Please help

[sreeram]

Hai all,

I am new to this forum site. I had finished my GRE and TOEFL in this month. Please help me in selecting my univ. I am chemical engg. graduate and planning to app for a PhD next fall.

 

Bachelor's: Private college(Affiliated to JNTU, Hyd);

Aggregate: 80.33% (topper:85%)

Master's: IIT Madras

CGPA: 9.65/10 (class topper)

Internship: Max Planck Institute, Germany

 

Publications: 2 accepted, 1 submitted

 

GRE:1360 (V:590; Q:770; AWA:3.5)

TOEFL: 223-280.

 

As of now, I am planning to app for

University of Houston

University of Delaware

University of Texas, Austin

 

What are my chances in the above univ and also please suggest me other univ( I am planning to app around 8 to 10 univ)

 

Thanx in advance

[bilash]

Sure chance in the first two, very likely in the third one!

[sreeram]

Hai bilash,

Thanx for the feedback. How come yur so sure??? Are you also a chem grad??

Could you please suggest me some more good univ based on my profile?

[Holden_Caulfield]

Hai bilash,

Thanx for the feedback. How come yur so sure? Are you also a chem grad?

Could you please suggest me some more good univ based on my profile?

Hi,

I'm a chem major. In what journals your publications are?

[sreeram]

holden,

I am a chemical engg. graduate. My publication are in Industrial and Engg, Chemistry Research. Is ur major chemistry or chemical engg?

[Holden_Caulfield]

holden,

I am a chemical engineering . graduate. My publication are in Industrial and engineering , Chemistry Research. Is ur major chemistry or chemical engineering ?

I'm a chemist (science). The link on my profile is below :) It seems to me, I'm the only communicative chemist here - so let's keep in touch ;)

 

I think, you have a strong profile. Max Planck is one of the best. It means a lot, I guess.

 

Without being picky to IF: journla is published by ACS - it is internationally recognized and peer-reviewed :) That's good! [clap]

 

On your place, I would simply apply to top-10 - Stanford, Caltech, U of Minessota, Georgia Tech and so on.

 

Hm, why University of Houston? Never see it in the rankings. Is it worth to go there? :whistle:

[bilash]

sreeram, actually i am not from chem eng background. I am from CS background. I have commented on your chances from an engineering point of view. UT Austin is very highly ranked for eng, while the two others are between 50-100. I am not claiming I am 100% sure about my assertions.

Good luck with your admissions!

[sreeram]

Holden,

My AWA score is too low, That is why I am hesitating. Will it severly affect my admissions.

University of Houston is ranked 17 in chemical engg but the overall ranking of the school is too high.

Surely I will be in touch

[bilash]

I have usnews ranking of engineering schools. I didn't see Univ of Houston in top 50.

[Holden_Caulfield]

sreeram, actually i am not from chem eng background. I am from CS background. I have commented on your chances from an engineering point of view. UT Austin is very highly ranked for eng, while the two others are between 50-100. I am not claiming I am 100% sure about my assertions.

Good luck with your admissions!

University of Delaware is in top 10 for Chem Eng in US NEWs.

I also, very doubted about Houston.

Checked it here from the number of publications point of view

http://www.phds.org/rankings/chemical-engineering/rank?form.submitted=1&ed_eff=&change=&myd=&fac_qual=5&p_pub=5&n_pub=5&n_cit=5&g_pub=5&g_cit=5&p_full=5&p_full_sign=1&n_fac=&n_fac_sign=1&n_stu=&n_stu_sign=1&n_phd=&n_phd_sign=1&p_supp=&p_ra=&p_ra_sign=1&p_ta=&p_ta_sign=1&f_stu=&f_phd=&min_phd=&us_phd=&us_phd_sign=1&form.button.submit=Continue

 

It is on #34.

 

Sreeram, IMHO, writing score in standard test will never overcome "active"

research experience (papers and so on). If I would need to get good grad

students to work in my lab - I prefer one with pubs against one with high

AWA. But, again - it's my opinion, not adm. com. For me it seems logical. I

have awa 4.0 and I don't pay any attention to it - if somebody rejects me

based on this fact - well, we have different view on the reality around us

and it is for our mutual benefit not being together :)))

 

PS check phds.org - they have very flexible ranking (you can change the criteria). The disadvantage is that it has old data (1994).

