Oxford Chemistry Students and Applicants

Ive done the first half of the pericyclics tute quite easily -- HOMO only theory is thankfully nice. Just woodward-hoffmann rules Im just . Probably wait until someone clever does it then copy and hopefully learn.

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Conway group...synthesis of non-inositol ligands for IP3Rs - it basically ends up being a combination of synthesis and then the more bio/pharma side of testing the compound
Would kill to end up in that group

My group

Did you come visit on friday?

xxx

My group

Did you come visit on friday?

xxx

I´ve read that a very common interview question is:
"What is 'turning you on' in chemistry at the moment?"

"I would be likely to say:"I like analytical Chemistry the best."
But I have know knowledge about this topic (just titration, nmr spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, chromatography, x ray diffration, precipitation reactions,..) and if they ask me a few more in depth questions I probably can't answer them.
So, would you recommend me to prepare in a special field or isn't this essential?

Well you have to hope to hit onto something the lecturer interviewing you wants to know about. I was asked this (not at Oxford) I said green chemistry and started talking about that, but the lecturer seemed disinterested so I said I was also interested in computational chemistry and he leapt into life and started showing me models on his PC.

I'd go for something more interesting than analytical, people who do that are just the analysis monkeys for the people who actually do stuff.

I´ve read that a very common interview question is:
"What is 'turning you on' in chemistry at the moment?"

"I would be likely to say:"I like analytical Chemistry the best."
But I have almost no knowledge about this topic (just titration, nmr spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, chromatography, x ray diffration, precipitation reactions,..) and if they ask me a few more in depth questions I probably can't answer them.
So, would you recommend me to prepare in a special field or isn't this essential?

Just got an email from st johns offering me an invitation to interview. From what I understood they have invited all St Johns Chemistry applicants. Anyone else been asked yet?

Just got an email from st johns offering me an invitation to interview. From what I understood they have invited all St Johns Chemistry applicants. Anyone else been asked yet?

Obviously chose the right college seeing as they're inviting every applicant!

How does the interview process work exactly? Is it true that they accommodate you, give you your own room in college for a night or two and supply you with all your meals?

According to my sources, there are more applicants this year than there have been in any year in recent history, at least.

Even so, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's all too many applicants per place. It wasn't too long ago that chemistry had fewer than two applicants per place, and even a large increase in the number of applicants is unlikely to take it past 3 per place.

Is the interview used much more as a basis for giving you an offer or not than at other unis? Others seemed to be, make sure you turn up to get an offer, oh, and we will speak to you for 20 mins at the end of the day. hehe