<p>I volunteer for MIT biology, although I also know about micro and csbi. One piece of advice that I have is to be sure to talk to 2-4 year grad students at interviews. Lots of times the 1st years are the ones organizing everything— but that’s really early on and you don’t get a full picture of the school. I’m really happy with my choice, but as with every place there are definitely pros and cons, many of which a first year wouldn’t know about.</p>
<p>Everyone has such great replies and advice! Any other tips or comments are very useful to us (or at least me) going through this process the first time.</p>
<p>Hey all! My boyfriend is applying to grad school right now and FREAKING OUT about it. (I say he’s applying, but I’m doing all of the grunt work, lol). Here are my boy’s stats:</p>
<p>Undergrad GPA: 3.3
BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
He’s currently doing his MA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and should be finishing up May 2011.
GRE: 690 Q, 600 V (don’t know the A, he just took it today ;))
He’s planning on taking the biochem subject test in November too.
2-3 years research experience, he’s studying an ancient bacteria and doing qRT-PCR studies, heavy metal reduction, and a development of a genetic system trying to knock out a potential arsenal reductase gene. (Do I know what any of that means? No. Because I have a degree in film and history. LOL)
And he got a summer research fellowship in 2009.</p>
<p>He’s looking at:
Yale (obviously a long shot but he’s from New Haven so he wanted to at least apply.)
NYU
Einstein College of Medicine
Sloan-Kettering
Cornell Weill
UConn
Wesleyan
Mt Sinai
UMass Medical
Rutgers
+maybe a few others</p>
<p>He wants to do stem cell research, if that helps.</p>
<p>I’ll keep everyone updated on his (our) long and arduous journey. 
If anyone has an suggestions, advice, or comments, they are very welcome!</p>
<p>If we’re promoting our schools, I’d have to say the University of Michigan. Great school, great town, the PiBS umbrella program is awesome (you apply to PiBS, you can do rotations in any one of 13 programs under the biomedical sciences umbrella), and there’s a HUGE amount of collaboration here.</p>
<p>Updated my list and new GRE scores!</p>
<p>UCSD
Scripps Research Institute
Cold Spring Harbor (Watson School of Biological Sciences)
GSK Sloan Kettering
UCLA
MIT</p>
<p>Stats:
Graduating this June with a BS in Chemistry
3.5 GPA, 3.3 in Chemistry, 3.3 in Biology
GRE: Attempt #1 720Q, 620V 4.5 AW
Attempt #2 790Q, 690V
Took the Biochem & Molecular Bio test in October. Probably did pretty badly, around 50th percentile, but I’m only sending that score to Scripps.
Research: 1.5 years in a well-known lab. 5th author publication in Immunity. Summer research internship at a Japanese company.
Other: TA’d a chemistry lab course for 3 terms.</p>
<p>Oh man, does it even help to have a scholarship if you’re applying to bio? I just took the interview for the Samsung scholarship and am not feeling too good about it.</p>
<p>Having a source of financial support before entering graduate school NEVER hurts, but very few prospective bio PhDs already have graduate fellowships before they are accepted, so it is not vital. If what you are talking about is a general academic scholarship, well, those will help when included in your “Awards” list on the application, especially if they are relevant to your field.</p>
<p>trisprefect, this isn’t very helpful for you, but I’ll be following your posts! Your boyfriend’s stats are pretty similar to mine. I’ll be applying next fall during a year off, and to some of the same schools, so I’m curious to see how he does… I’ve been a little worried that my GPA/GRE are on the low end.</p>
<p>Glad to hear it will be of use, Emily! Yeah, he’s very concerned about his GPA/GREs. 
