<p>Out of curiousity, how much work did each lab course require?</p>
<p>For us, each lab course required 9+ hours/week</p>
<p>Depended totally upon the course. Pchem was a killer 8 hours (single day) each week. Ochem was two four hour sessions. My bacteriology courses were great but required far more in lab time than any courses before them (because they were more independent in nature and often required running immunoblots, starting cultures at strange times, taking aliquots over a time period etc. All of the labs required an hour or more of work outside of class to prepare for them and all of the lab courses had quizzes and writeups and other nonsense. I seem to recall half assing most of my early chemistry labs which only took a few hours a week anyway.</p>
<p>I go to a small private liberal arts college majoring in chemistry; I'm applying to Phamacology PhD programs for Fall 2009. Already submitted my applications:</p>
<p>Yale
MIT (Chemistry/Biology interface program)
Cornell
Columbia
UNC</p>
<p>I am 21 and I have had six summers of research experience (Cornell, Caltech, Pfizer and 3 summers at UNC-Chapel Hill) and one school year of research. GPA is 3.5ish and GRE's were pretty good. I am trying to determine whether, or not, I should appy for fellowships this year: NSF, NIH, etc...</p>
<p>I have two publications: first author and third author
Great letters of recommendation and from very well-respected scientists
Won lots of awards at research competitions, etc...</p>
<p>Should I apply to fellowships this year? I do not want to waste my time; I have heard, countless times, that graduating seniors do not really get them nearly as much as first year graduate students. Should I just wait?</p>
<p>If you have a good research plan and the time to really refine it, by all means apply for the NSF. (Can you apply for NIH F32 predoctoral fellowships before you're actually in graduate school? I wasn't under the impression that was possible.)</p>
<p>If not, you can always apply during your first year of graduate school. Many schools have classes on fellowship writing, and some programs require their students to apply for these fellowships anyway.</p>
<p>F32 are for post docs. The predoctoral equivalent is F31 and the requirements state that you need to be enrolled in a PhD program at the time of application.
PA-07-002:</a> Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards for Individual Predoctoral Fellows (F31)</p>
<p>Yeah, sorry, I realized that after the edit window.</p>
<p>(The really scary thing is that I'm currently applying for an F31, so I should know better.)</p>
<p>Hi everyone, </p>
<p>I'm an international applicant with MS (molecular medicine) and MD degrees.
GPA for MS: 3.75
Overall GPA for MD: 3.8
Major GPA for MD: 3.95
General GRE: V680/ Q800/ AW 5.5
TOEFL (iBT) 105
2 medical specialist licenses
2 years of research experience for the MS degree, another 1.5 year at a research center.
co-investigator in 3 international trials. 3 investigator-initiated programs.
1 published paper, and 1 book chapter.
