Technically, I’m not still attending school there - I’m an employee now. Which isn’t to say that I couldn’t help a professor with research anyway, but it’s a full time job (in name, anyway - it’s a pretty informal position). I’d have to pay tuition (which at a private liberal arts school would be quite a bit) to formally enroll in a research class, although doing it on my off time probably isn’t out of the question.
Actual, current chemistry (physical) graduate student at a top ten department (you’ll never guess which) checking in.
You’ll be fine as long as you have a nice transcript, non-embarrassing GREs and can get a nice letter. I was accepted to many top departments, including Chicago, CalTech, Northwestern, and MIT. Going on the recruiting visits where they ply you with free food, alcohol, and entertainment, you’ll meet a lot of students with a wide variety of backgrounds. I met a girl at Chicago who had not even taken pchem as an undergrad (!). Every place had people who were returning to school from industry and had not taken classes or done academic research in many many years. Plus there are the requisite people from impossibly tiny liberal arts schools that had no real lab classes due to lack of equipment. The important part is that they were able to stand out on the whole even if parts of their resume were lacking.
If you feel confident that you can get good letters (and if you don’t, find a way to make this happen), then you will be fine. I get the sense on the whole that having a well respected name–or two or three–to say good thing about you, your ability, and your potential that that will be the most important aspect. It goes without saying that you should have a pretty good transcript as well as GRE scores comparable to the average for your department. It will help being a domestic student as will having teaching experience since any respectable department will require at least 2 semesters of teaching as part of your degree.
Schools only admit as many students as they are capable of fully funding. No top or even average research departments admit students in chemistry for masters degrees. You’ll enter a PhD program with assurances of being fully funded either by TA or RA. Don’t worry about knowing exactly what you want to do when you graduate, your opinion of academia and your prospects therein will surely change as a result of your grad school experience.
Good luck!
Are you applying now to get into school this fall?
If not, you’ll do fine. Schools are starved for american grad students in chemistry.
Strictly speaking people weren’t in the PhD program until they passed quals, but it was pretty clear who was and who wasn’t, and the good jobs went to those intending to get a PhD, and who were admitted with that understanding. Both grad schools I went to were state schools with big programs, and MS programs were revenue generators, especially since I was in CS. I suppose it would be possible for someone in an MS program to switch, but I never heard of it and he’d have to be very aggressive in talking to the faculty. There were people who thought they should be in the PhD program, and even got assistantships, who didn’t do well enough in quals and got the boot with a Masters - and one guy who got the boot to the EE department which gave MS degrees without quals.
I chose the program looking for Orgo, ended up doing Computational instead (the teachers whose work I’d found interesting weren’t there any more, gee, thanks for keeping your rosters updated; actually one had just left). At the time there were two ways being investigated to use computers in order to speed up research:
robotics (although for some reason people working in that area didn’t like the word), using machines to run many similar microreactions at the same time, then to analize the samples
and what I did, simulations. I’ve met organic chemists who’d never studied the Physical Chemistry behind their cooking; they knew nothing about mechanisms or energy pathways. But if (as is usually the case) you do know them, you can predict the results of mixing up certain ingredients by looking at what the ingredients are, right? We all know that “acid plus alcohol produces ester plus water;” if you understand how, you can look at “acid plus amine” and figure out you’ll get “amide plus water;” then you go and verify that your prediction is, indeed, correct.
The kind of predictions I did were for systems more complex than that, but the basic idea is something any chemist worth his coat ought’a be able to do.
Heh, no, I’m more prepared than that, thankfully. I’m probably going to take the GREs this fall and apply for admission in fall 2010.
UTejas, thanks! What made you choose UT over the other ones?
Nava, physical organic chemistry is actually something I’ve looked into a little bit. What simulation/modeling software did you use?
It’s really hard to quantify. I can’t say that it is equivalent to X GPA points or a certain difference in GRE score. Grad school application is a big gamble for everyone. People get rejected from schools that would have been a great fit. The best schools accept people who should have gone elsewhere or who shouldn’t even be in grad school. It depends on so many factors. Grades, tests, recommendations, your personal statement. Your school’s reputation. You mentioned “tiny liberal arts”. Are we talking Amherst/Williams/Swarthmore or Alice Lloyd/Coker?