I’m convinced that most of the people on this particular forum are not indicative of graduate applicants as a whole, but a lot of the stats I read here are pretty intimidating! For my boyfriend it sucks because he has gotten literally all As in his upper level, specialized science classes (i.e. Genetics, Signal Transduction, etc), but did poorly in his Intro to Bio and Intro to Chem classes freshman year. :(</p>
<p>@neurotexasgal</p>
<p>You might also want to consider George Washington University. They don’t have a neuroscience program (they have biochemistry/molecular genetics, immunology/microbiology, or molecular medicine under the biomedical sciences umbrella) BUT they do have a partnership program with NIH (like JHU and Georgetown) so there is the potential of doing your research rotations and/or dissertation work there (in neuroscience, I would assume).</p>
<p>
His grades in those classes (and in freshman year, in general) will be much less important than his grades in higher-level bio courses.</p>
<p>creolan, thanks for the heads up. I didn’t know if George Washington was a good school or not, so it didn’t make my apply list. It’s difficult to assess the schools you haven’t heard of before.</p>
<p>To clarify, I’m a first year at GSK, Sloan Kettering. I guess I’m still honeymooning here, but I will gladly answer any questions. Feel free to PM me. Good luck everyone.</p>
<p>I thought I would post this just in case someone was thinking about doing the same thing. I just retook the GRE without any prep from last month and went from 690 to 800 Q and raised my verbal to a respectable level as well. Sometimes it is just your nerves that get to you.</p>
<p>Everyone’s stats on here make me feel like I’m doomed!!</p>
<p>Anyway, I am applying for PhD programs in Molecular/Cellular/Biochemistry
These are the schools that I can’t seem to narrow down any further:</p>
<p>Rockefeller
Cornell
Baylor (because of Ubiquitin!!!)
UC Berkeley
UC San Diego
SUNY Stony Brook
Northwestern
UW
UMass Worcester
George Wash U OR Georgetown
UofIllinois at Chicago
UofMichigan- Ann Arbor
Oregon Health and Science University
UofNewMexico
UofTexas Health Science Center at Houston</p>
<p>Crossed off: NYU, Columbia, Oregon State, UCSF, Gerstner Sloan Kettering (which I basically replaced with Cornell and Rockefeller)</p>
<p>IN DESPERATE NEED OF SAFETY SCHOOLS AND NARROWING DOWN THE ABOVE LIST. HELP!!</p>
<p>Here are my stats… a bit nerve-wracking because I LOVE science so much and I’m so dedicated these days!</p>
<p>GRE Q/V/AW
1st: 640/570/5.5
2nd: 710/550/? dont know yet
Biology subject: 710 (66%! )</p>
<p>GPA 3.0 science, 3.24 overall
Junior year: 3.204 science, 3.56 total; Senior year: 3.33 science, 3.45 total. Whereas first two years were pretty crappy. Academic Probation 2nd quarter of first year, Deans List once Junior Year and twice Senior Year. I’m hoping improvement will show I’m serious.</p>
<p>Research:
-2 months at National Cancer Institute–Bangkok, Thailand doing PCR mostly
-3months preparing formal proposal and 6 mo carrying out experiments for senior project and honors research credits at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, senior year
-April2009 to present working as an RA at a Research Institute in the Bay Area-- has lead to one, 3rd author publication in Molecular and Cellular Proteomics. Working closely with a staff scientist on 3-4 projects rather than fulfilling general lab maintenance duties (we have someone else that does that).</p>
<p>Please help with “safety schools” and chances on any of the above schools… and I’m not delusional… I know that AT LEAST the first five listed are uber reach.</p>
<p>@neurotexasgirl</p>
<p>I know for sure GWU is well regarded as an undergraduate university (somewhere in the top 50 or 60 schools) but that’s harder to judge for the graduate science programs. If I were you, I would still consider applying to GWU because of the NIH partnership program. You can easily assume that if you are accepted to the NIH partnership program, you will have ability to work in top-notch labs and that it would be a worthwhile experience. I know Georgetown, Maryland, and JHU have similar partnerships too.</p>
<p>4theloveofUB: I do not think the term “safety school” truly applies in the realm of grad school applications for bio sciences. What you need to do is check very carefully into the research emphasis of PIs n the various school that have programs that fit your interests. If you are a “fit” for what those labs need, and your stats indicate to them that you can handle the work, then you stand a reasonable chance of being admitted. In the end, it will depend upon the pool of applicants to any given program, and where you fall within that group.</p>
<p>I am not saying that there are not other schools out there to which you could/should apply. I am just trying to suggest that thinking “safety” like you might have done for undergrad apps is may not be the most productive way to go about this process.</p>
<p>4theloveofUB: How are you choosing your schools? I made a spreadsheet because I like to be super organized and I kept forgetting why I liked or disliked each program. First of all, I asked myself “Will I be happy spending the next 6 years of my life in this city?” For me, location is a big factor. Then I looked at the courses and noted if I thought they sounded interesting. You can sometimes judge the direction of the program by the classes they offer. Then, I looked through the faculty and made a list of all the professors who are researching something I am interested in. If I could only find a couple, I dropped the school from my list. I also noted likes and dislikes about the program or school. These four things narrowed my list pretty well, but I was fairly particular to begin with. A few more things to consider:</p>
<p>-Are you interested in teaching? What are the TA requirements?
