<p>For all all, thanks a lot for this! Secondly, I know PhD admissions are about as random as all get out, so I'm not asking for you to give me you 100% promise but my career services is a joke and since my major doesn't have much help in research based phds, I would like to have you guys help suggest some possible schools for me to apply to. My stats (most important) are listed below</p>
<p>ACADEMIC GOAL: PhD in Pathobiology and a MPH
CAREER GOAL: To work/own a lab with pathological research involved with international diseases in 3rd world countries.</p>
<p>STATS
Small Liberal Arts College
3.85 GPA, 3.8 Science GPA
Science Classes Taken:</p>
<pre><code>Intro to Bio W Lab
Inorganic Chem 1 and 2 W Lab
Organic Chem 1 and 2 W Lab
Physics 1 W Lab
Genetic
Biochemistry
Anatomy and Physiology 1 and 2 W Lab
</code></pre>
<p>Public Health Major, Political Science Minor
Studied Abroad in Scotland and Switzerland
1 public health epidemiology internship (Boston U)
1 summer internship for biomedical research at NYU
1 year of current semester lab research (15 hours a week) Trying to do it this year also
1 full year of research under a PI at Upenn</p>
<p>GRE SCORES</p>
<pre><code>156 (550)Verbal
161 (770) Quantitative
5.0 Analytical
</code></pre>
<p>EXTRA</p>
<pre><code>Latin Honors (Cross my fingers!)
RA for 1 year
Executive board of 1 club
Teach America for 1 year
Community service award for 3 semesters (100+ community service hours per semester)
Glowing recommendations for Public Health Chair, Princeton PI, Public Health Teacher for 2 semesters, Upper Level (Bio chem and genetics) teacher, and either my NYU or Boston U Mentor. I'll probably just stick with the Chair, Princeton PI, and Lab Mentor from summer program.
</code></pre>
<p>What schools do you think I should apply to or I might have a good chance of getting into? Any advice suggestions? Once again as a public health major its hard for my department to help me with research phds, so that's why I'm here. Honest answers would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Is your career goal a lab doing pathological research, that is actually located IN a 3rd world country? Or a lab that studies diseases that are issues in 3rd world countries? I don’t know much about the first (so probably ignore my advice), but if it’s the second we have similar goals…</p>
<p>Are you set on Pathobiology? When I looked at programs I found the ones with a lot of labs doing work on 3rd world diseases were often Microbiology programs. In particular, Parasitology usually gets grouped into Micro and looks almost exclusively at 3rd world diseases.</p>
<p>Northwestern has a dual PhD/MPH program (I think the only one in the US). UPenn has a scaled down version for a PhD plus a certificate in Public Health, and Johns Hopkins has a Micro and Immuno program housed in the Bloomberg School of Public Health. As for Parasitology, Yale and WashU St Louis both have a lot of strong PIs.</p>
<p>For getting into these types of programs, you want letters from PIs you have research experience under. The Public Health Chair may think you are fantastic, but likely isn’t a good person to commend on your ability to succeed in a lab-based grad program. Why don’t you want to use your semester lab research PI? And who is the Princeton PI?</p>
<p>I’m completely fine with microbiology! It was a field I was interested in and hopefully if I get to do an NIH Post bac program, I’ll be able to do some micro biological research. I actually started wanting to go into micro, but thought I wouldn’t be able to get a good enough job in it, and my advisor suggested Patho…but I’d LOVE to stick with micro.</p>
<p>The NW program is kinda EXACTLY what I’m looking for (and of course its uber competitive lol). </p>
<p>I didn’t want to use my semester lab researcher simply because my work wasn’t of monumental importance. I did well and gave 110% but there wasn’t much individual and independent responsibility in the lab…so I wasn’t sure it would look well. Granted I worked about 12-15 hours a week in the lab, on top of 20 hours of week of work, 18 credits, and 4 clubs…and my PI did like me, I just was worried the lack of…autonomy would reflect poorly.</p>