Biochemistry Graduate School

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I am planning on applying to biochemistry graduate programs this coming cycle and I was wondering whether or not you guys think my list of schools is good or bad based on my statistics and experience. I know it will be difficult to convey all my experience, but I will try to give a brief summary. My biggest worry is that my GPA is very average and I don't know if these schools will be within my range. I live in the NW so I am applying to most schools in WA and OR, but I am also applying to a few others around the country as well. Any advice on removing/adding schools would be great (based on my stats).</p>

<p>GPA: **3.42/4.00<a href="Junior%20and%20Senior%20year%20had%20average%20of%20%5BB%5D3.63%5B/B%5D">/B</a></p>

<p>GRE: I took the GRE last week and the preliminary results were:
Verbal: 520-620
Quant: 750-800
I probably got at least a 4 on the AWA as this is my strongest section.</p>

<p>*LOR's: *
One LOR from a postdoc who I worked with for 2 yrs in an immunology lab.
One LOR from a graduate student (PI of the lab is going to write the letter though) who I worked with for 1 year in a biochemistry lab.
Two LORs from two biochemistry professors who I was a student and TA for (upper level biochemistry)
-I am guessing the LOR's will be excellent (is it okay to give 4?).
-I don't know how big of a help it is but I really enjoyed being a TA. Teaching other undergraduates my age about biochemistry was certainly one of the best experiences I've had so far.</p>

<p>Research Experience:
Immunology Lab for 1.5 years: Basically a student assistant to the postdoc. Did a lot of basic biochemistry experiments for the first few months but took a lot more responsibility the last few months. Worked with him on a daily basis so he should be able to convey my potential as a graduate student pretty well. Didn't really have my own research project or anything like that.</p>

<p>Biochemistry lab for 1 year: Similar to the above experience except that I worked with a proteins/mitochondria and different drugs instead of DNA. Learned a whole different area of biochemistry experiments and techniques. Went to a lot of their lab meetings and learned a lot about what it means to be a graduate student beyond being in the lab. Again, like the previous research experience, no successful independent research project, although I had a few short term projects that I worked on.</p>

<p>School science team: There is an annual international summer competition where students from students in universities all over the world develop, design and conduct a research project over the summer months. I used a lot of knowledge that I had gained from my previous two lab experiences and used them for this competition. Our project was actually very interesting and our team will be presenting in the regional competition next week. We expect to make it to the international grand finals at MIT in November. This was probably the most rewarding research experience since it was basically planned by undergraduates with the help of graduate student advisers.</p>

<p>So what concerns me the most is I don't have a research experience where I can really say, "I worked on XXX issue for 2 years...". I can probably discuss the research that I did over the past summer but it was only for 3 months so the scope of the project is very limited. </p>

<p>Anyway here are the schools I would like to apply to (no particular order):
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
University of Wisconsin - Madison
University of Washington - Seattle
Oregon State University
OHSU - BMB
OHSU - EB
Baylor
Cornell
Johns Hopkins University</p>

<p>I'm kind of strapped on cash so I am trying to choose wisely. Are there some programs on this list that I should consider dropping? Any programs worth considering? Do I have too many reach schools?</p>

2

<p>What would be a good school that would be considered a safety for me to add to this list? I have no idea how my stats hold up at these schools so I am worried that I have too many schools that I would have a tough time getting in.</p>

<p>Also…all programs I am applying to are biochemistry.</p>

3

<p>Bump,</p>

<p>Any input?</p>

4

<p>There are neither “chances” nor “safeties” for graduate applications.</p>

<p>We should really make a sticky for this.</p>

<p>Here’s the deal: graduate admissions are highly selective, have small sample sizes and are based primarily on qualitative factors such as experience and research interests, rather than quantitative factors such as GPA and GRE scores. Every program is different and weighs applications differently - every year is different, actually, depending on funding and open slots.</p>

