<p>Mollie, I also have a question for you: like I said I'm looking into developmental biology, and I heard that Harvard GSAS recently approved creation of a Developmental and Regenerative Biology Dept. in conjunction with the med school. That is right up my alley, but for now I'm applying to MCB, because that's where the profs I'm interested in (Profs. Eggan & Melton esp.) are currently housed. Do you know when that new dept. is going to open? Also, have you heard anything about those two professors? When I looked at the lab members list on Doug Melton's lab page I was surprised to see that he has a dozen postdocs but only four grad students. That seems like a bad sign. Is he phasing them out, you think? I know he's going to be a chair of the new dept., but that seems a little extreme, no?</p>
<p>Well, great to have someone at Harvard to ask these questions to... :)</p>
<p>It seems quite strange that your adviser isn't enthusiastic about your application as it sounds great from your scores and research internships. I've had to work very hard to boost the research accomplishment part of my ap considering my background and mediocre scores. What about your other letter writers, are they going to represent you well?</p>
<p>Anyhow this isn't medical school we are being recruited to hopefully produce quality publications at a low premium and get an education in the meantime.
You should list schools just for reference maybe you have some that I or others would be interested in.
UCSF, is a great institution. Don't forget that it is in California and SF for that matter so everyone is pretty friendly, but sporty i'm not so sure. Hip seems to be more important than sporty here. </p>
<p>tvgradschool, i want to apply to rockefeller but am convinced it is beyond my grasp, maybe if I get some free time. Don't you think it is one of the most competitive schools?</p>
<p>Well, the deal is that this guy is my academic adviser as well as my research adviser, but he doesn't seem to remember/ever have learned much about me (I haven't told him my grades or scores b/c he has never asked). I also work under a post-doc, so I have little direct interaction with him. I've put together a packet with my transcript, a cv (scores are on there), and my sop & previous research essays for NSF - I'm giving that to all my letter writers, including him, even though he has known me since i was a frosh. I seriously hope that the problem is just a lack of understanding about the situation, rather than some concern with the quality of my research work... Still, it is a shame I never got to know him very well, and that will probably be reflected in the LOR.</p>
<p>The other writers are my research adviser from freshman year (same story, probably doesn't know what became of me since I left the lab but I'll be meeting with him soon), and the professor I TA'd for last year. She seems to like me, and I got good marks on the teaching quality surveys at the end of the term, so I think that one will be fairly positive (too bad it has little to do with research).</p>
<p>Well here is my complete list of schools: Harvard, Rockefeller, UPenn, Berkeley, MIT, UCSF, UChicago, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, Stanford, Princeton. (Bonus points if you can guess where I am based on an omission from this list! lol) I didn't realize how competitive Rockefeller was, but I did notice that many of my profs got their PhDs there. Good to know.</p>
<p>
[quote]
When I looked at the lab members list on Doug Melton's lab page I was surprised to see that he has a dozen postdocs but only four grad students. That seems like a bad sign. Is he phasing them out, you think?
[/quote]
Not at all -- most Harvard labs have very few graduate students. The professor-to-student ratio is very large, since there are only about 125 or so entering graduate students in the life sciences per year, but about five zillion life sciences professors.</p>
<p>Incidentally, it doesn't particularly matter with which department or program a given faculty member is associated. All Harvard life sciences labs are available to any BBS, MCB, Immunology, Neuroscience, or Virology student. (My lab has two MCB students, a BBS student, and a Neuroscience student, even though my PI is only affiliated with the Neuroscience program.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Incidentally, it doesn't particularly matter with which department or program a given faculty member is associated. All Harvard life sciences labs are available to any BBS, MCB, Immunology, Neuroscience, or Virology student.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's good news - thanks for the information! Now I bet you can guess what I'm going to ask next...</p>
<p>Is it easier to enter through one department than through another? Not necessarily applicable in my case, because I'm a good fit for MCB and it would look strange to apply through Virology, for example, but I'm sure others are dying to know. :)</p>
<p>Autocell, I am not really v sure what I m interested in, partly because I havent done bio as a part of my undergrad curriculum. Having said that, I guess I will do at least one rotation in a RNAi lab..My list is -</p>
<p>Dream - Scripps, Baylor C M
Good apps, but will probab chuck them for a dream admit - UPenn, SUNY Stony Brook, M D Anderson
Safe apps - UVirginia-Charlottesville, UMass Med Center, U Rochester-School of Medicine</p>
<p>(Mostly biochem depts)</p>
<p>A. How safe are the 'safe' apps? This q. is esp. imp to me bcos me and my girl wanna go to the same or neighboring grad schools (like M D Anderson and Baylor). She is apping to immuno at the same schools. Best part is we have uncannily similar profiles. So I wanna make abso sure that we get atleast one common admit. </p>
<p>B. I wanna make a couple of free apps, apart from Scripps and Baylor. Sounds cheap to say that, but $50 app fees quickly pile up in an international currency. Do u guys know of any?</p>
<p>Hey souravrc - I'm applying to University of Oregon, which does not have an application fee. Other schools that I believe don't have applications fee are University of Rochester and University of Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>The rest is directed at everyone:</p>
<p>I have a question. I know I am really interested in evolutionary developmental biology, genetics, and gene regulation in general. But I'm also interested in trying something totally different, like environmental biology. If I state that in my SOP, will people think I sound schizophrenic?</p>
<p>Also, does anyone know of any good, reputable programs that allow you to rotate within their entire department, so I could potentially do a rotation in genetics labs as well as environmental micro. labs? </p>
<p>I've already got UWashington, UWisconsin, and UOregon on my list, for programs that have faculty in both areas. Where else?</p>
<p>Also, does anyone know if grad students in the MCB department at Berkeley can rotate with other departments? Could an MCB student rotate with someone at LBNL who is unaffiliated with MCB, for example?</p>
<p>I can only speak for Caltech's Biology Dept. - you can rotate throughout the department, but it's fairly small, and many of the environmental biology labs are found in other departments, like Environmental Science and Engineering or Geobiology. Once you arrive, I'm sure some sort of exception could be made to accommodate a rotation in those departments - everybody's pretty laid-back here. Considering your interests, I would recommend Profs. Dianne Newman and Jared Leadbetter as far as env. biology is concerned; but particularly Prof. Eric Davidson (my adviser!) for the evo/devo and gene regulation interests.</p>
<p>I probably wouldn't state outright that you're interested in doing research on all of those things, but you could mention your academic interests in some of them (especially if you can demonstrate that through coursework or experience) in a sort of off-hand I'm-a-well-rounded-person kind of way. Your interests all fit well together so it's natural that you would have explored all of those fields. Just pick one or possibly two of the things you mentioned to focus on in each SOP. (You can change your answers for each school, of course.)</p>
<p>Edit: BTW we just graduated a buttload of grad students...I think I even saw an empty desk! Act now ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
s it easier to enter through one department than through another? Not necessarily applicable in my case, because I'm a good fit for MCB and it would look strange to apply through Virology, for example, but I'm sure others are dying to know.
