lab anywhere doing R&D. Any of these can get you references. You’ll need several.
- Maybe some kind of TA work if possible junior or senior year. Remember PhD students teach classes so this is good experience
Ideal
- It would be awesome to get onto a publication but you cannot control that. Some luck is needed. But you can ask about what they are working on.
- Look at the pedigree of the professors. Is there one that did their PhD or post-doc(s) at one of the programs you are interested in? Not totally necessary but can’t hurt.
Couple of thoughts
- You said Chem. Was this a typo? Chem and Biochem are not the same. If you want graduate chemistry I would suggest undergraduate chemistry.
- Is your long term goal to do get an industry job? Be a PI at a large research university? Teach at a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI = like a LAC) It won’t affect your question but if you are interested in teaching at a PUI, some grad programs have specific tracks for that. Look into it.
Assuming your State School has grad students, those guys will be your best source.
They will tell you where they went to UG and how and why they picked your institution. If you are tactful enough you can ask why they didn’t go for “better” places.
PhD Programs in STEM is a whole other beast. My general, and possibly outdated opinion and observation:
- Much easier to get into a “top” graduate program than it is for UG. People in State U has essentially the same chance at MIT/Harvard/Stanford as anyone else.
- Finishing, on the other hand may be a different story. Lots of happy people get jaded within 1-2 years and leave.
- More important to have an end goal in mind. PhD will not get you a job, your own vision and goal will get you a job. The question is if that goal requires a PhD.
- Pay attention to your TAs. These guys are grad students and generally the length of time they complete their program will be about how long it will take you. “Normal” people usually don’t finish a PhD program in 4 years. Most take more.
Fall of second year is usually when people start working so you ae not behind.
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This is extremely important to hear. You do not pick the school. YOU PICK THE ADVISOR YOU WANT TO WORK FOR. Depending on what problem(s) interest you, there’s a VERY good chance the world’s authority will be at a school like Wisconsin or Illinois, just to name two random schools, and not at any of the Ivys. The most important thing for you to do is to start reading the literature to get an idea of who is doing what. Thus will evolve as your knowledge base grows. Get high grades and get some sort of prolonged lab experience, in a perfect world, aligned with your desired thesis focus in some way. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, you’re not picking a school. You’re picking a person. Good luck.
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Thank you for your reply! I am majoring in Biochemistry as I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to do earlier. I am planning to take many chemistry major courses (such as advanced organic, inorganic, physical chem, etc) to make myself qualified in terms of coursework. Otherwise, would you consider my choice of major to be a disadvantage in applying for a Chem PhD?
I don’t know that majoring in biochem vs chemistry is as important as taking all the needed foundational chemistry courses to get into your planned PhD program. If the major requirements for biochem make that more difficult, you may want to rethink the major.
You can also consider taking research credits to help in getting into a particular lab at your school if you are trying to get started with your research experience. I have seen low ranked state school applicants get into top-end PhD programs, but they generally had sustained undergrad research work and it really helps to have at least one publication prior to graduating.
You really need to ask these questions of your undergrad advisor (and/or some trusted professor in your department). They will have the best idea of what opportunities to pursue now to make yourself a promising grad school candidate later, and they’ll be able to shed some light on the grad school application process. I second the advice above that you are not applying for schools above a certain rank, but rather to work with professors who can best mentor you. Grad school admissions is a very different animal than college admissions, with very different considerations, so start seeking advice for how to prepare.
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This is great point. So that may affect your school choice if you have a specific choice of topic.
However, for large programs, they may have a process where you don’t pick an advisor right away so you would not know who you would work for at each school. Instead, you rotate around and meet many possible advisors then choose.
But the bigger point is important. It’s who you worked for as much as the institution.
Plus you will likely do one or more post-docs which are recommended to be at a separate place. So you could get a PhD from Univ of X then do a post-doc at Yale or Scripps
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It is possible to do what you say if you have room but, personally, I would major in Chem and minor in biochem or dual major. Just make sure the research you do is germane to chemistry.
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This is so true. It is 100% about the professor you want to work with and not about the name of the college.
@emilyburke12 , yes, get research under your belt. But @eyemgh is correct. No professor will be impressed if you are trying to get into their PhD program because of their college name. It’s all about the work they do. IF you are lucky enough to be interviewed by a professor they will need to know exactly why you’re a fit for the program. They will choose people they feel they can work well with over a long period of time.
You’re a freshman and have plenty of time to build up meaningful experience. There is no rush to immediately go into a PhD. I personally know two PhD students currently at Stanford and Princeton, both of whom worked for over a year before applying. Working can absolutely help make you a stronger applicant. You have plenty of time to investigate who is doing interesting work that aligns with your goals.
The rankings for different disciplines in doctoral programs are likely very different to undergraduate rankings. Example, a public Uni ranks #1 in the program my D applied for, and the first Ivy League school is #10.
D was lucky enough to get interviews at 2 of the 3 programs she applied to, but got no offer. Even getting an interview is a big deal for some schools and programs. Make sure your reasons for applying are rock solid and that you have experience that showcases your strengths.
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The subreddit linked below has some good advice on how to think about vetting programs. Notice, it is predicated on looking for labs doing very specific things. Ultimately, you need to determine what your “thing” is.
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Is this true even at universities where students complete a rotation? This is the advice I’ve been giving my daughter but she says it’s unnecessary because she will have to do a rotation. I believe finding an advisor at your target insitution to support your application can only help. I went to professional school so I’m out of my depth. As always, I’m grateful to the resident experts.
The American Chemical Society, which publishes many world-renown academic journals, provides excellent resources to students to explore the many different fields of chemistry.
