My Thoughts & Suggestions

Start Early

The earliest deadlines for application are February 1st, so you have to start looking early enough to get the materials filled out and give your letter writers enough time to finish.

Should I apply to this one?

If you're unsure about a specific school, talk to your advisor or other members of the chemistry department. They will at least have a general impression of the school, and can tell you if you'd be a good fit.

Get Organized

I applied to 10 different programs last year, and to keep everything straight I made a table with deadlines, required application materials, benefits, where to mail the materials, program dates, etc. Here's my master plan.

Can't find a program listed for the school you want to go to?

The easiest way to check for a program at a specific school is to look around on their chemistry department website. If all else fails, email someone and ask! This is how I discovered several of the programs I applied for.

I haven't heard back yet!?!

This is very frustrating, but try to be patient. In my experience industry takes the longest to respond, but academia can be just as bad. Some of these programs have several hundred applicants, so try to understand it will take some time. Often if you're going to get accepted you'll hear right away because they want you to guarantee you are coming to their program.

Have a Back-up Plan

The summer after my sophmore year I applied to 9 different programs and wasn't accepted to any of them. Turns out they want you to have research experience in order to get experience, go figure. Luckily I had made connections with professors at my own school who were conducting their own summer research. After one summer of research at my home institution I applied elsewhere and was accepted by several programs. So don't give up!

Multiple Listing Sites (Academia)

• Experiential Programs in Chemistry (EPiC)
  - Listing of internships, co-ops, summer work, etc. Can search by area of interest, location, company, and type of program.
• National Science Foundation REU
  - A listing of programs from all around the country that are sponsored by the NSF.
• Amgen Scholars
  - Looking for students in biochemistry, has programs at the following institutions: Caltech, Columbia, Howard University, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, University of Washington.

Specific Programs (Industry)

• Cargill - food, agricultural
• Dow - plastics, chemical, agriculture
• Hershey - chocolate :)
• Pfizer PGRD - pharmaceuticals
• Sigma-Aldrich - biochemical supplier
• Honeywell - materials
• 3M - materials
• Masco Corporation - Behr paint