If I were you, I’d apply and see how you do. It costs money, but you can get more of that later. Take the GRE general and subject tests and see how you do. The tests don’t really open doors, but it helps keep them from shutting on you. You should expect a near-perfect math score and a verbal score that is lower but of a similar percentile. Americans tend to suck on the subject test. My classes flat out never covered some of the material on there, and I’m not sure how well I’d do even now, having forgotten so much. I’m not sure what the rule-of-thumb is. 50th percentile or better? Unless you’re applying from say China, in which case you damn well better have a perfect score. If your scores are the suck and you think you can do better, then maybe don’t apply and try again next year.
It can help if you zero in on two or so faculty in your personal statement. Make sure they’re still actually there and taking students. Read up on them. Say what your interests are, then say who you’re interested in and why. You mentioned organic polymers. If this guy’s research gets you all hot and sticky, then maybe even getting in contact with him now can be a good idea. That’s a tough school to get into, but an acquaintance has said that guy never turns anyone down. It helps if you have specific questions. “I enjoyed reading about your work on X, but I noticed that you haven’t focused on this area recently. Would you be supportive of an incoming student pursuing this project further?” Etc. Maybe ask to be put in contact with a current student.
But anyway, apply. See how it goes. If you only get into NMSU and want to do better, then you can improve your chances with a year or two of experience elsewhere.
I’m in the converse situation, so I have a slight hijack:
How much can research experience and recommendations make up for bad grades? I’ve got a mediocre GPA from a top liberal arts school, but I think I’ve got some pretty good recommendations – one from my undergraduate research adviser, and another form my current boss (who is a PI at a top school). Possibly a third from another PI. I think I’ll also end up with very good GRE scores.
Anybody out there make it into a good grad school with less than a 3.0?
Well, I went to Colorado College, so top 30 but not top 10 or anything.
This is interesting, and something I never would have thought - being an American gives me advantages? Who knew? 
His research looks like cool stuff - I have been looking at specific research groups at different schools, but I didn’t know that contacting them directly was considered a kosher thing to do.
Just curious - out of all the places you could have chosen as an example, why New Mexico State University?
A good recommendation from a well-known PI who says that you can lab it up with the best is going to be much more important than mediocre grades many years ago, especially if your recent test scores are good. They want to know that you’ll be good in lab. As long as your current boss doesn’t have a reputation for writing BS recommendations, that’s a golden ticket. Plus if your school had a reputation for having a lower average GPA (i.e. not Harvard), the sub-3.0 won’t look as horrible (it’s still not great, obviously).
Time is money, and if you’re wanting to go into an area that requires learning labor-intensive techniques, already knowing how to do everything right from the start is good news. I think I’d run maybe two columns when I started grad school, where I started on a project where I needed to purify everything by column chromatography. My PI knew that I didn’t know jack shit, and was thankfully very patient. But if there’d been 5 people trying to join the lab and he only had space for 4, he would have taken someone who could already flash something in 20 minutes, and not the guy who took 3 hours, isolated a side product instead of the actual product, and nearly cried (I got better).
Ok. Good school. Admissions folks will know this.
It’s not so much an advantage, it’s more a reflection of different education styles (assuming I understand what’s been told to me). How many chemistry classes did you take? 10? These folks spent their whole undergrad career in lecture and learning by rote memorization. Lots of raw chemistry knowledge, but you can’t memorize your way through grad school.
Kosher if you do it right. You might get ignored or a receive a gruff “apply and then we’ll talk. Quit wasting my time.” It helps if you have very specific questions. Not, “tell me about your research.” I didn’t contact anyone, but I kind of flailed my way haphazardly through the admissions process. It’s not something you absolutely must do, I think most don’t, but don’t think you can’t if you have questions.
I guess I just tend to unfairly pick on NMSU and UTEP. But looking at their organic faculty, they’ve got Arterburn the bio guy whose work I can’t judge. Gopalan’s stuff looks cool if you’re into playing with uranium, but he doesn’t actually publish much of anything. Herndon works on organometallic cycloadditions that are stoichiometric in metal. I’m turned off by the impracticality, but from a training perspective, it’s probably not bad. Not much non-review publications in 2007-09 though, which is a concern. The other guy looks like he’s just a lecturer. Small department, and given the publication level, very small labs, which means not a whole lot of people to talk to and learn from (and trust me, you learn a tremendous amount from your peers in the right environment.) Plus, no one who matches your interests, so you probably wouldn’t be applying there anyway, but even if the research did seem cool, it looks like it would be a career-limiting move.