-Are you applying to an umbrella program (such as biomedical sciences) or a specific department? Do you have a preference? Maybe you like the freedom of the umbrella program.
-What research is nearby? Do you have an opportunity to do research there? For example, the University of Washington has partnerships with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Beneroya Research Institute and you can work in some of their labs. However, if you know exactly who you want to work with, it doesn’t really matter how many labs you have to choose from.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your input.
@phagocytosis-- I did do that kind of analysis for the most part… but in the end I guess I picked all the locations I would prefer to be in, looked through research projects/faculty in the area, and ended up choosing mostly competitive schools! </p>
<p>And I understand–churchmusicmom-- that the concept of safety isn’t necessarily the same for graduate school, however there are less competitive programs. Less competitive programs tend to be the ones less people know about, and thus, I know less about! I think I was looking for suggestions for those, if anyone has heard of some in the same locations as the schools listed-- that might have some good faculty too…</p>
<p>Location was definitely the way I narrowed down the United States list too
Anyway, thanks again for the input! If anyone has any more suggestions or perhaps some insight into how I may fair according to my stats… please do comment!</p>
<p>Applying to prospective institutions for a PH.D in various specialties within the Biomedical sciences such as Neuroscience, Microbial Pathogenesis, Immunology and Cell Biology. The lists consists of those different schools incorporated below:</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins = Neuroscience
Rice University = Cell Biology/Biochemistry
Vanderbilt = Neuroscience
Emory = Neuroscience
Washington University in St. Louis = Microbial Pathogenesis
University of Virginia = Neuroscience
Boston College = Microbiology
Duke = Cognitive Neuroscience, Molecular Cancer Biology
Cornell = Neurobiology and Behavior, Immunology</p>
<p>My statistics are as follows: GRE score = 800V, 740Q = 1540(took today by the way so waiting for my writing score)</p>
<p>Undergraduate GPA at University of Michigan = 3.62, Concentration GPA: 3.67</p>
<p>Research Composition: </p>
<p>A) Delved into the National Cancer institute in Bethesda, MD for 1yr coping with Tay Sach’s Disease and working with various genes to encounter the causation behind it.</p>
<p>B) Ascertained specific zooplanton and misces samples to determine the underlying formation of such creatures and examined their natural habitat within the Great lakes for 6mo. I am currently involved with this project at the University of Michigan</p>
<p>Extracurriculars outside of Research include:</p>
<p>1) Engaging in intramural VB
2) Advertising and marketing for ESPN when I was a broadcast Journalism major
3) Participating in Church related activities and help reaching out to new students
4) Global Scholars Program at the University of Michigan (promoting awareness in destitute countries and specifically ameliorating conditions within third world ones, such as unwanted diseases and water toxins)</p>
<pre><code>Finally, I am a Cell and Molecular Biology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology double major at the University of Michigan whose a Senior. Now my designated plan is to dive into Graduate School in the Fall of 2011, Spring 2012, or Fall 2012, depending on research pursuits. Also, becoming involved within the work environment prior to my transition at hand may be a direction I lean towards as well, but that’s still yet to be decided.
</code></pre>