Biology to Biomedical Engineering

Graduate School
1

<p>Hello, I'm a biology student in my last semester and looking towards graduate school. I was wondering how biomed eng committee's look at accepting student that don't have an engineering background. I have 0 engineering credit unfortunately and I was planning to take post-bac classes for the next 2 semesters to catch up on the math requirements for biomed PhD programs. I graduate this semester and just took the GRE, but I'm not sure if schools will even glance at my application due to my stats and lack of engineering experience. </p>

<p>GPA: 3.4 Overall (3.8 Biology)
GRE: 740(Quant), 610(Verbal)</p>

<p>I have little research experience but it is over a broad range. I have worked with a project looking at PTSD and genetics for 2-3 months. Currently I have been researching cancer and drug effects for the past 4 months about. Other than that my experience is limited because I thought I wanted to go to law school and didn't focus on getting research experience. I also have some extracurriculars like iGEM which is related to synthetic biology that I did for 2 months. Also taught SI classes at my school and volunteered to go to high schools to talk about neurobiology. </p>

<p>As for LOR, 1 I know will be good. the 2 others I'm not so sure about because one of my teachers couldn't do it and I've been scrambling to find a replacement. </p>

<p>I was looking at Boston U, Ga Tech, UVA, UCLA(Irvine), and Penn State for Biomedical Engineering. </p>

<p>Should I even be trying or is my application too weak for a Ph.D. program?</p>

<p>I know I want a Ph.D., but was also considering applying to M.S. programs because those have a higher chance of accepting me from what I've researched. </p>

<p>Thank you for your help!</p>

2

<p>Well, I guess the first question would be why do you want to do BME and what types of projects are you looking to take on?</p>

<p>BME is an overly broad field with certain parts that you couldn’t qualify for, such as imaging or instrumentation, and other parts where you’d probably only need some more math, such as synthetic biology.</p>

3

<p>This was I want to say. It’s more important to ask yourself why you want to switch the majors and how you want to contribute to the research group as biology student. You can state that explicitly in the statement. I’m not sure whether you need to take engineering classes.</p>