<p>One section of my GRE score report (general test) has +4 percentile difference from the report I received after I took the test. I don't know why. If schools want some explanation why the self-report score in the application is different from the official score they receive, I will just show them the report I have.</p>
<p>Hi, I will be applying to biochem Phd programs
Here are my stats:</p>
<p>I have 6 years experience at Novartis Drug Discovery Research
GPA from undergrad is not great 3.0/4.0 from a top 25 college
I have taken 6 courses at Harvard post-undergrad and maintained an A- average in my graduate coursework.
general GREs are 570 Verbal and 780 Quantitative
Still waiting on analytical writing scores.
Strong letters of recommendation from supervisor at novartis, advisor/mentor as undergrad, and a professor from Harvard who taught us a class on literature reading, presentation, and writing our own research proposal submission to NIG grant.</p>
<p>Pretty much, I have very strong research experience and a strong passion/motivation for research which will be clearly evident in my SOPs and LORs.</p>
<p>Schools that I'm applying to are:
UCSF
Mayo Clinic
UCSB
UCSD
U Wisconsin-Madison
U Washington-Seattle
UCLA
U of Chicago</p>
<p>What do you think my chances are? I'm concerned about my undergrad GPA from 6 years ago. But I've done exceedingly well from more recent science coursework at Harvard.</p>
<p>Hey BiochemGuy, you aren't the only applicant with significant post graduate research experience. The impressions that I have gotten are - the more the better. I think that the reason that undergraduate gpa is so often quoted has more to do with the fact that traditional career path students (right to grad school from undergrad) have very little else to evaluate their performance. That being said, what you have spent the last six years doing will take on a lot of importance (much more than the undergraduate gpa). Were you in tech support or quality control at Novartis? If so, that would be less impressive to graduate committees. Were you in research and development? That would be much more so. Also, do you have awards? publications? patents? leadership positions? independent projects? These would be great markers for an application. I think that you have picked out some great schools and will likely be accepted to most. Best of luck</p>
<p>Thanks for the response belevitt. I work in R&D within a core area which specializes in assay development and high throughput screening. We develop assays to sensitiviely identify "hits" or small molecules with bioactivity. I've run numerous projects, in close collaboration with disease areas and my supervisor, from biological targets from cancer to cardiovascular diseases.</p>
<p>The view that some graduate institutions have about Pharma is a mixed bag. Some see pharma as a non-hypothesis based research and somewhat focused towards the business of drug discovery. The upside to this is that we are focused on results delivered in a timely fashion. The downside to this is that it is done at the expense of basic research.</p>
<p>Pharma is less focused on a purely academic view of research. Therefore, publications are restricted at a certain level. I've written several reports which would be of high quality and novel but for proprietary reasons, we cannot disclose the information. I'm in very early research (year 1 of a 15 year drug research to market). In my career, targets look very promising but I haven't been around long enough to see one of my 10 projects go to patent. Anyways, I've reached a point where I'm leaning towards more hypothesis-driven research, thus, my reason for applying to grad school. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any views on candidates applying from pharma? What's their reputation? How are they viewed in general? My impression is that we are looked down upon by pure academics. But we bring a different element to the table..... that which is biomedical and results-driven. To me, it's a different type of research which may not fully be grasped by academics.</p>
<p>Hello Everyone,</p>
<p>This forum is very informative! But I have seen some very impressive profiles here that make me a bit nervous about my chances for admittance into a Biochemistry PhD program.</p>
<p>Here is my profile:
BS from prestigious liberal arts college GPA: 3.3
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Major, English Literature Minor
GRE V: 480 (55%), Q 740, A 5.5</p>
<p>I have three summers of research experience: one summer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one summer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and I am currently a CRTA fellow at the NCI/NIH. I have been doing research in my research interest for 2.5 years now. I have one paper in Nucleic Acid Research (2nd author) and one first authorship paper in preparation (hopefully in J of RNA Research). I am confident about my SOP and my LOR. </p>
<p>My difficulties are the low verbal GRE score and the lower GPA. I am happy with my GPA, it is 2nd in my major of 13 people, but my school is known for difficulty. Will I be penalized for a B- in Physical Chemistry II and a C+ in Advanced Organic? I have taken all relevant upper level science courses possible.</p>
<p>My list, in order of preference, is:</p>
<p>U of Wisconsin Madison (IPIB)
U of California Santa Cruz (Molecular Bio)
U of Colorado at Boulder (Chem/Biochem)
U of California at Berkeley (MCB)
NIH GPP (with Johns Hopkins and U Maryland)
U of Oregon (Chem/Biochem)
U of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Rochester University Medical Center
Carnegie Mellon </p>
<p>I appreciate your feedback!</p>
<p>BiochemGuy, I think given the info you just provided that you will be quite competitive. My experiences are in biotech which does permit publication (in certain circumstances) and patents before products are brought to market. No matter. Your experience sounds great and you might be surprised by the more enlightened view that academia is beginning to adopt towards industry. As recently as four years ago, pharma was seen as some sort of worst case scenario in the career path of a scientist. Not so anymore. Some universities, mine included, actually built out biotech research parks to catalyze the development of industry in close connection with academia. My PI even founded a company in our business park.</p>
<p>Treebecca, I don't know what a CRTA is but it sounds like you have had several years of research experience. Don't let the GRE general score scare you, those are really not a big deal. Also, you picked a great set of schools and I wouldn't worry about the grades being a problem at these ones.</p>
