<p>Hi, </p>
<p>I'm a fourth year at biochem major at ucsd and I was wondering if someone could tell me how hard it would be to get into biochem programs like UCLA, UC Berkeley, Johns hopkins, caltech, and other good schools if:</p>
<p>I have a high GPA (>3.9)
Good GRE scores
but only decent research experience (i've been volunteering in labs for all three years, but I don't have any publications, and have never had that much independent responsibility).
I'm also working as a TA for lower div bio this year if that helps any.</p>
<p>I don't think it will be too difficult. Your stats look good. Research experience is good--and it sounds like you have some--but having a publication is definitely not a must for grad school. I think as long as the faculty member for whom you are doing "research" will write you a letter saying that you know your way around a lab, you don't hinder other people's research, you have the ability to think about complex problems and you have the potential to be a good researcher, then you should have the research aspect covered.</p>
<p>With regards to applying, you should cast a wide net though because many graduate programs interview only a handful of applicants regardless of the number of qualified applicants. I've been involved in the application process and sometimes it really is a craps shoot who gets an interview and who doesn't. But the good thing is that many of those schools you mentioned have multiple graduate programs that support biochemistry research, many with overlapping faculty members (i.e. with joint appointments). If you have particular schools in mind, make sure you are aware of all graduate programs in those schools, which ones have biochem faculty and apply to all of those. Because, quite frankly who cares which department you are in as long as you have access to good PhD advisors?</p>