 

Good luck to you!

[sreeram]

Bilash,

I got the info from f1study.com. Please check the link below for chem engg rankings.

http://www.f1study.com/html/top_chemical_engineering.html

 

Holden,

Thanks for the link. Just check the above link. Anyways I am also planning to app as usual withou taking into concern my AWA score. By the way, wats ur GRE and TOEFL score?

[Holden_Caulfield]

Bilash,

I got the info from f1study.com. Please check the link below for chem engineering rankings.

http://www.f1study.com/html/top_chemical_engineering.html

 

Holden,

Thanks for the link. Just check the above link. Anyways I am also planning to app as usual withou taking into concern my AWA score. By the way, wats ur GRE and TOEFL score?

Hi Sreeram,

GRE Q790/V580/AWA4.0. I'm kind of disappointed with math, but I cannot live without stupid mistakes.

I looked on your ranking - I'm not a chemical engineer, but Georgia Tech for sure worth more than #31 ;)

 

A few words about rankings here:

One thing is wondering me a lot is how some people consider the place in ranking as a good measure about easyness to get in the school. Very dangerous and wrong assumption.

 

The other thing that I want to mention, that the rankings is also need to be taken logicaly. I do pay attention to them (as well as my future employers do :) ), but rankings are results of some generalization, whcih could or could not have any relation with your specific case. Besides this, there are a few factors that is better to check with each school and these factors are also extremely important (for me :) ):

1) Is there well-known profs that you want to do research with?

2) Do you need to pay tuition?

3) How much money do they offer?

4) What is your chances to get RA (and not TA)?

5) What is the size of the school? (Caltech has about 900 grad student, MIT - several thousands: guess, where is it easier to get?)

 

I spent sometime in grad school here and before I got there I did not paid enough attention to number of this factors and I'm sad about this now. Just an advice - do not repeat my mistakes! :)

If you like U of Houston from your poin (research, career perspectives and so on) - go there and through away the rankings ;)

 

Good luck! :D

[sreeram]

Holden,

I was also initially surprised when I saw the rankings but when I saw the similar rankings in one of the univ website, I was made to believe. These rankings depend on several factors. I am looking for a school which provides good research facilities, good profs in my area of interest, good placements.

University of Houston is in the state of Texas. I heard that the placements are really good and moreover the research facilities are also good. If I get an admit, I am ready to take it. If I get more offers from more than one school, I will decide then.

 

By the way, I heard several people saying TA/RA. I know that TA means teaching assistantship and RA research assi. Whats the difference with respect to funding?

 

I am always telling about myself. You are advising me al the time. I am really thankful for that. Which univ's are you planning to app? Best of luck for your admissions

[Holden_Caulfield]

Holden,

I was also initially surprised when I saw the rankings but when I saw the similar rankings in one of the univ website, I was made to believe. These rankings depend on several factors. I am looking for a school which provides good research facilities, good profs in my area of interest, good placements.

University of Houston is in the state of Texas. I heard that the placements are really good and moreover the research facilities are also good. If I get an admit, I am ready to take it. If I get more offers from more than one school, I will decide then.

 

By the way, I heard several people saying TA/RA. I know that TA means teaching assistantship and RA research assi. Whats the difference with respect to funding?

 

I am always telling about myself. You are advising me al the time. I am really thankful for that. Which univ's are you planning to app? Best of luck for your admissions

Hi, Sreeram,

The link for my profile is below in my signature: the list of schools on p.2 on this thread :)

http://www.www.urch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27018

I would be very happy if you comment on the profile and schools ! :tup:

 

You are correct about TA/RA. The difference between them, that I was able to see is the following:

1) If you TA your are paid from department and you need to spend a lot (yes, sometimes it is A LOT) of time doing useless (IMHO) thing - trying to teach people that actually do not want to learn anything. I don't like to do this kind of stuff. People are different, students are also different: it might be not true in your case. I will say few good words about chem. eng. case: when I've visited one chem. eng. department, prof there said, that all students that goes in and out of Chem. Eng. building are going to be chem. engineers. It means A LOT for their motivation! I felt that difference myself: when I was teaching upper-level classes for chem. major and general physics for various majors. Chem classes I liked much more.