<p>Anyone applying to MIT biology or UPenn? I have been trying for the last week to get in touch with the grad office regarding the completion of my application, but no luck. The deadline is approaching and those are the only two schools that remain incomplete for me, I'd like to get this portion of the application done with before my vacation. Anyone have tips about how to get the info from these schools?</p>
<p>Hi everyone. This is my first post here but I've been lurking for quite some time (I had trouble registering for a while).</p>
<p>I just got my GRE scores back and was surprised with a rather low AW score (considering I generally get very high grades on my written work). I was wondering how that will affect my chances at admission to some top schools (such as UCSF TETRAD, Stanford Cancer Bio, and UCSD Biology). You guys seem to know so much more about the admissions process than I.</p>
<p>Here are my numbers:</p>
<p>GPA: 4.0/4.0 (Majoring in bioengineering)
GRE: V 560 (77%) Q 800 (94%) AW 4.0 (37%)
GRE Biochem: 97%</p>
<p>I also have a year and a half of research experience at my University, though no publications in time for apps. The LOR should be excellent.</p>
<p>Do you think the low AW score will play that large of a role in my chances? I'd appreciate any insight you could give me.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>dd if I were you I would not be worried at all, the rest of your stats are top-notch, they can judge your writing ability through your personal statement as well.</p>
<p>I am/am in the process of applying to 11 graduate schools in neuroscience. I have a modest GRE/GPA (670V 730Q 5.5AW / 3.66) but started college at 15 (I am 19 now) and have had reasonable research experience. I am graduating from CSULA, where they do not have a neuroscience program. Fortunately, I was able to conduct neuroscience research through the AMGEN Scholars Program at UCLA and was hired by my PI at UCLA this summer.</p>
<p>I think the following make my application weak:</p>
<p>GRE
modest undergrad GPA from low ranked school
relative lack of neuroscience classes/research time
overlooked/did not take subject GRE in time</p>
<p>I think the strongest parts of my application are:</p>
<p>Age
AMGEN Scholars/UCLA research...Letter from UCLA PI
MARC scholar</p>
<p>Also, I applied to primarily top ranked schools (UCSD, UCSF, Cal, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, WashU, John Hopkins, UCLA) and only one backup school (UCI). My thinking at the time was that I would be happy to get into any one of these schools but now I am deeply concerned that I might not get accepted into any, resulting in a waste of money, and more importantly, time.</p>
<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am especially interested in responses from current/past applicants to neuroscience grad schools.</p>
<p>sgee, how long was your research experience? Also it has been asked before, but the consensus believes age is not a significant factor in admissions, admissions is based on merit only regardless of age. If you scan across the student body, you will notice that the average age of matriculation ranges from 19-35.</p>
<p>Well...prior to UCLA, I had about 2 years of research experience. However, the research I conducted was in a physical chemistry (5 quarters) and a microbiology lab (1 quarter). Note that during this time, I was trying to spend as much time in lab while at the same time trying to save my GPA.</p>
<p>Since I only have 4 classes left for the year, I am now able to spend 20+ hours/week in lab. I have been conducting neuroscience research at UCLA since summer '08 and plan to continue in the same lab until I graduate this spring.</p>
<p>A 3.66 is not a modest gpa. It is fine for pretty much any admissions, including medical school, graduate school and what have you. I would be concerned about the lack of a subject gre test since you went to a lesser known undergrad institution and those scores would have indicated how well you learned the basics as compared to people who went to better known schools. However, what is done is done and you have already applied. I think you may be a bit naive about the impact that your age would have on admissions. My PI for instance won't accept any grad students without post graduate experience as he feels that they are too immature. I don't know how common this view is but it will most certainly be exaggerated in PI's who are dealing with a teenager. I would encourage you to pick out another safety school to apply to.</p>
<p>Yea, I was thinking about that belevitt. I was thinking about applying to Northwestern, UCDavis, U Iowa, and USC. Don't really know if these can be considered backups.</p>
<p>Another concern would be asking my letter writers to write me more letters.</p>
<p>sgee I think those are good picks.</p>
<p>Sgee, the letters are already written, you would just be asking them to submit it to another school. I wouldn't be worried about that. </p>
<p>Iowa and USC are both good schools in the biomedical sciences. For that matter, so is Davis. I believe that they probably are good backups. I don't know how tight the concordance is between competitiveness and research productivity, but this website spells out productivity/faculty. This matches reputation pretty well.
Chronicle</a> Facts & Figures: Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index</p>
<p>I have also looked at the US News Graduate School rankings, by department (of course). I believe that these will also help shape the application profiles of various departments.
The</a> Sciences - Best Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report</p>
<p>Sorry to barrage everyone with websites (is it obvious that I have nothing to do today and have been surfing the web?). This is put out by Baylor and has a lot of great info about graduate apps in the sciences, as well as such topics as writing good proposals, making great figures, how to read the literature etc.
[url=<a href="http://www.bcm.edu/gs/BeyondTheBeakers/Table%20of%20Contents.htm%5DVII%5B/url">http://www.bcm.edu/gs/BeyondTheBeakers/Table%20of%20Contents.htm]VII[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply PhD-Bound!</p>
<p>I have another question for those applying to UCSF Tetrad. The application states the maximum size for the statement of purpose is 2500 characters, which is just over half of a page! How on earth are we supposed to fit everything of importance in with such a stringent requirement? The research essay has the same limitations...</p>
<p>Was wondering if anyone knew what a competitive score was for the top 10s.</p>
<p>I recently scored in the 89th %ile (650), and was hoping this was good for schools such as Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>I applied to MIT and am having the same problem. I sent an email 2 weeks ago and got no reply. Is there a way to check if GRE scores/transcripts have been received in their online application interface? I haven't been able to find it.</p>
<p>That was in reply to PhD-Bound?'s 11/26 post</p>