<p>Hey mollie, I just submitted a paper for review and it will take up to 6 weeks for it to come back, say that I want to submit my application before this, are we allowed (or is it a good idea) to sent in update letters after the application deadline to update the status of my paper?</p>
<p>You could update after the reviews come back. I think it's just as effective to cite the paper in your publication list as "under review at X journal" -- you can mention the current status during interviews.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, of course, that sometimes papers are in review or in revision or in publication for inordinately long times. :) I had a paper "in revision" at the time of my grad school applications which was not published until the middle of my second year of grad school!</p>
<p>Aradian, I'd suggest you consider just how many internationals some of the schools you applied to actually take. </p>
<p>The Cali schools take next to no internationals. It's just abt a total waste of time filling out an application to those schools.</p>
<p>You might want to consider schools like Rockefeller, Columbia, Yale cuz they take alot more internationals.</p>
<p>This is also of interest to me, I have two papers that my research group are working on (all experiments are complete), my boss told me that I should definitely list these along side my other publications as "in preparation". Do you think that this is appropriate?</p>
<p>PhD-Bound, I had a paper from last September that I just published in this month's issue of the journal. Some papers go back and forth even longer than that. If your paper is "in submission" great, congrats.</p>
<p>Oh, I absolutely think you should mention manuscripts in preparation or in any other stage of the publication process.</p>
<p>Hi all, I was really hoping to get some information about programs with theoretical neuroscience in this forum because people here have great perspective. Am I posting in the wrong thread or is my question too specific? I am also asking people in my school but I was also curious what you guys thought;again, I really like the perspective people give on this forum.</p>
<p>So okay my verbal score was ****, but I'm a bit intimidated by the posts that I've seen here.. All these master's students from India and Eastern countries with over 5 years of experience, versus my 1 year in my Honors program.</p>
<p>Does the fact that I come from a well-known Ivy League (McGill University) help my application that much more (otherwise, I feel like I have no chance competing with all these 1500 GRE scores, crazy experience, published papers, etc.)?</p>
<p>belevitt, I'm planning to have the following headings under the publication section of my CV.</p>
<p>1) Papers published</p>
<p>2) Papers under review at refereed journal</p>
<p>3) Paper in preparation</p>
<p>Aradian7, I think you should apply to more schools (including some lower tier ones) given the intense competition among international students and how random the process can be sometimes. For me, I am applying to about 13 schools just to be on the safe side. </p>
<p>My guess would be a lot of students from top foreign university apply to the top programs you've listed, so I'm guessing in that respect you will be on the same page as everyone else.</p>
<p>Aradian, don't bother applyin to any school you consider a safety. Would u rlly want to do grad school at such a school?</p>
<p>You come from a very well known school and this can help you to a fairly minimal degree in that most solid schools have heard of McGill and know it provides a very rigorous education for its biology undergrads. There may be less flexibility for another international student coming from nowheresville.</p>
<p>Your GPA is def not an issue. I don't know where that bad GRE score stands in terms of percentiles but as long as it isn't too bad and your subject test goes well, you shouldn't have much to worry about. </p>
<p>In terms of research experience you are definitely on the short side. There are a whole heck of a lot of internationals applying with 2/3yrs+ of research experience. Most of them have lower GPAs than you but research experience is a lot more important than GPA.</p>
<p>I would revise the list of schools if I were you. You should apply to at least 8 or 9 schools. International competition is fierce and it's always a bit of a gamble so apply to as many schools as you can.</p>
<p>I also feel you're overlooking a lot of great world-class institutions that have solid microbiology depts.</p>
<p>I say this because I am a 3rd yr undergraduate at the University of Toronto also planning on going to grad school in the US and studying microbiology. Needless to say, i'll be applying to a boatload of schools next year.</p>
<p>I would suggest you talk to your lab supervisor and ask him/her for a short list of schools you may want to consider.</p>
<p>Seriously, that 'etc.' section of your list of schools better consist of a lot of other schools because setting your sights on just California schools and MIT/Harvard is risky to say the least and the likelihood of any candidate, especially one with little over a year of research experience, getting in is slim at best.</p>
<p>Yeah, the "Etc." list goes on:</p>
<p>Columbia
Yale
Dartmouth
Johns Hopkins (My P.I. did work there for about 5 years, so that may help)
Rockefeller
Cornell
Brown
Princeton</p>
<p>I think that I should book an interview to at least a couple of these schools. I totally agree with the fact that applying to MORE schools will only increase chances of getting in somewhere. What may separate me from the rest are my career objectives--I'm actually not applying to Microbiology, but to Pharmacology programs. I'm very interested in industry and the pharmaceutical industry--I plan on pursuing research as well as a managerial aspect/business aspect of it, as science becomes more and more involved with money. Maybe an MBA on the horizon? Who knows...</p>
<p>In terms of research experience, yeah I guess a year is going to be a little short--but the fact is I'm a full time student and working a lot of hours (20-30 hours per week) in the lab has to count for something.</p>
<p>And...I'm also an undergrad..Just turned 20 years old.</p>
<p>How do they weigh experience with reference to how long the person has actually been in school? Realistically, how am I supposed to compete with someone that already has a Master's degree? They must also put that into account.</p>