2) If your RA - you are paid by your prof and only thing that you are doing is research.

The difference in amount depends on a lot of factors, so it is incorrect for me to generalize here. For chemistry, it is always easy to get TA since a lot of majors are taking Chem and department needs a lot of people to teach labs. About pro and con of this fact - see below.

 

For me #2 is much more favorable, because in this case I spent my time doing research and I believe, that PhD w/out strong research should be just trashed. I've been a TA for 2 years - it is enough to put in resume and forget.

 

The other tricky part is that some profs have some kind of disorder: they are extremely greedy. They want you to work for them, but they don't want to pay you. What is the yield of this situtation? Well, let's see that from their view: for example, you are doing experiment and you need to buy a compound. There are 2 options: to buy cheap and bad vs to buy expensive and good. What your prof will do? (you are TA, you work for him for free). Obviously, he would buy bad and cheap and you will spend 0.5 year of your active scientific life doing synthesis that does not work, because compounds are dirty (cheap stuff) - you are trashing your life! After this half-year your prof is convinced that cheap stuff does not work and he cannot save money by using your free labor - he finally buys the expensive compound and everything starts to work nicely...

 

Well, this kind of clinically disorded behavior is not so uncommon. Here is we came to the next very important conclusion: sometimes, it does not matter WHERE are you doing your research, but does matter with WHOM.

I hope, that you never encounter somebody from my terrible stories, just be aware of this ;)

 

Maybe, I should write a book about life in graduate school? :hmm::D

 

Also, I would like to ask you a question about funding for chem. eng. : is it easy to get or it is not? Funding is critical for me, but I'm thinking about appling to the several chem. eng. programs as well? Job perspectives is better after chem. eng., I guess, and it attracts me a lot.

[bilash]

Looks like i am a dumbo about chemical engineering ranking. Actually, I personally believe that ranking of a particular department alone is not the important thing. The overall ranking of the engineering school you studied will put you in an advantagous position during job hunting. There can be exceptions, of course.

[sreeram]

Holden,

Your profile looks too good. You have everything: publication in good journal, conference presentation, patent, research experience. What more does a top grad school require? I have no idea about most of the univ's but I think you can easily make to most of the univ's in your list. Best of luck for your admissions.

As far as the funding for chem engineering is concerned, I think most of the univ give full funding with admit.I think you should app even for the chem engineering dept. Before doing that, just go thru the website whether any research is going on related to field of interest. As far as I know some of the profs work on molecular thermodynamics etc. I guess you people work on such topics.

And also please start writing a book about your experiences in grad school? It will help lot of guys like me.

[Holden_Caulfield]

Holden,

Your profile looks too good. You have everything: publication in good journal, conference presentation, patent, research experience. What more does a top grad school require? I have no idea about most of the univ's but I think you can easily make to most of the univ's in your list. Best of luck for your admissions.

As far as the funding for chem engineering is concerned, I think most of the univ give full funding with admit.I think you should app even for the chem engineering dept. Before doing that, just go thru the website whether any research is going on related to field of interest. As far as I know some of the profs work on molecular thermodynamics etc. I guess you people work on such topics.

And also please start writing a book about your experiences in grad school? It will help lot of guys like me.

Hi, Sreeram,

Thanks a lot for your comments.

The major concerne is my low undegrad GPA - 4.1 out of 5 :blush: (I have a lot of fun in my young years :) ) I tried to fix it with perfect MSc - I don't no will it work or not.

I'm working in Nanotech (biosensor construction) - it is pure chem. eng. I know bunch of people on chem. eng. who are doing absolutely the same stuff.

Classical Chemistry is basically finished science (like geometry :) ).

 

Thank your for the funding answer - I'll apply to several chem. eng. department as well :)

Good luck!