<p>mollie,
thanks for the insider input...hope things are going well at harvard</p>
<p>As well as grad school-type things can reasonably be expected to go. :)</p>
<p>The best way to boost admissions likelihood is if a prof who knows you well as an undergrad goes to bat for you with someone the prof knows well in the grad program. To put it another way, if a particular department member pushes the admissions committee to admit someone, the probability rises.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that grad school admissions is much more idiosyncratic than professional school admissions or undergrad admissions. Most places have departmental committees, made up of faculty, that make the decisions, which are then forwarded on to the admissions office for the grad school.</p>
<p>BTW, having known quite a few biomed admissions folks over the years (including HMS), I was pleasantly surprised at how willing they are to consider grads from less well known or less prestigious universities.</p>
<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I am interested in signal transduction, fate determination, miRNA/RNAi, ESC, and Cancer and will apply in fall 2008 for PhD programs.</p>
<p>Can you kindly provide suggestions for schools strong in the mentioned areas or basic cell biology. I also am looking into bms programs as many programs cross-list faculty.</p>
<p>As top choices I have
1. UCSF 2. UCB 3. UWashington 4. OHSU 5. UCSD </p>
<p>I now need some safety schools, please help I will apply to ~10</p>
<p>autocell,
what are your stats?</p>
<p>Looking through the applications, most school ask us to state the names of other schools that we are applying to? Why would this be important to them? Can it be used against us? Any insider's viewpoints?</p>
<p>Here are my stats TVGradschool</p>
<p>Undergraduate: major: Biology minor: Biochemistry
General GRE: TBD expect ~1300
Subject bchem: 70%
GPA: cum 3.53 state school
Research: 2years in 1 in undergraduate lab, summer internship UW, SRA
with UCSF following undergraduate for 1year (current position).
Pubs: two co-author, 8 abstracts mix co/first author, 3 poster presentations at int. meetings etc.</p>
<p>autocell,
If you can get in the 700's on the quant GRE you will definitely have a solid application for schools like UCSD, UW, and OHSU. UCSF and Berkeley are definitely harder to get into than the others you have mentioned, but I think it is very hard to predict who gets into schools like that b/c there are a lot of subjective factors in the application process. I'm sure it will help a lot if you get a good rec from whoever you are working for at UCSF. As far as safety schools go, I would look for specific professors in your areas of interest instead of focusing on a "safety school". Make sure to look into where PhD grads from these labs go after they are done, this can be a good way of gauging the quality of the PI or program. Upenn (while not exactly a safety school) could be a good place for you to look b/c they have a relatively large program and lots of NIH funding.</p>
<p>MCbartist,
I have wondered why they care about that as well. I don't think they could hold anything you put on there against you too much, so I would just be honest about where you are looking. It seems a little silly that they ask that to me.</p>
<p>I think they genuinely want to know for the purposes of scheduling interview weekends, and for their own internal statistics.</p>
<p>If you don't feel comfortable writing down all of the schools to which you're applying, feel free to write a subset that feels right to you. I really don't think they use that information against you -- they really don't care about their yields -- but it felt weird to me when I was applying, too.</p>
<p>I think that you are right tvgradschool about there being many subjective factors involved but really I just want into one of the schools I mentioned. It feels like settling applying anywhere else as i've already picked the people I want to work with there and i've just worked so hard to get this far but there are good people at other less well known schools that deserve attention...</p>
<p>Anyhow have you finalized your list yet, I saw that you mentioned some of your choices, and are you applying to BMS or Tetrad w/ UCSF?</p>
<p>Hey mollie and tvgradschool, I also felt weird that they ask us for the languages we know, how does that really help? Whats next on the application- Whats your favorite color and your favorite movie! ;)</p>
<p>I have basically finalized my list. I cut off scripps, yale, and Penn. I am applying to Tetrad UCSF, I like it because it has several different sub-disciplines (b/c I do have specific research interests, but they are not all necessarily contained in one sub-discipline of biology). </p>
<p>What about you?</p>
<p>Hi I m an international student from India. I am a Masters student in Chemistry (equivalent of an undergrad in US) and I wanna shift to do a PhD in biological/biomedical sciences.</p>
<p>My profile is:
GPA - We dont hv a GPA, but my scores arent THAT great.
GRE - 1450 (800-Quant, 650-Verb), Analytical W- 4.5
Toefl iBT - 111/120
4 summer trainings(in mol bio/biochem)
1 national scholarship
1 summer research fellowship(in life sciences)</p>
<p>I m a bit confused abt what schools to app to. Could u guys point out some decent but 'safe' schools where I m almost sure to get an admit? Any other suggestions for apping?</p>
<p>I am applying to the BMS program tvgradschool, because I am more focused on the integration of basic science with medicine. Most all PIs participate in both programs except for the "hard-core" biochemistry/mcb labs. Anyhow I think this will be advantageous for me in the future considering the direction of NIH. </p>
<p>souravrc -</p>
<p>Grad schools aren't a one size fits all, what are you interested in studying? I think it is best to choose schools with several faculty strong in your area of interest so that if you don't get the ideal PI/lab you can find someone who is working within your interest area. It seems that everyone will most likely want to work with the same people at most universities because of the productivity factor, so it is best to play it safe. Your ap is pretty strong but you are in a different file than domestic applicants.</p>
<p>Yet another data point:</p>
<p>GREs: Q/V/AW 800/760/6.0; no results yet for the subject test
GPA: 3.95 cum, 3.97 major at a top ten school (4.00 in both on our system, where A+=4.3)
Two years + two summers in one lab, one year + one summer in another lab.
Competitive research fellowships during the summers, which required proposals, final papers, and presentations...but no <em>real</em> papers/conferences/senior thesis.
Two years TAship
Many outside scholarships</p>
<p>Any idea how bad it will hurt me to not have any pubs/conferences?</p>
<p>ROFLMAO - give me a break!</p>
<p>Where are you applying?</p>
<p>Well, I'm applying to twelve schools (if you've heard of it, I'm applying there)...my research adviser told me to. He didn't seem too optimistic about my odds, and he's writing my LsOR (LORs? I'm new to this) so it could turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy real quick. I'm applying to UCSF - how do you like it there? I'm interested in developmental biology, not biochem, but is it, y'know, a friendly place and all that?</p>
<p>BTW that is one impressive pile of publications you've accumulated! I think you're a shoo-in - that's what it's all about, showing that you're successful in a research environment. (Gonna be tough to do that with my apparently unenthusiastic letter writer...ugh.)</p>
<p>Well good luck!</p>
<p>I got the feeling that UCSF students were very sporty when I went to Tetrad's interview weekend. Of course, YMMV -- it may just have been the group of students I met. :)</p>
<p>Honestly, authorship is super, but not having it isn't really going to hurt. Most people aren't authors by the time they apply to grad school, even people who are applying to really great grad schools.</p>
<p>Is anybody applying to Harvard BBS? We're nice, I promise! And you don't even have to interview! And... we have cookies?</p>
<p>Mollie,</p>
<p>I'm applying to the new HBTM program at HMS...have you heard about it? </p>
<p>Is anyone applying to rockefeller?</p>