<p>I'm applying to about 15 bio PhD programs in the upper tier of schools ranked in US News & World Report (along the lines of my GF who is also applying to similarly ranked law schools):</p>
<p>Stanford, UC Berkeley, CalTech, Scripps, UCSF, UCLA, MIT, Harvard, Boston University, Rockefeller, Columbia, NYU, Johns Hopkins, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania</p>
<p>I was just wondering if my expectations of getting into a few (two, three, four) of these schools is reasonable. My strength isn't really in GPA, but research experience and letters of rec, so I was hoping those would help fill the gap. I've also heard that applying to smaller departments (i.e. not straight-up molecular cell bio or biochemistry, but possibly molecular physiology or toxicology) increases the odds of getting in.</p>
<p>My breakdown is UC Berkeley 3.35 GPA (i.e. no GPA inflation), pending GRE general and gre biochem scores, 3 co-authored publications (one in Nature Chemical Biology, one in Toxicology & Applied Pharmacology, other in Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters) and two acknowledgments in papers. My publications were in undergrad at berkeley (where I worked in a lab under a national academy member for 3 years... whom I have a letter of rec from), and I will have worked for a year at UCLA in neurology after graduation and before going to grad school. I can usually interview pretty well (and am fairly good about talking about my research... and don't come off as some sort of weird antisocial introvert).</p>
<p>With that kind of research experience and since you've had time off from grad school, I bet you'll get in despite the GPA. As mollie said last year, there's no point applying to all of those schools. If you get into any of them you'd probably get into all of them, or at least most.</p>
<p>I interviewed at eight of the schools you mentioned. I enjoyed meeting the professors in my field and really knowing at the end where I wanted to go, but it nearly killed me. By number six (Berkeley) I had pinkeye and what I can only suppose was whooping cough so bad that I was vomiting. I had to step out of three different interviews because I started coughing and thought I might hurl on the profs! (Everyone was very kind and understanding about this, even helped me find an urgent care clinic so I could get medication - nice folks out there at Berkeley!) But for chrissakes don't do that to yourself.</p>
<p>I agree, there is no way that you can interview at all of those places. I interviewed at 7 places and was totally and completely exhausted by the end. I got really sick at Stanford (the end of a 10-day long interview tour) and it definitely colored my opinion of the place. If you want to apply to all of those places, feel free, but definitely know where to cut. I couldn't decide which schools to cut, other than one obvious one, and it made for a pretty miserable couple of weeks. </p>
<p>You're GPA is fine, anything over a 3.0 is probably okay, especially with the research experience and the letters of Rec. I had a 3.5 and I got interviews/in at all 9 of the places I applied to, and was accepted to everywhere that I interviewed at. Also, apply to the programs with the faculty members that you want to work for. It's not going to change your odds that much, if at all, to apply to the smaller programs if you'd rather be in the larger ones. Many schools with divisions under a larger umbrella don't even really look at which division you applied to (Harvard BBS, in particular) but rather admit you to the larger program, since its possible that your interest will change once youre there. I would be surprised if you didn't get interviews at most of your schools, and most people who get interviewed are accepted.</p>
<p>I agree... it's rather stupid for me to apply to all those schools. The thing is, I don't intend on interviewing at all of them. (I would likely interview at the schools in which my GF got in at law school, since we're planning on going to the same school). Which brings me to my next question - How good are the odds of getting in to a graduate program once they invite you to an interview?</p>
<p>i think interviews are a chance for them to see you as a person -- they've already been impressed by you on paper to pay for your visit, then it's just a matter of sizing you up and seeing if you live up to their expectations. (and in some programs, a chance for the current grad students to see whether they like you, too.)</p>
<p>
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I interviewed at eight of the schools you mentioned. I enjoyed meeting the professors in my field and really knowing at the end where I wanted to go, but it nearly killed me.
[/quote]
Ahh, I agree with this so much. And I only ended up being able to interview at six. It's fun, but it takes a lot out of you.</p>
<p>Stanford was my last interview, and I ended up changing my flight home to leave a day early. I really liked Stanford, but I couldn't handle another day of sightseeing and socializing when I could be at home in my bed sleeping.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I've also heard that applying to smaller departments (i.e. not straight-up molecular cell bio or biochemistry, but possibly molecular physiology or toxicology) increases the odds of getting in.
