I am planning to pursue Masters in Biochemistry engineering/Biochemistry/Biotechnology with some focus on Entrepreneurship with be a bonus. Here’s my profile:
Graduated from UC Davis in 2015
Major: Biotechnology
Minor: Technology Management
Cumulative GPA: 3.19 (its low I know)
President at an Honor society
2 years lab experience working at a stems cells and plant lab
1 year working in the pharma world in a Sales position
National sport player in the country
Volunteered lots
Have not taken my GRE yet. Planned to. I can at least one rec of letter from a reputable professor.
These are my choices of universities I have in mind. There is a mix of top and mediocre schools in my list and I was hoping to see what are my chances? I was thinking of creating a final list of which I will be applying to: 2 top, 2 moderate and 2 for-sure schools I can get in.
UC San Diego
Johns Hopkins
Cornell
Columbia
Penn
Rockefeller
Duke
NYU
USC
University of Washington (Seattle)
Rochester
Stony Brook SUNY
USF
Would it be possible for you to stay at Davis for your Masters? Lots of schools give generous tuition reductions to students who completed their Bachelors there and you might even have an option of completing it in one year? I wouldn’t waste your time with apps to OOS reach schools as they’ll be super costly and their benefit is minuscule for the field you’re pursuing.
If I were in your shoes my tiers would be:
Top - UCSD,USC,UCLA,UW, Oregon Health Sciences U.
Moderate (STILL VERY GOOD SCHOOLS!!!) - UCI, UCD
Forsure - UCR, UCSC
I am going to give you the hard truth because you asked for it.
I find it highly unlikely to get that you will get into any of these schools for several reasons. First and foremost, your GPA is very low for these schools. Unless you have a justifiable reason for this, it is going to severely hinder you. Second, although you have two year of experience working with stem cells and plants which is great, you are currently in a sales job for pharma, which is not as helpful as, for example, working as a lab manager/research technician/etc. A lot of professors tend to look down on those in industry. (I’m not saying it’s right, because industry can be very valuable, but it is the honest truth.) Furthermore, working is sales is not going to help your case. A lot of professors hate it when sales reps show up at their door unannounced. Working in R&D would be considered much more favorable as it at least involves research. Lastly, no one will care if you are a world class athlete or if you were president of some honor society. Volunteering, while much less important for getting into grad school than undergrad can at least be included in a CV if desired.
Now, this is not saying that you can’t get in anywhere! I think that a stellar set of GRE scores could help mitigate your GPA, which is not so low that it is insurmountable. I think Jsteez gave you a good list of schools to apply to, though UCLA is probably out of reach. I think when you have a lower GPA, tailoring your essays is especially important. What do you want to do? Why? How can you tie in your past experiences with what you’d like to do? The most important part about applying for anything ever is how you frame it, sometimes it’s just trickier to frame than others.