<p>I am a student from India. I have a GRE score of 1460/1600 with a 100% percentile in Math. I completed my Masters degree in Biotechnology from UPenn in 2012 with a GPA of 3.47 (all previous education was in India). After that I worked at Harvard for 6 months in the Department of Microbiology. The lab I worked with then moved to Scripps Florida where I now am working in the Department of Infectious Diseases. I want to apply for my Ph.D in Virology/Microbiology. The schools I have on my list so far are Harvard, Scripps, Yale, UMass, UMD College Park, Boston College. I have one co-author publication and one more should be out in a couple of months. I would like to stay on the East Coast and not apply to NJ or Pennsylvania (which sadly rules out Penn).
I realize most of my schools are the top schools and I want some safe schools that are good but relatively easy to get in to as I don't want to not have an option. Any help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>The best people to help you with are the people in your own laboratory, and your old professors and advisors at UPenn. They know who is working on what and where, and they have friends/former colleagues/old professors who might be interested in someone with your background and work experience.</p>
<p>As you should know by now, there is no such thing as a “safe” school for a PhD program. All admissions is competitive. You need a PhD program that will lead to the type of post-doc work that will enable you to move forward with your career either in the US or another country.</p>
<p>If you haven’t taken a look at the Grad School Forum yet, you should do so. You may be able to get some useful advice there. Go to the main page where all of the forums are listed, and scroll down to find it.</p>
<p>Boston College? Do you mean Boston University? I don’t think BC even has a graduate micro program, and they’re two totally different schools.</p>
<p>You can’t have a 100th percentile; the highest is a 99th percentile. You can’t score higher than 100% of the test-takers, even if you were the only one to get an 800, because at least one of them is you. But there are lots of people who get 800s in math so at best, you are in the 99th percentile.</p>
<p>Sorry. Stats nitpick.</p>
<p>Did you have any research experience when you are in undergrad? It looks like you graduated from Penn in 2012 and so have been doing full-time research for a year. At most top schools, 1 year isn’t really enough. 2-3 is more competitive, so it may be to your advantage to stay on for another year and apply to begin in Fall 2015 instead of Fall 2014.</p>
<p>Couple of other things:</p>
<p>1) There are no such things as “safe” PhD programs. And even if there were, you wouldn’t want them anyway. PhD jobs are often based on the program you graduated from and your advisor, so I’m of the opinion that you go to one that’s a great fit and a competitive program, or you don’t go at all.</p>
<p>2) You shouldn’t limit yourself by geography, unless you have some compelling reason (like you are caring for sick or elderly family members). A research career demands that you be able to go anywhere. While you shouldn’t live anywhere you are miserable, I don’t think that includes entire states. Why would you not want to apply to Penn, if there’s a laboratory there you are already working in and ruling out Penn makes you sad?</p>
<p>Apply to schools that are a great match based upon your research interests and advisors, not based on the location.</p>