[/quote]
I'm not totally sure. My gut feeling is that BBS is easier, because it's a larger program which admits vastly more students (I think MCB cohorts are like 20 people per year? BBS is 70-90), and also because there's no interview, so once you're in, you're in. When I applied, I thought there was an option to apply to more than one program through HILS -- if that option is available, and isn't a financial strain, I'd apply to MCB and BBS to hedge my bets.</p>
<p>And buffkitten, I think it would be better to only mention your environmental bio interest if you end up applying to programs which would allow you to rotate through both kinds of labs. Ideally, you want to look focused, but open to trying new things.</p>
<p>
[quote]
When I applied, I thought there was an option to apply to more than one program through HILS -- if that option is available, and isn't a financial strain, I'd apply to MCB and BBS to hedge my bets.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply! There is still an option to apply to multiple programs, but it appears to require submitting paper applications for the additional programs. I don't think I could demonstrate experience or coursework in the biomedical sciences, so in my case applying to two programs might just make me look indecisive. However, with your advice I will steer my friends towards BBS - for their good as well as to eliminate the competition >=)</p>
<p>Does anyone have an opinion about contacting potential PIs around the same time as finalizing application. I am thinking of sending email with CV and a brief statement as to why their research interests me and stating that I've applied and would appreciate consideration for lab rotations. I have heard that at some schools there is a lobbying process by which the list of students accepted for interview gets sent out to all PIs in the program and they can recommend people to be added to the list. </p>
<p>Any opinion?</p>
<p>Mollibatmit, you mentioned that you got an interview with UCSF, can you comment on any particular thing that they seemed most impressed with in your profile or statement that might help guide my ap focus?</p>
<p>I truly have no idea what parts of my application stood out at UCSF in particular, although I heard from a few professors at various schools that my undergraduate PI (who's known for being tough and a bit of a curmudgeon) wrote me a really awesome recommendation letter. But you don't spend much time in an interview talking about how amazing you are -- you spend time in an interview talking about your research interests and the research interests of the professor with whom you're interviewing.</p>
<p>I am new to this forum and glad to see a great interest over Ph.D programs in biomedical sciences. You guys really have some great GRE scores!</p>
<p>Here are my credentials and a list of schools I am applying to. Please feel free to leave your opinions and whether or not you think I will be a competitive applicant.</p>
<p>Born and raised in the US
Large private university, ~75th ranked for national universities
GPA - 3.84 (Biology major, chemistry minor)
GRE - 720Q + 480V = 1200 (writing and percentiles not known yet)
Research experience:
One summer and semester in a molecular biology lab (home institution)
Two semesters in a genetics/developmental biology lab (home institution)
One summer SURP program at Gerstner Sloan-Kettering
Three letters of recommendations from the three PIs I have worked with
A pretty good personal statement (I think/hope..)</p>
<p>The schools I'm applying to:</p>
<p>Baylor College of Medicine (MCB)
UT Southwestern Medical Center
UC San Diego
Stanford University (Cancer Biology)
University of Washington (MCB)
Rockefeller University
Gerstner Sloan-Kettering
Weill Cornell Medical College
Harvard University (HILS - Cell Biology)
MIT (Cancer Biology)
UT-H MD Anderson Cancer Center</p>
<p>How much will the 480V GRE score hurt my application?</p>
<p>I don't know about the verbal score. I've heard a lot of things, but the majority are saying that science schools don't care much about it. It would help if your writing score and personal statement showed you had good writing skills. They sure aren't gonna toss out your application because of your verbal score. You have a lot of research experience, and that's much more important.</p>
<p>Also, have you taken a subject test? (Little late to be mentioning that, I know.) Most places don't require it, but I'm sure a good score would make anybody's application stand out a little bit more, y'know? Speaking of which, the October 2007 subject scores are now available by phone for $12. How did everybody do?</p>