[/quote]
I don't know that I agree with this -- smaller departments might have fewer applicants, but they have fewer spots as well. And many of the schools on your list have umbrella programs, so you're not necessarily being admitted only to the concentration you specify. Just apply to the programs which match your research interests and which have the largest number of faculty members with whom you could see yourself working. (EDIT: Sorry, ec1234 said exactly this already! Well, then, I concur with ec1234. :))</p>
<p>And I agree with others who say that if you get into one of Harvard/Stanford/UCSF/Berkeley/MIT/Hopkins/Yale, you'll probably get into all of them, but I also have a little too much personal empathy for the difficulty of the two-body problem. Will you need to interview in all the different regions, or will your girlfriend have her results in hand early enough that you can cut some out? I think it's in your best interest as a couple to sit down and decide what your top choices are, if you get to choose, and then strategize interviews from there.</p>
<p>Hopefully my decision will be made easier because law schools generally inform you if you're accepted no later than March if I believe correctly (they have rolling applications/admissions). We've done (over and over again) our cross-referencing between graduate schools and law schools, so our application list is pretty much set in stone. She's a smart cookie, so she's pretty much applying to all the same schools I am (that have law schools) or the equivalent nearby that's top in law. So with any luck, she'll have all of her acceptances in before the time I get offered interviews and then I can just interview at the schools she got into (or schools that are adjacent/close enough so we can live together). When do interviews for bio grad programs usually run from - sometime in March through.... May??</p>
<p>I'm not completely sure I understand the "umbrella program" thing. From what I've looked at... many schools have non-overlapping departments that I'm considering... for example - toxicology, versus molecular/cell biology, versus biochemistry, versus biomedical sciences/molecular-physiology (may be at the medical school and not the main university) - wherein these departments are differentiated... the applications seem to be different and you can usually only apply to one program per university (with Stanford and Scripps being the exceptions and you effectively apply to "all of biology" at once).</p>
<p>With many of the schools I'm applying to, there are so many different biology related departments which I'm considering (as mentioned above)... do any of you have experience with ones in particular that seemed really good (either from interviewing or from your own research)??? I mean to be honest... the application and department might be different, but I'm certain there's PLENTY of overlap in the work that's actually done (in terms of lab techniques/skills) which really depends more on the lab and PI you choose to work with than just the department it falls under.</p>
<p>Interviews run from the beginning of february through the middle of march. Most of my interviews were in the middle of february. So your girlfriend may not know soon enough for you to cut schools based on results, although you could narrow by area (ie only actually interview at 1-2 of the boston schools?). </p>
<p>most of the schools that you're interviewing at--at least the ones that overlap with my experience, have umbrella programs. NYU, Harvard (BBS), Berkeley (MCB), Stanford, UCSF (Tetrad or BMS), MIT, and Rockefeller are all umbrella programs. MIT only has Biology and Microbiology, while Rockefeller has no departments at all. See which departments the PIs you are interested are affiliated with, and definitely ask your college and current PIs if they have any ideas about which program you should apply to. Our interests are not at all similar (I am interested in genomics and systems biology) for my opinions to be at all useful to you regarding program. You should do well at any of the top schools. I would also ask your current PIs about results. They should know enough to know where you will be competitive. Applying is expensive! It might be good to cut a couple of the schools pre-emptively to avoid paying the 100+ fee to apply. It's also a lot of recs/gre scores/transcripts to send.</p>
<p>not that you need add any- but weill cornell has a very good pharmacology program, that seemed very interesting.</p>
<p>Coool... systems biology? I've actually been really interested in going into a graduate program in systems biology or maybe even bioinformatics (although I have no programming history... but am pretty damn good with learning/using computational biology based stuff). To be honest, I'd like to eventually trade in a lab-bench job for something computer-based or some sort of managing position down the road (in biotech or pharma). I'm not too academia driven career-wise. Would you happen to recommend any programs in particular in that area (systems, bioinformatics, computational)?</p>
<p>For bioinformatics, I believe the top program is Georgia Tech. It's still a very new field so many of the programs have yet to have any graduates (they may only be 4 or 5 years old).</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh have a joint program in computation biology. I have a slight bias for this program since I go to Pitt for biomedical informatics, but I would highly recommend it. It's almost like the best of both worlds: CMU is top in machine learning and computer engineering, while Pitt has one of the top 20 medical schools in the country. </p>
<p>If you're interested in computational biology or bioinformatics, check out BMC</a> Bioinformatics. Browse through some of the articles that may be of interest to you, then find the programs associated with the research.</p>
<p>Oh and most bioinformatic or compuational biology programs do not require you to have a computer science, mathematic, or programming background. I studied biochemistry in undergrad with no programming background. It's not too difficult to pick up later on. You can make up those deficiencies during your course work!</p>
<p>for systems biology the main schools that I looked at, and was told to look at by people involved in the field, are harvard (systems bio), ucsf (igb?), uwashington (genomics), princeton (qcb), mit, berkeley, and stanford. NYU is also starting a large systems bio center, and if you are interested in programming and not so much the experimental, Columbia has a very good bioinformatics group. I applied to the wrong program at ucsf, but the people in igb that I talked to seemed really good. My top choices were berkeley and mit, but all of the schools that I looked at I was pretty impressed by.</p>