<p>Aradian, with regards to your comment about "competing with someone that already has a master's degree" you should keep in mind that many of the masters degree holders that you see on these forum boards are products of the Indian education system (I believe this is analogous to the British system) in which a three year bachelors is the norm and thus is not acceptable in applying to a PhD program here. I believe if these students stayed in India to do their PhD they would first need to complete a mphil (after their ms)
in order to apply to a PhD.</p>
<p>With regards to your comment about going into Pharmacology with hopes of getting into Pharma, you can enter into pharma from numerous starting points, you needn't go strictly for pharmacology for that. They recruit chemists, microbiologist, molecular biologists etc for technical work. An MBA is a valuable degree in industry but not if its obtained before you enter the field. Most employers pay for MBA training for scientists after they have put in some time at the bench and transition into project management. Even if pharma is your end goal, you should probably still consider a post doc, it may mean the difference between coming in at "scientist" vs "senior scientist" particularly if it includes supervisory experience.</p>
<p>With regards to the application questions and the business about a safety, I have been thinking about that a lot myself. This may or may not be relevant, but each school has their own interview weekends and it is certainly conceivable that with 8 or 9 applications, you may have to miss one school's interview in favor of another. With 13 schools, this seems even more probable. As far as the issue of safety schools go, a safety does not have to be a school that is unacceptable to you. In fact, that would be counterproductive. A safety may be a program with fewer labs in your area of interest, lower prestige among similar institutions, or as mine are, schools some godless place like Houston where climate and political circumstances would make the situation less pleasant.</p>
<p>My safety school is McGill University. I have no doubts about being accepted there, especially because they do not even require the GRE (the ugliest thing on my application to US schools).</p>
<p>What I'm still wondering is: Do they take age as a consideration when evaluating experience? It's not conceivable to expect a 20 year old to have more than a year (two, for intense people) of research experience...</p>
<p>What I should also point out is that my application is very well rounded... It may seem more appropriate for a Medical School application, but I have no interest in that. I don't only have the high GPA/SOME research experience, but I do a lot of extra curriculars-- I have a note selling business, I'm the VP Finance of my student association, I play all sorts of intramural sports (on teams)...etc. I don't even know if they take that into account.</p>
<p>My take is that if they don't ask for a CV, and everything is done by completing forms online, then they probably don't care for anything outside of GPA, GRE, Experience and Letters. Schools that take CVs (like Columbia) might look more closely at more aspects of the candidate (?).</p>
<p>aradian7, I doubt the committee take into account the age, it is the merit that matters more at this point, since the age of entering class goes anywhere from 20-35. I also had a question earlier about the significance of ECs, the response I got was unfortunately, ECs mean very little in applying to graduate school, unless what you do is directly related to the field you are about to enter. Regarding the CV, I think schools are looking more at the research aspect of your profile, such as publications, presentations, abstracts at conferences, etc, because some of the stuff cannot be fitted on those online forms. I'm no expert but thats what I gathered.</p>
<p>I agree with PhD-Bound about the matters of ec's nor age being relevant in graduate admissions. Before you go about assuming that your undergrad institution is a safety, be sure to ask around the dept. The policy at most US schools is that nobody who attended the school as an undergrad can be admitted for grad school. This is a part of their mission for diversity in their graduate cohorts.</p>
<p>I'm from a Canadian school and I agree with aradian that admissions at your "home" school in Canada is a lot easier.</p>
<p>Quite a few of the schools seem to have a section where you either upload a CV/resume (not optional extra information but required) or fill in sections describing your research experience and work experience, which I am looking at as just splitting up my resume. </p>
<p>Belevitt: 15 semesters of lab courses! That is nearly 2 a semester! That seems like a lot to require, but I guess you got a lot of experience!</p>
<p>And thanks molliebatmit, that is helpful. And I guess I am not too worried about spring semester interviews because I do not really expect to get that many! If I do, that will be exciting and I will take a lighter course load (I am finished with all of my requirements).</p>
<p>Aradian7,</p>
<p>What about Penn (you did list literally every other IVY), Duke, WashU, Baylor, Scripps, U Chicago, Cornell Med School, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Northwestern. You will find that these schools are at the very least as good as the ones you listed (and a few of them I would argue are much better). Brown and Dartmouth's graduate programs in Biomedical sciences are not that strong compared to the other schools you have listed. Don't bother applying to State schools, I think the funding next year is going to be very bad. All the schools I listed above are private.</p>
<p>Also, Mcgill is NOT in the Ivy league. The ivy league is</p>
<p>Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Penn
Columbia
Brown
Dartmouth
Cornell</p>
<p>These schools play sports against each other in a sports league called the Ivy league.</p>
<p>"Belevitt: 15 semesters of lab courses! That is nearly 2 a semester! That seems like a lot to require, but I guess you got a lot of experience!"</p>
<p>Neurostudent, I took 22 lab courses during my undergraduate in order to meet bio and chemistry double major requirements...</p>