Hi all,
I apologize for the probably insanely repetitive post, but I would enormously appreciate your advice right now since I’m really freaking out. I had a 3.91 going into this semester (just As/A-), and I had a very emotionally tumultuous semester which prompted me to get ~3.5 and worst off, a B- in E&M physics and a B+ in intro bio. To be fair, my school’s intro bio is notoriously difficult (Mowsh bio @ Columbia) but I’d managed an A- last term. I basically had a couple week long depressive episode as a result of family illness and anxiety over my sexuality…although I improved on a personal front, the damage was done. (My cGPA is 3.8)
I and my family really don’t want me to take time off between school for financial reasons and I just feel so awful about this and everything. To top it off, I’m Canadian, so I have even less room for error. I have around 4-5 years of research w/ commensurate research fellowships etc. and I plan on studying ahead for my MCAT along with the usual volunteering…is there a way for me to remain a viable candidate for the regular 2017/18 cycle?
Prior to this term, I had an optimistic, top-heavy list for MD-PhD programs, but I’m kind of frightened now. I feel like I come off as academically incompetent.
I apologize if this is stupid - becoming a clinician scientist has been a major dream of mine since forever.
My research exp summary: (I’ve worked in labs since my freshman summer of high school: in 2011-2012, i worked in 3 different labs (cancer bio and immunology primarily) and had informative and good learning, albeit short experiences. From 2012 fall to 2014 summer, I worked with a really amazing PI (who is also a clinician scientist) and basically worked on a project on my own. I was vaguely supervised but all of the experimentation, much of the analysis was independent, and I met with the PI to discuss data, next steps etc. . Admittedly, being completely thrown off into the deep end was challenging, especially given that I was still a HS student, but it was a great learning experience and I’m quite close with the PI even now (he’s written multiple letters for me). The current lab I’m in is more of a BME lab, and I’ve mostly been on-off 1 project. I did a lot of the literature review/design/thinking/some prelim data analysis about the project last summer but it was delayed due to technical difficulties, so during the school year I worked on something else that has been going so-so - involvement was limited b/c of school year and obviously this term. I’m back on the main project for the summer onward and will be heavily involved with experimentation/analysis etc. I’m on good terms with the PI, though this lab is quite different in method/structure than the previous one.)
So just to clarify, are you freaking out about having 3.8 GPA?
^Yeah, I hope I’m misreading this post. A good total cGPA/BCPM GPA completely negates any individual bad semesters.
Also
Yeah, make sure you read each program’s website carefully. For MSTP programs, you can only attend the ones that have some sort of outside funding because the NIH forbids using MSTP money on non citizens/green card holders.
I’m pretty sure non-citizen nationals and green card holders are eligible for NRSAs.
You are right, my post was not worded clearly. I meant non citizens and non green card holders. Basically you must be a permanent legal resident of the USA to get MSTP money.
I’m sorry, upon rereading it sounds really ridiculous. I’ve heard international admission for MD/PhD is particularly competitive, and I’m scared that it makes me look incompetent/stupid, since I messed up in science courses in particular. I have gone through the list of MD/PhD programs that accept internationals and many of them are the more competitive ones, so I was really frightened about this term.
However, it’s good to know 1 subpar semester isn’t that bad.
If I can ask another dumb question - is there a standard ‘good’ research experience? Many have told me I should strive for it (and I certainly try), but it seems kind of nebulous, considering that each lab is so different wrt to publishing. Is it really just about good LoRs?
Thank you all so much for your comments
A good research experience is one where you are an active participant in the research process. The simplest way to put it is are you acting as a young scientist or as a trained monkey?
A trained monkey is someone who shows up to lab and does as they’re told. They know how to do experiments, but they are not involved in the design of the experiments and have no sense as to where their work fits into the bigger project and how the bigger project fits into the bigger picture of things. They have no idea how or why various decisions surrounding their work are made. The point is: you could theoretically replace this person with a highly trained monkey and see no real decline in their contribution to the lab. This is a bad experience.*
A good research experience is essentially the opposite of that. You are a part of the team. You contribute to experimental design and analysis, you have ownership of some small project. You can talk about your project intelligently. You understand the hows and whys of what you are doing. You can effectively describe how your project fits into the bigger picture of the lab and the scientific community.
So yeah, LORs and your interview are more important than papers at this stage of the game.
*Note for anyone else reading this - if you are a high schooler, this is not bad, but in fact a great description for you, particularly if it includes the fact that when people ask you to do things, you can do them correctly. A high schooler who can be trusted to do as their told in the lab is a fantastic high schooler. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake.
^If I’m understanding the way SDN marks their posts, that thread was started 13 years ago with the most recent post being 4 years ago. Take everything with a grain of salt, especially if you find something credible that was written more recently which contradicts anything in that thread. Also assume everything is more difficult/competitive than that thread makes it out to be.
Difficult - yes.
It gives a shorter list of colleges one can check on for their admission and funding processes.
Hi all! Thanks for your responses. I appreciate them. I have been posting to SDN, and have a current list of:
- WuSTL (dream at present), Penn, Weill Cornell, UChicago, Columbia (alma mater, literally), Mt. Sinai, Vanderbilt, UVa, NU, Mayo, UT Southwestern, Baylor, and Emory.
This summer I’ve started studying for the MCAT although I’m missing orgo and a bit of review for my next semester courses (b/c I know next year is going to be hectic), am teaching SAT prep to underprivileged kids (#CC-erforlife), and doing research. I have two awards/fellowships for my summer research.
I appreciate your thoughts on research, iwb_b. In my last two years of HS I was definitely directing my own project. In UG it’s kind of tricky b/c I’m in a BME lab working on a longitudinal study of a certain biological process in Alzheimer’s Disease. I have been commended for my scientific/intellectual reasoning etc. skills by my PI and others (I gave an apparently good talk reviewing three papers and used them to establish the project to the lab). However, ironically, my experimentation has been a bit limited because I discovered that I cannot over my mouse-phobia and the project involves live imaging of mice (something that led me to think my research career was over lol) but my lab people and PI were insanely supportive and apologetic. I have learned (and helped) with analysis but it’s been a lot of hard nosed learning since I never coded before.
This summer, for my role, I’m going to be doing immunos (and may be able to decide some of the markers to look for after searching through the literature, yay!) , a lot of the literature review (since I’m good at it, lol), and maybe analysis of certain data sets. I’m hoping for a poster (if only for the experience), but who knows. Do you think that’s ok? The project is an experimental collaboration, so we don’t exactly know which shape it’ll take. I’ve learned, through my experience, that I’m much more biologically inclined than engineering, so I hope that we can look into some of the mechanisms with our collaborator, but it depends on what we see, of course! Do you think this is a productive role? Honestly, the people + PI are so supportive/attuned to my interests and nice and I cannot be more grateful to them.
Also, if I may ask a dumb question about clinical: how much do you think is good for MD/PhD vs MD. SDN told me 100 (which is more than manageable) in a clinical setting for MD/PhD, but I was wondering what you guys think.
Thank you all so much!