No matter which chemistry field you choose, having a solid knowledge of the required courses in physical, organic and inorganic chemistry is most helpful. In addition to biochemistry, a working knowledge in molecular biology is extremely helpful in the field of drug discovery/design (mRNA vaccines, for example).
The C&EN magazine, also published by the acs is a good general read,
https://cen.acs.org/
You should have access to the above through your college.
In most programs she’d choose a lab after she has rotated through several, and they’ll have to agree to take her. It’s not typical that a student is just assigned. It’s like speed dating. There has to be mutual agreement to move forward.
Below is a nice blog post on things to consider during a rotational program.
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I was in a similar position to you almost exactly 30 years ago, and traveled the path you are seeking. I chose to switch to a straight chemistry degree because a) it was a BS vs the BA the institution was offering in biochemistry-- I was taking many science classes as electives and I wanted my degree to reflect that, b) I wanted to be eligible to work in any area of chemistry (i.e. chemical physics, inorganic, materials etc…) as a second year undergrad I knew I didn’t know enough to decide what I wanted and the chemistry degree seemed more flexible and I still ended up taking lots of biology courses (genetics, cell bio etc…). An undergrad biochemistry degree with a couple chem electives is fine if you are targeting, for example, “chemical biology” which is a field hosted mostly by chem departments.
My advice for undergrad research is to find something you kind of like and seek to accomplish something that you can talk about intelligently when your grad school interviews come. You don’t NEED to be on a paper, but it certainly helps. In order to accomplish something in research expect to put in the time (10 hr per week during the year is the absolute minimum). Once you know a little more about what your project entails practically, at times you may need to double that effort-- without letting your classes suffer. I mention the time involved, but in research always judge yourself by the quality of experiments performed, your decision making, and your overall progress rather than how many hours you spend in the lab (this goes doubly so for grad school). You will need three good letters of rec, one of these should come from your undergrad research supervisor.
In terms of grad school, there are people doing great work everywhere. The difference between the top, and middle ranked schools is the basically the concentration of people running top flight work in each department. Keep in mind chemistry is a smaller field than for example, biology. There are fewer top ranked chemistry departments than biology departments. At a highly ranked school you may find there are more people you could be happy working with. This is important because your grad school PI needs to be not only a good scientist, but a decent, fair person as well as one who will help you look out for your professional interests. These things do not necessarily go together and you will only find that out once you have spent time in the department and around the labs you are considering. Ultimately, choose to go where you personally can do your best work.
Good luck, it is a long, hard road but if you truly are meant to be a scientist it can be a spiritually rewarding one.
EDIT: FYI most of the top chem programs are not necessarily ivies-- stanford, berkeley, mit, caltech, UIUC, northwestern , chicago, madison etc…
It really helped my D (Chem major) that she worked 2 years in a research lab before going back to grad school. The experience helped guide her towards the field she wanted to pursue for her PhD. She got great lab and presentation experience and was able to be a co-author on several papers. This experience pretty much allowed her to pick her program, which were all fully funded. As mentioned above, you choose to apply to grad school programs that are strong in the research area(s) of your interest.
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Even for programs where you do rotations it’s important to ensure before applying that there actually are researchers who are working in the field/sub-discipline/topic that you would be wanting to pursue for your thesis. While you may not be guaranteed to be able to work with them, if there aren’t any at all at the programs you apply to, you a) may not get admitted due to a lack of research fit and b) if you do get admitted, have 0 chance of working on that topic. Ensuring that there are researchers working in your area of interest at least increases your chances of getting admitted and being able to work on that topic.
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To me it sounds like you are doing well. Getting started in research during your sophomore year of university is quite good. This gives you 2 1/2 years to be working on a variety of research projects. This experience is likely to be valuable both in getting a job after graduating, and in getting accepted to good graduate programs (whether for a master’s, PhD, or other graduate degree).
There are going to be quite a few universities that are doing good research in any field, including chemistry and biochemistry. The best schools for you might happen to be one’s whose sports teams compete in the Ivy League, or might be other non-Ivy but similarly highly ranked schools (such as MIT or Stanford), or might be your in-state public university, or might be some other school. There are hundreds of universities where a lot of very good research is being done, and where research that you are interested in might or might not be going on. The best programs for any particular PhD student is going to vary a great deal depending very specifically on what the PhD student is interested in working on.
One thing that you might want to do when the time comes is to identify a number of universities that look like ones to consider, and look at what research specific faculty members are going. Read the papers that these faculty members have published. Look at what is interesting to you. You might start by seeing what work professors at some list of highly ranked universities are doing, or alternately you might start by looking for papers on some very specific aspect of chemistry or biochemistry and then look at who is doing interesting work, and then figure out where those people are and which universities they are associated with.
If you look at highly ranked graduate programs, you will find that they include a lot of students who got their bachelor’s degree at a “relatively average state school”. What the many students in any particular highly ranked graduate program are likely to have in common is that they did very well in their undergraduate programs (with for example good grades and good research experience), they got to know their professors and got good references, they knew what they wanted to study in graduate school, and they found universities to apply to that have good research going on in the areas that the students wanted to study.
Regarding chemistry versus biochemistry, I would expect that you could switch to whichever of these you prefer at some point well before they hand you a bachelor’s degree. I have certainly seen far more significant changes in majors. Taking the right classes might be the most important consideration.
In terms of whether to get a master’s degree before getting a PhD, I have seen this go both ways. The students who I have happened to know who got accepted to a PhD program without first having a master’s had all of: Good undergraduate grades, good research experience, good references, an understanding of what they wanted to study for their PhD, and an understanding of what relevant research work was being done by which professors at the specific universities that they were applying to. They had good answers to the question: “Why is this program a good fit for you?”. However, I am not aware of any of them starting their undergraduate research any sooner than their sophomore year of university.
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