Got government funding for overseas studies (up to 48,000 US dollars a year). </p>
<p>Can anyone tell me how high my chances are to get into top 10 PhD programs?</p>
<p>Also, I'm thinking about applying for several safety schools, but I'm not sure about my range, would top 30~40 be ok?</p>
<p>Hi, everybody,
I am a 1st year Ph.D student and wondering transferring to another school. My program is small and many renowned professors left here before I came. I tried to contact several other schools about the transfer issue. They told me a reference from a faculty, especially my recent PI ( I am rotating now), is highly recommended. </p>
<p>However, I couldn't find a reasonable reason to tell my PI about my willingness to transfer. I think he must be angry about students who want to leave, although I am now a rotating student in his lab. If he refused me or my transfer was unsuccessful, the rest of my life in this program would be tough, I guess. </p>
<p>Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>medecin00, nice profile. Did you have to do an undergrad degree before MD? If so they will look at your undergrad GPA too. I say that since you have your own funding, your chances at top10 is very good. BTW, which country are you from?</p>
<p>Lilynorth I assume you want to transfer because of your research interest no longer matched well once the famous PIs left. I guess if you explain your interest with your PI maybe he will be very supportive of you, I think the key thing is honesty.</p>
<p>Thanks, PhD-Bound. I'm from Taiwan. Actually I don't have much confidence in applying for the PhD programs in the US, because I've heard that it's more difficult for the international applicants to get admittance. Fingers crossed that my applications will go well.</p>
<p>I'm an international student from Canada. Its true admissions is much more competitive for international applicants, you just have to pick the right schools.</p>
<p>I noticed something that you international guys might be interested in - Univ of Michigan posted something on their website saying "Also note that Biological Chemistry, Cellular & Molecular Biology, Immunology, and Microbiology & Immunology cannot accept international applicants"
Program</a> in Biomedical Science: U-M Medical School
I was shocked to see this.</p>
<p>I don't know if this is helpful information for any of the international students here, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.</p>
<p>A large number of the international students I know at Harvard are actually PhD students at institutions in their home countries, and do their theses in Harvard labs on some sort of exchange program. If you are not able to get into a US university immediately for a PhD, this might be the type of route you could consider.</p>
<p>It's usually, extremely, hard for international applicants to receive offers of admission because these programs are funded by US money. Biomedical science PhDs tend to be largely funded by NIH which has strict rules about which students can receive funding (which happens to be US students). I am applying to Pharmacology programs and I met with some Graduate Admissions point people this summer where two schools, explicitly, said they kind of put the international applicants aside and primarily focus on the US applicants. I would suggest contacting each school individually and asking that question. Another thing you have to consider is that most international applicants applying to US institutions are very qualified (almost perfect GRE/GPA, advanced degrees and great research). Contact the school and ask.</p>
<p>Q : Chemistry major who wants to pursue PhD in the biomedical field - if have a good research experience with a publication, in the environmental field - would it hurt my chances as being "not commitment to the desired field" ?</p>
<p>please advise</p>
<p>Hello all, I would appreciate your opinion...</p>
<p>MIT, senior in Bioengineering with minor in biology. Took more courses than are required, with some graduate and additional coursework.</p>
<p>GPA: major 4.5
Relevant courses: 4.1-4.2
Overall: 4.4
A slight upward trend, and definitely significant improvement this semester.</p>
<p>GREs: Quant: 780-800, Verbal: low 500's , Writing: 4.5
Biochemistry [although not required], should be around 90+/-5 percentiles
<strong>international student</strong></p>
<p>Research: a little over 4.0 years of experience, in 3 labs.
First, in high school: 7 months.</p>
<p>Second: two years with people in the top of their fields.
Will end up in two second-author publications in top journals [one in very top, another on the level of PNAS, maybe slightly lower].<b> However, these will be submitted this month, but won't be likely to publish until January</b> [do you think this will be a problem?]. </p>
<p>Third: research with a younger, but respected professor. Started my own project, trained two other undergrad students to help out, 1.5 years.</p>
<p>LOR: I believe they will be very stellar, all from research professors, have up to 4-5 to provide, so I could diversify.</p>
<p>Personal statement in short: I have a good idea why I am going to graduate school, I would like to describe the way I am going to advance science in the future with specific examples of research projects and solutions. I am pretty certain of working in academia.
It should be pretty good, historically I have been doing well.</p>
<p>I am looking into top 15 research programs in biosciences such as UCSF, UCSD, Stanford, Caltech, Harvard, Duke, GeorgiaTech, JHU, Salk, UIUC, and also Boston U, Wisconsin and Wake Forest.</p>
<p>What do you guys think? Thanks!</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, these will be submitted this month, but won't be likely to publish until January [do you think this will be a problem?].
[/quote]
No, just write the citations in your CV and/or publication list with "submitted to <em>journal</em>" at the end. Grad school admissions committees, being professors themselves, understand that it takes time for research to be published.</p>
<p>You'll be fine with a 4.4 from MIT. That's what I had when I applied. :)</p>