Frequently Asked Questions

In addition to faculty positions in engineering and science, our PhD students are being courted by pharmaceutical companies (Amgen, Abbott Laboratories, Novartis), semiconductor companies (Intel, IBM, TEL, Seagate), high-tech materials and specialty chemical companies (3M, HP, Dow, Kimberly Clark), as well as startups in a wide range of sectors. The list of potential employers will vary depending on the nature of your research.

A degree in molecular engineering will enable you to seek academic positions in physics, chemistry, biochemistry, materials science, chemical engineering, and biological or biochemical engineering. The options available to you will largely depend on the nature of your research. Current Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering students and postdocs continue to receive attractive offers for faculty positions at premier universities.

Our students have engaged in a range of international research experiences, including:

• TEL and the Advanced Institute for Materials Research (AIMR) (Tokyo)
• LETI (Grenoble, France)
• EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• École Normale Supérieure (Lyon, France)
• University of Göttingen (Göttingen, Germany)
• National University of Colombia (Medellín, Colombia)
• National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico City)
• Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) (Trieste, Italy)
• Max Planck Institute (Düsseldorf, Germany).

Yes, you can select an Argonne scientist to collaborate with on your thesis, provided you have a faculty sponsor within the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

Yes, you will be granted a PhD in molecular engineering.

Application fee waivers may be requested in your status portal after your application has been submitted. After submitting your application, you will see the options to pay the application fee or to request a fee waiver. If you plan to submit a fee waiver request, do not pay the application fee. It is non-refundable. If you submit a fee waiver request but pay the fee before it is processed, the fee will not be refunded, even if your request is subsequently processed and granted. Past/current participants with the Peace Corps, Teach for America, U.S. military veterans and personnel, UChicago alumni, and students attending a Big Ten Academic Alliance institution quality for an application fee waiver. BTAA FreeApp recipients must then follow emailed instructions from UChicagoGrad Admissions.

An application fee request will also be considered due to financial hardship. This is an option in the fee waiver application, you will also be asked for a short statement regarding your financial hardship situation. This is only viewable to the UChicago GRAD admissions office and is not viewable to the PME admissions committee.

Additionally, UChicago Grad has a hardship request form as well for any students who are suffering economic or other hardships preventing them from completing TOEFL/IELTS tests, the GRE (which is optional, only for our PhD in Quantum Science and Engineering), and/or accessing transcripts. 

UChicago alums only need to provide their school or division, the degree program they were enrolled in, date of or expected date of degree, and a document with either an official or unofficial transcript. 

Application fee waivers typically take anywhere between two business days to a couple of business weeks to process. The status of an application fee waiver does not impact the progress of an applicant, meaning your application will still be reviewed as a completed application even if you have an application fee waiver that is still under review after the application deadline.

More information on English Language Proficiency (ELP) can be found on this website, but in short, in order to meet the proof of proficiency requirement, applicants either:

• Submit that you meet UChicago's ELP through two waivers on your application:
• Primary Language Waiver: If English has been a primary language of communication and schooling for you since childhood, you may attest to this on the application. We cannot assist you in determining if this is the case for you. Falsifying this information, as with any other information on the application, may lead to revocation of an offer of admission
• Education Waiver: If you were enrolled for at least one full academic year in the last ten years, as a full-time, degree-seeking student at an accredited English-medium post-secondary institution in one of the following countries or territories.
• Take one of two different ELP tests:
• Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) internet-based test (iBT), including tests taken online at-home, or in a testing center
• International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic – Note: applicants are required to take the Academic Reading/Writing test within IELTS, not the General Training Reading/Writing test.
• Any other proficiency tests, exams, equivalent coursework, certificate/certifications, endorsement from faculty, and/or other measurement other than the TOEFL or IELTS are not accepted. This includes the IELTS “Indicator” test and the TOEFL ITP Plus.

Self-reporting your test scores in your application allows us to better review your application while we await the arrival of your official scores. We urge you to take an ELP test no later than mid-October to avoid these issues.

If you have not submitted an official English Language Proficiency (ELP), do not meet either ELP waiver, and are offered admission into one of our programs, your admission will be conditional upon sending official ELP test scores that meet or exceed our requirements (see prior FAQ for more details).

To enter your recommenders for your application, complete the following:

• First, create an application provide (which I'm assuming you've already done) by going to  apply-pme.uchicago.edu/apply/
• Create a profile and begin applying to your desired program.  You do not have to complete all the application components at once, you can skip around to different tabs after you've selected your program.  One of these tabs is labeled Recommendations. 
• In this tab, you enter the contact information for your application letters of recommendation.

The application deadline is for you to have submitted all the materials that you are personally responsible for (e.g., transcripts, candidate statement, personal statement, resume, etc.).

Though not ideal, your recommendation letters can be submitted after the deadline.  We generally ask for them to be submitted a couple of days after the deadline.  If two of your letters have been submitted, your application will be reviewed by our committee.  If your application is read and evaluated without a third letter, it is very unlikely to be read and evaluated again.  Faculty reading and evaluation can take place one to two days after the application deadline.  If your application has less than two letters of recommendation, it is not complete.  The faster they are in, the quicker your application can be reviewed.  Faculty begin to decline reading applications that are incomplete anywhere from one to three business days after the application deadline.

Once you have submitted your application, you can view the status of your recommendation letters on your application status page.

When you provide your recommenders’ contact information in the online application, they will immediately receive a link to where they can provide additional information about themselves, view your letter request, and submit their letters. Once you have submitted your application, you may continue to add and remind recommenders until we have received the required two letters. To make changes or remove a recommender from your file, you will need to contact us at pme-admissions@uchicago.edu. 

If a letter recommender has not received an email notifying them from our admissions office, do not add them to your application again. Instead, notify pme-admissions@uchicago.edu.

Once students are admitted, they are directly admitted into the PhD program.  There is no pre-doctoral work.  Students begin taking coursework full time for their first six quarters, and then progress into applying for candidacy. View this PDF for the Molecular Engineering curriculum and the Quantum Science and Engineering curriculum.

We do not accept transfer students. You may apply for admission in our Molecular Engineering or Quantum Science and Engineering programs, both of which only matriculate admitted students in our autumn quarter.  If a student were to be admitted with PhD coursework or milestones from another institution, our academic affairs administration will not consider reviewing your completed coursework and doctoral milestones for the purpose of waiving PhD program requirements.

Yes, both our Molecular Engineering and Quantum Science and Engineering PhD programs utilize interviews as part of the admissions process. Interview invitations are sent to applicants’ email address on file after passing an initial application review. Interview times average 15 – 20 minutes.