<p>How is what you guys do different (on a daily basis) from a classical molecular cell biologist / biochemist. Are you half doing wet-lab experiments and half on the computer? Am i correct in understanding that bioinformatics is more math and programming based... and if so, how does systems biology differ from computational?</p>
<p>From my list, do you know which departments fall into the realm of systems/computational/bioinformatics (or which is best if there are two or three of those departments... or how they might differ):</p>
<p>Stanford
UC Berkeley
CalTech
Scripps
UCSF
UCLA
MIT
Harvard
Boston University
Rockefeller
Columbia
NYU
Johns Hopkins
Yale University
University of Pennsylvania
Georgetown</p>
<p>it depends on your definition of systems biology. I am interested in the half computation/half wetlab scenario (maybe leaning a bit more towards wet lab), but there are systems biologists that are 99% computational. Systems biology is a field that still needs to be defined, but generally it is more mathematically rigorous than traditional biology and relies more on computational knowledge. Much of systems biology involves large-scale data sets (any of the -omics fields). Its answering questions more generally, about a whole system, instead of the traditional way that you look at a particular pathway or gene. Systems biology and computational biology are closely related, with systems biology probably being the broader term. Most computational biologists do very little wet-lab work, while systems biology is ideally bringing together the experiment and the computer work into a cohesive whole.</p>
<p>In the previous post I said which departments for the schools that I was looking at had systems biology. Most of the work is done at stanford, berkeley, mit, harvard, ucsf, and princeton, with a computational group (very little connection to wetlab stuff) at Columbia. NYU (the college, not the medical school) is a very good safety for systems biology research as they have a small group there, which is slowly growing. Caltech has some very good people (Elowitz!), but the department is small. I don't know much about scripps, although I have heard several talks by systems biologists from there who all seem interesting, and they are hiring new faculty interested in systems biology. Rockefeller seemed much more traditional, although there are a few labs that are definitely doing systems biology but you would want to make sure that you were interested in their work. It also might not be the greatest choice if you don't have a strong background in computers, as they don't really have a cs department at all. I don't know much about any of the other schools as I did not apply to them and I have not heard faculty from the schools speak. </p>
<p>If you have more specific questions about the schools feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>look at michael elowitz at caltech, stan leibler at rockefeller, lucy shapiro at stanford, bustamante (sort of) at berkeley, alexander van oudenaarden at MIT, harvard/MIT systems bio, depeer/bussemaker at columbia, wingreen and others at princeton. i dunno about the other universities.</p>
<p>there's a lot of programming in both systems and bioinformatics. i'd say caltech, princeton, rockefeller, and harvard/MIT are the best in the fields.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>i'm a die hard elowitz fan. he also studied with leibler at princeton, now at rockefeller.</p>
<p>To be completely honest, I have no real "skills" in programming - I did the C++ crap in AP compsci, but I'm really weak when it comes to language programming. Every other aspect of computers and data manipulation (learning new programs, figuring things out), I'm pretty great at. I can manipulate data like a bad ass. I'm not sure if I want to jump into a field where I'm a code-monkey, but I wouldn't mind doing work with new programs and manipulating data and figuring out how they jive. Is this a reasonable background/desire for somebody who wants to go into systems/computational (can I make what I want out of it - a combination of wet-lab and computers wherein I don't have to have a great knack for language coding?) I've done work in metabolomics and it seemed pretty damn cool (we measured metabolite changes using GC/MS for in vivo brain samples to see the effects of an administered compound in cannabinoid signaling). The approach to figuring out what endogenous biological systems were changed just amazed me... sort of made me really interested in the field.</p>
<p>really? where is leibler going? hopefully back to princeton by the time i apply to grad school!</p>
<p>skale -- you just touched on the basis of my project. except i've been working in e.coli. a lot of people work in metabolomics.</p>
<p>MATLAB seems to be the language of choice for data analysis and i learned it in a couple of weeks. perl/python is also useful and is again very easy to pick up with prior programming experience. i think you'll eventually have to code a lot at some point in systems bio. there's also a lot of modeling and experimental work going on in circadian clocks, p53 signaling, signal transduction in general, and also general stochastic processes in biological systems. AvO at MIT is an example as is elowitz at caltech. these fields require a good knowledge of stat. mech and a lot of the guys that work in these fields are physicists. there are a few pure biologists though.</p>
<p>the rumor was princeton, but the institute for advanced study. </p>
<p>MATLAB is extremely useful, as are perl and python, as well as R. While they don't require previous knowledge of other languages, they are easier to pick up if you have an understanding of programming as they are mostly teach yourself. You have enough preparation to do systems biology work, although I would shy away a bit from Rockefeller where there seems to be a lot less direct support for the work. Also -omics work is less math intensive and more figure out the program than things like modeling. Harvard systems is much more into modeling than some other programs, like MIT, Princeton, or Stanford.</p>
<p>If you're interested in metabalomics I would look at princeton, as the rabinowitz lab is at the forefront of metabalomics and basically the entire lewis sigler institute collaborates with him.</p>
<p>If you do well enough on the GRE's you have a decent shot anywhere--GPA is nothing to get too worried about if you have good enough research experience. If you get 1350+ GRE you will get into at least 10 of those 15, and can likely compete at the top 5.</p>