Behind the Scenes of a Science Application

James* is a chemistry student who wanted to pursue a doctorate in the United States. He had already applied to twelve programs and was rejected by all of them. Our consultant will show you how, with a focused strategy and well-written essay, James was accepted by his first choice - M.I.T.!

Program applied to: Ph.D program in Chemistry

His focus: Organo-metallic chemistry

His background: James had attended one of Taiwan's most reputable universities and had a good academic record, having ranked in the top 10% of his class. His alma mater was known to have an extremely tough marking scheme, so although his class ranking was high, his overall GPA was lower than expected.

Long term goals: To be accepted by the best possible program so that he could fulfill his future goal of becoming a professor and researcher at a leading institution.  

My Initial Comments: Sitting in my office, James looked forlorn. He had applied to twelve programs and was rejected by all of them. On the verge of losing hope, he was recommended to me by a former client.

His Weak Areas:

What was our strategy? To contact professors at the universities he was applying to and convince them of his potential research contribution and capability as a researcher. We would prepare a research package to send directly to the professors.

Putting our plan into action:

Research grad schools and make contacts with professors An endorsement from a faculty member in his desired program would almost guarantee his admission. We researched graduate schools and made a list of the best schools for organo-metallic chemistry. For each program, we identified professors with similar research interests and listed their names, addresses, and phone numbers. Not only are contacts beneficial in the application process, but they can possibly lead to a research assitantantship or scholarship. Our objective was not just to make James known to the professors; we wanted to show them that his contribution would be significant and advance the knowledge and understanding in his field. While James' previous focus had been on what he wanted to learn from the university, I told him to emphasize his potential contribution. We drafted letters to send directly to the professors, outlining his thesis, prior research publication, and graduate coursework.

Develop a unified research focus and thesis abstract to present to each professor The next thing that James had to do was to focus his research history into a unified package. I asked James to write down his entire academic history in detail and to highlight all the courses and research work that was related to those of the professors on his list. For each professor, we organized the highlighted information into a neat, well-developed package that would show that James had relevant experience in each professor's specific research area.

Keep in mind that research programs are judged by the quality of the research it produces, so admissions committees carefully look over the extent of your research and who you have worked with in the past.

Rewrite his personal statement and relate it to his research I encouraged James to refocus his personal statement and write as much as possible about his research. I advised him to give concrete examples of his capabilities as a researcher, his future goals, and the significance of his research work and its possible contribution to the field.

What was the result? I am very happy to say that James was accepted by his first choice - MIT!  The key to his success was making contact with professors. One professor at M.I.T. was so impressed with James that he agreed to be James' research advisor, and advised the admissions committee of this. James was even given a full scholarship for the duration of his doctoral studies. Look at James' essay to see how we implemented our application strategies into his written submissions. * (not his real name)