[agrobert]

A friend of mine was accepted to Irvine.  App Due Date Jan 15

[Mitch]

caltech's rejection letter gave me a paper cut.

[SM30]

am i the only one slightly worried about the complete lack of replies from schools in late jan. Very few of my friends have heard back from the "top" schools and it seems like if you don't hear soon its rejection city.

[Mitch]

It is common if you're a borderline.

[Willo]

Well, I do not come from the greatest undergraduate institution ever, its a large public state school, but I had good GREs, GPA, recs, research (one pub), etc and I'm as obsessed as anyone about organic, so take that as you will.  This has been my application experience so far:

UC Irvine:  accepted mid-December by phone
Scripps:  Early Jan, Interview offer by phone, followed by a faculty call and email
UC Berkeley:  Early Jan, Acceptance by email, followed by a faculty call
Colorado State:  Acceptance via email Mid Jan
Boston College: Late Jan acceptance
Princeton:  Nothing yet...

Best of luck in chemistry and grad school!

[LarvalOrganiker]

So far not bad...

University of Illinois-A misleading email in the second week of Jan and then the phone calls...two thus far.

University of Michigan-(Jan 18) A UPS over nighted single piece of paper acceptance letter.

UC Berkeley- (Jan 18) A phone call from a faculty member who I've met before and am HIGHLY interested in.

Columbia- (Jan 25) Just an email.

Still no MIT, Stanford, or Harvard. I know others who have been accepted to the latter two so...worried a bit.

[SM30]

if you dont mind me asking organiker, what was your app profile like? You're the first person i've seen thats gotten acceptances from columbia and uiuc.

[agrobert]

I was accepted to UCSD this morning by email.

Haven't heard from Cal-Tech, Scripps, Berkeley or UCLA.

[LarvalOrganiker]

if you dont mind me asking organiker, what was your app profile like? You're the first person i've seen thats gotten acceptances from columbia and uiuc.

3.9-ish GPA.
Three Semesters as a UTA.
>2 years experience with one research group (two minor publications and a larger one that was just accepted and every presentation my advisor could force me into)
President of Undergrad Chem Society for 2 years.
Not much else really. I go to the University of Louisville in Kentucky which ain't exactly hot s#*$ for chemists, but I suppose hard work is enough.

[agrobert]

Accepted to UCLA by phone.

[SM30]

cool, i went to ucla for undergrad. I know a bunch about their department, especially organic. I'd be glad to share any info. Unfortunately Fraser Stoddart just left for northwestern so he's no longer an option. Anyone heard from harvard, stanford, columbia, princeton, or upenn? If you havent heard from them by now are you pretty much rejected? It seems like theyve probably given out all of their acceptances already.

[agrobert]

A friend of mine has been accepted to UPENN, MIT and Princeton.  All were personal invites from professors she new well.  I don't think it is too late.  I haven't heard of any mass acceptances to those schools yet but I'm not sure how it works. 

Yea I'll probably contact you about UCLA if thats cool.

[SM30]

yeah feel free to PM whenever you want. UCLA can be a deceiving program so getting as much info as possible is a good idea.

[macman104]

All were personal invites from professors she new well.

*daydreams* To have those kinds of connections...

[SM30]

yeah just wait till you get to the industry. The connections become everything. To be very honest the school you go to isn't THAT big of a deal. We would all love to go to big name schools and work with big name professors, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee anything when it comes to your job. Many organic chemists go through great schools and work with great professors and are in fact great chemists but they end up working at a huge company for 20 years and slaving away at the bench. SOME of them become group leaders and even less become directors. Those connections you gain in the industry and through friends will likely be more important than the actual professor you work for. Always keep your eyes open for co-workers breaking off and starting up their own businesses or professors starting up businesses. Not to mention the job outlook for chemists in the next 5 years is pretty dreadful. Thats just my two cents (but a lot of it comes from people with considerable experience in the industry).