<p>I applied to eight schools and was accepted by seven. The only rejection was from a school I could have considered a “safety” based on GPA/GRE. The term is meaningless.</p>

<p>So, nobody here is going to pretend to know what your “chances” of admission are anywhere, because it would be nothing but a wild-assed guess.</p>

<p>What you need to do is talk with your professors and professors at the schools you’re interested in applying to. They will know far better than anyone on this forum what you should be shooting for.</p>

5

<p>Ran your stats through a new program I downloaded and this is what it gave me:</p>

<p>University of Michigan - Ann Arbor - 18.5%
University of Wisconsin - Madison - 40.1%
University of Washington - Seattle - 16.2%
Oregon State University - 43.6%
OHSU - BMB - 66.7%
OHSU - EB - 66.7%
Baylor - 70.2%
Cornell - 15.9%
Johns Hopkins University - 82.5%</p>

<p>The stats for 2011-2012 incoming students weren’t updated for Baylor and JHU. That’s why your chances look so high. Lol.</p>

6

<p>Hi Denizen,
Can you tell me what program you downloaded and where I can get it? I would like to get one and try it myself. Thanks!</p>

<p>Can you also try it with verbal 600-700 and quantitive 740-800? Thanks!</p>

7

<p>This is the old program for Computer science.</p>

<p>[CS</a> Graduate Acceptance Estimator](<a href=“http://www.cs.utep.edu/admissions/]CS”>http://www.cs.utep.edu/admissions/)</p>

<p>You have to email the administrator. Maybe he’ll give you the link for the download (which is for all programs).</p>

8

<p>Erm… yeah, that’s just totally useless.</p>

<p>“This represents an attempt to model the behavior of computer science graduate admission committees.”</p>

<ol>
<li>Computer science != biochemistry</li>
<li>The idea that a computer program whipped up by some UTEP students can accurately model the decisionmaking of graduate admissions committees is simply not credible.</li>
</ol>

<p>Why are people obsessed with trying to predict the unpredictable? You’d get just as good results by rolling a Magic 8-Ball.</p>

9

<p>I was working on a problem like this at work the other day. There are ways to quantify anything. But I think that more needs to be taken into consideration in the calculation. But this is a very interesting problem to work on though. For example, Harvard’s Physics department sees hundreds, if not thousands of grad apps, all with simular GPAs, Physics GREs and GRE scores. How do the decide who gets in. Well do the use the LORs? But if they are all quality students, they will all have good letters. Do they use the SOPs? Well this gives us insight into passion, drive, and fit. But you can’t unequivocally say that one person is more passionate, about a subject than another based solely upon an essay. Also, someone can be a great fit, but their application as a whole is identical to all the other thousand of applications. There has to be other metrics than GPA, GREs, and SOPs. I think Denizen has something interesting. You could look at each student’s “strength of schedule”. They both had 3.7 GPAs, but how did student A achieve their GPA v. student B. I personally know people who front loaded their transcripts with electives to establish a 4.0 for the first 2 years, and just did ok in their major course work. All in all most ended up with 3.4+ at the end of four years.</p>

10

<p>The new “calculator” is way better and includes most academic programs. I doubt they’ll post it on the website though so you need to email them.</p>

11

<p>scaleupchem, your premise that “there are ways to quantify anything” is only a half-truth. You can, indeed, quantify anything - but whether that quantification is at all useful or accurate is an entirely different matter.</p>

<p>For starters, you cannot assume that all LORs are equal. That’s simply not true.</p>

<p>Secondly, you are omitting perhaps the single most important part of graduate admissions: “fit” with the program. That’s likely intentional on your part, because that is a section which is entirely qualitative - and cannot easily, if at all, be reduced to a set of numbers and calculations.</p>

12

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<p>This is a non sequitur. If someone is a “great fit” in the eyes of professors, then that person’s application has distinguished itself from many others. It is, by definition, not identical to all the other applications.</p>