Advice regarding PhD (biosciences)

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>I am currently in the 1st year of MSc Epidemiology at a good, but not top-tier, research intensive Canadian university. I am very interested in pursuing my PhD in the United States.</p>

<p>My current stats:
-Undergraduate cumulative GPA: 3.68 (GPA of last two years: 3.96)
-BSc degree in the biological sciences, but no thesis option (unfortunate)
-One summer of NSERC funded undergraduate research
-Current Master's funded by NSERC CGS
-In addition to thesis work, I did four months of research on the side for current supervisor
-No publications/abstracts/posters at the moment
-Will take GRE general test in the summer</p>

<p>At this point, it's pretty much "go big or go home" and the schools I will be applying to will be the top-tier ones, otherwise I'm going to stay in Canada. However, will I be competitive enough for, say, the Harvard HILS program (BBS or Public Health) and related fields at Stanford or Yale?</p>

<p>As an extension to that question, will having external funding from Canada (e.g. NSERC doctoral award) and/or building a good rapport with a faculty that I want to study under at the school I'm applying to help increase my chances?</p>

<p>Thank you for your advice and help! It is much appreciated. =]</p>

2

<p>As long as you're good at writing about and talking about the research you've done and have good rec. letters, I personally think you're in fantastic shape for getting into a mid-top-tier program with your credentials. Make sure you look at programs where Canadians are considered domestic applicants. It is extremely difficult for international students to get into most programs, but luckily they usually don't consider Canadians to be international. Even though you may be able to get into those top-tier programs you mentioned, I would definitely also apply to a couple that are one step down from those (by traditional standards ie US News World Report), just to be safe. You can get a great education at places other than the absolute most famous.</p>

3

<p>hey bcheese,</p>

<p>Wow, the first Canadian on this forum interested in Biosci! </p>

<p>nickalternate has got it pretty much nailed. I imagine you should be able to get into a bunch of mid-top-tier ones (eg. around 10th or so on the rankings). I'm pretty sure the MSc degree helps a lot.</p>

<p>I'm also from Canada, and went to a top-ten but very new (and thus fairly unheard of) University. Below are my credentials (applying directly from undergrad):
- 3.94 GPA
- one summer NSERC
- one summer Research fellowship with another research institution
- 2 terms part-time, second one directly related to what I want to do
- no publications, though name was tagged along on some conference abstracts
-720 V/800 Q GRE
- 710 Subject (Biochem, 97 percentile)
- I also know I had some pretty good rec letters. I worked with three different profs during my summer terms, so I had one from each.</p>

<p>I got rejected from MIT, Harvard BBS, UCSF, and University of Washington.
I got accepted into WashU, Yale, Wisconsin,and Stanford.</p>

<p>I was told by many profs that I fell into the top-tier group of applicants from which one is essentially indistinguishable from another in terms of credentials. However, being international, the competition was TOUGH. </p>

<p>I think from my experience, I would say the deciding factor for international admissions is not really directly related to how good your credentials are, but how much money the school has. If a school only relies on NSF funding, and doesn't have any money to fund you, (or only one of you), then it's pretty much impossible to get in. I got into Yale because their international admissions rate is huge (I think something like 20%), i.e., lots of department funding. I never applied to Rockefeller, but in hindsight, I should have. UCSF, on the other hand, had something ridiculous like 0 or 1% international admission rate. I got into Stanford was because I won a fellowship from the school. But I was lucky because that was my top-choice school anyway.</p>

<p>I'm not sure about the NSERC doctoral award. To my understanding, aren't those only tenable in Canada?</p>

<p>Also, MAKE SURE YOU NAIL THE GRE, GENERAL AND SUBJECT. Coming from a Canadian University, especially a non top-tier one, you will be at a disadvantage because no one on the admissions committee will have heard of your school. Doing well on the GREs is your proof of the credentials of your education. Subject tests aren't always required, but take them. They are often highly recommended, which means that it could be the deciding factor of in or out.</p>

<p>And you're right, Canada has some great opportunities for post-graduate education, with amazing funding opportunities for domestic students. If you don't get into a top-tier US school, it'll be smarter just to stay in Canada. With your credentials you should be able to get fellowships/admission no problem.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the advice guys!</p>

<p>Hi nickalternate:</p>

<p>"Make sure you look at programs where Canadians are considered domestic applicants."
Thanks for this piece of advice. I'll be careful about this when reading the admissions information.</p>

<p>Hi l3monkid:</p>

<p>Awesome GRE scores and impressive schools you got into!
Any suggestions on how to tackle the subject test? It's a shame I only have about a month full time to prepare for the subject and general this summer; kind of like a final exam cram, lol.</p>

<p>As for the NSERC doctoral award, the CGS (which is 35k a year) is only tenable in Canada, but the PGS (21k a year) can be held anywhere. Hopefully winning the NSERC doctoral award could solve the international student funding problem a bit (only problem is the results of the competition are decided in mid-March... too late for actual applications).</p>

<p>From reading the thread about admissions for this year, I got bits and pieces of advice about whether or not to contact potential supervisors. Would developing a "relationship" with a faculty that I am interested affect the application process in any way? I ask this because in some Canadian universities, it's pretty much a guaranteed admission if the professor wants you.</p>

<p>Thanks again guys! I gained a lot of knowledge already :)</p>

5

<p>
[quote]
Would developing a "relationship" with a faculty that I am interested affect the application process in any way? I ask this because in some Canadian universities, it's pretty much a guaranteed admission if the professor wants you.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This partly depends on what you are calling biosciences. In Ecology type science (projects that require tons of field work) it is best to find a particular advisor and begin contacting them. You do not tend to do rotations (when you spend 6 months in the field collecting salamanders to then analyze for the next few years you cannot exactly try that out for 10 weeks and get anything from it). </p>

<p>The biomedical type sciences (ones in which you do do rotations) it can sometimes be frowned upon to contact particular people. They want you to do rotations and get a feel for a few different labs. If you show too much interest in only one PI they may think that if that PI is not taking students or if you find you cannot work with that one PI that you will not accept their offer or worse, that you will leave. You want to show them that there are many faculty you feel you might work well with, while still showing that you have focus and know what it is you want to do.</p>

<p>At least that is the advice I have been given. Purely coincidental I am sure, but of all the schools to which I applied, the only one that I got rejected from (after interview) was also the only one that I had happened to contact a PI to ask about their work before hand. All I mean by that is it does not hurt to not contact PI's first, and maybe, maybe it can hurt you to do so in my field.</p>

6

<p>It is absolutely to your advantage if you contact professors and develop a "relationship", especially if it is one that is so great that they really really want you as one of their students. However, it will not guarantee you admission. If you're lucky and the prof is on the admissions committee, or is best friends with/married to someone on the admissions committee, maybe it'll help. But it is truly very difficult to impress profs THAT much at the graduate level in these top prestigious schools. They have many talented students at their disposal. But nevertheless, at the very least, if you get along with a prof and have a lot of knowledge about his research, you could throw a good paragraph of that into your personal statement, talking about that project in particular and how you'd like to work with them. I imagine that would be very impressive.</p>

<p>I personally did not contact ANY profs (I felt so ashamed leaving that slot on the application form empty), but I met many eager applicants who did, who flew across the country to meet with the director of graduate admissions, profs, etc. Definitely a plus, but like I said, the ambiguous part is how BIG of a plus...</p>

<p>If you do get the PGS, and you know about it by the time you apply for grad schools, I think it does help you get admitted. Because for international students, a lot of times they can't admit you not because you're not qualified, but because they can't find the funding. If you can bring a good amount with you, then I'm pretty sure they'll be more inclined to accept you.</p>

<p>Depending on your study habits/discipline, a month full time is plenty. Just make sure to take them 2 weeks apart, so you can segregate your studying. I studied for my General while working full time. It took me about a month on that kind of schedule. I studied for my Subject in a month and a half, while taking 3 courses, working 16 hours a week, and applying for 10 different grad schools (yes I wrote mine at the last minute in November). Get the right resources though. For the subject, look up resources online. Pay about 30 dollars for practice tests. They really help.</p>

7

<p>
[quote]
t is absolutely to your advantage if you contact professors and develop a "relationship", especially if it is one that is so great that they really really want you as one of their students. However, it will not guarantee you admission. If you're lucky and the prof is on the admissions committee, or is best friends with/married to someone on the admissions committee, maybe it'll help. But it is truly very difficult to impress profs THAT much at the graduate level in these top prestigious schools. They have many talented students at their disposal. But nevertheless, at the very least, if you get along with a prof and have a lot of knowledge about his research, you could throw a good paragraph of that into your personal statement, talking about that project in particular and how you'd like to work with them. I imagine that would be very impressive.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I knew someone was going to disagree with me, like I said, just the advice I got.:) </p>

<p>I do want to say though, that of course I put a paragraph into each of my personal statements saying what my research interests were and therefore why I would love to work with Prof X, Y or Z (Not CC's Prof X, wrong field):) I usually ended up listing at least 5-6 prof's that I was most interested in.</p>

<p>To put it this way, I would not apply to a school that I did not throughly research the PIs there and know that I would be happy working with at least 5, imo. That way if half those people are not taking students, I still had a decent idea on where I could start for my rotations. I find it almost disingenuous, however, to contact all 5 PIs at each school I applied to, not to mention a fairly large time commitment. But then again I felt weird writing 6 different personal statements, all saying how much I loved each school. It was like trying to court 6 women at the same time.</p>

<p>Anyway, I think I am getting beyond the point a bit, but I know for a fact it does not hurt you not to have a relationship with a PI before you interview, and I still would be wary of putting all your eggs in one basket when it comes to searching for schools. If the only reason you would go to a school is to work with one PI, it would not be at the top of my list. That person's research might be awesome, but they may not have funding, or have a full lab, or might be a horrible person to work for, etc. That's all I am saying and I have heard that some adcoms feel the same way about that.</p>

8

<p>New_User brings up a good point. The reason why I (and many others) did not bother even contacting profs is because many of us applied to something like 8 or 9 schools, often more. For me it was because I had to apply to MIT/Harvard/UCSF/Stanford, and then I had to choose a few safety schools. (As I mentioned before, I should have also added Rockefeller/Berkeley to that list.) This is often strange to Canadian applicants (and annoying to Canadian profs who are writing your references), as Canadian grad school applicants usually apply to only 1-3 schools. But remember that that's because in Canada, admission is directly related to the prof, so you can get a good idea of your admission status even before you apply.</p>

<p>I also simply wrote a sentence or two about each prof and why I wanted to work with them and how it fit into my goals, and I usually included 5 or 6 profs (if I couldn't come up with that, I started to realize that the school didn't really fit for my interests). I think this is the norm. However, as I said, I did meet several students who went the year before and met with a few profs at the top schools. I found that pretty impressive.</p>

9

<p>Yep, I'm going to apply to about a dozen schools (hopefully my profs won't get too annoyed) and it'll probably be best for me to mention potential PIs I want to work with in my application.</p>

<p>Time sure does fly by fast, I better make good use of the 8 months left before the deadlines to beef up my CV. =)</p>

<p>Thanks! You guys are extremely helpful. If I have more questions, I'll be sure to come back again and post. =P</p>

10

<p>I just want to add a comment and a bit of a caveat (and this is coming from my own experience of applying to, and unfortunately being rejected by, Harvard BBS this year): top-tier US schools generally have low admittance rates for international applicants (Canadians are considered international by most US schools), so the competition is pretty tough. </p>

<p>Personally, I thought I had a good chance of making it with 4 summers of research experience (including one at Harvard), several posters and poster awards, 1 publication + another in press, and good GPA and GRE marks. </p>

<p>So my advice would be to apply to as many schools as you can, and definitely aim for at least one publication before you apply (if possible).</p>