How will my (bad) GPA affect my chances at admission into PhD/masters programs?

Graduate School
1

Hi all,

I’m quite nervous about applying for PhD programs in genetics/molecular biology (the soonest deadline is Dec. 1st). Any advice is appreciated.

I’ll start with my “pros” for admission:

– I graduated from Cornell with a B.S. in Plant Science in May 2018, concentrating in computational biology.
– I have 4-5 years of bench experience at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and a laboratory up at school. I have learned many protocols – I’d consider myself quite proficient in Western/Southern blotting, exotic PCRs (TAIL-PCR, inverse PCR), molecular cloning (GoldenGate and Gateway, a bit of Gibson), CRISPR/cas9, qPCR, qRT-PCR, and various analyses.
– My recommendation letters come from some well-known professors who like me a lot.

– GRE: 167QR, 169VR, 5.5AW.
– I am extroverted and friendly, and I think I would perform well in an interview.

Here’s the huge “con” hanging over my head.

– My overall GPA was 2.58. My major GPA was 2.9.

Explanation: I did not care about working my first two years because I never had to study in high school. A bad winter hit, and I grew depressed – I didn’t attend classes, didn’t do homework, and I failed two classes (outside of my major – in the humanities). At this point my cumulative GPA was 1.9. I was going to drop out, but I persevered: I came back to school a year later (after a required leave of absence wherein I took classes at Binghamton University). My GPA during the leave of absence was fine (~3.0), and so they let me return to complete my coursework.

My last three semesters had a marked improvement in my GPA: 2.89, 3.4, 3.7. This was not enough to compensate for even a 3.0 in my major, even though I did like all of my major classes (above intro level) during these three semesters.

How screwed am I? I’m quite worried. Is there a way to explain this to an admissions officer? Any advice is appreciated.

2

First, congratulations on pulling through and completing your degree, and for finding a passion in research.

But … ouch … Do you have any publications? Will the faculty PIs for the 2 labs you’ve worked in write letters that state you essentially walk on water when it comes to research potential? What have you been doing since graduation? If you are working in an academic lab, are you taking/can you take a grad course while working?

At my institution, you would not make it past the initial triage, unless you have multiple publications and at least one truly gushing recommendation letter. Only your final semester gpa of 3.7 falls into our acceptable range; while your trajectory is excellent, having only one high performing semester would be a huge red flag for us. We pay no attention to GRE scores; this is the emerging trend among biomedical PhD programs.

I can envision someone with your GPA but no compensating publications/glowing letters eventually being accepted into our PhD program after working 2-3 years as a lab tech, getting on a couple of research papers, and doing well in a couple of grad courses.

Caveat: would you consider applying for biomedical PhD programs that are heavily computational? I am very familiar with experimental biomedical programs; not at all with computational programs. It’s possible that the computational programs are hurting for experienced applicants - you should consult with some of your undergrad faculty since you had a focus in computational biology.

3

I have one publication from when I was 18 on which I’m not first author. I currently work at CSHL on the same project, and providing it proceeds as planned, I should have a second publication (introducing CRISPR to a new plant family) in the next year. I would be first author on this one. This would be very helpful to my cause. However, as always, there are many obstacles in the way of actually cranking it out (for one, our organism has poorly developed protocols – even extracting RNA is a nightmare).

I have 3 recs from PIs. One is quite reknowned in epigenetics – wild publication history in Science, Nature, and occasionally Cell. Another is in developmental biology, and the last is in physiology.

I work full time in the lab, but I have not taken any graduate courses. I’m signed up for a machine learning course in April, but that’s way after deadlines.

I would love to move into computational – I see a high demand for computational people all over the place. However, my experience there is limited – I’m familiar with R, Matlab, some Python, some Java, and Galaxy. When I say “some,” I mean I’ve forgotten everything by now, but could probably relearn it rather quickly. I’m not near high proficiency in any of the above with the exception of R.

It’s looking pretty grim. I’ve heard that I can omit GPA for certain corporate jobs – maybe working for IDT, NEB, Qiagen, Zymo, or some other company in between now and a PhD program.

4

@PhDPlease - Welcome to the Forum. It is going to be very hard to get into a PhD program right away. Your GRE scores are quite good but the overall GPA will be a problem for highly selective programs that have to triage on statistics. Working for a couple of years would certainly help but if you are completely out of the field that you are planing to study for your graduate degree, the time working may not help too much. It is possible that the best course of action is to find a way to either get into a Masters program (might be self funded) or to work in a university lab where you can take an occasional course as an employee. The idea here is to find a way to demonstrate that you can get a high GPA and that you can handle the graduate course work. Ultimately, having a Masters with a high GPA can mitigate some of the negatives of your current GPA.

5

Can you find a way to contribute to a research project using/developing your computational skills? Some sort of -omics or systems biology effort, for example? Your bench skills in molecular biology are fine, but frankly very common in biomedical PhD applicants, except for perhaps CRISPR/Cas9. Decent computational skills applied to biology would be much rarer and attractive.

Is there a computational biology PI at CSHL or Cornell who you can talk to about how to be a viable candidate for a PhD program with opportunities in computational biology? If you are targeting genetics/molecular biology programs, presenting yourself as an applicant qualified for and interested in computational genetics/genomics or population genetics might open some doors despite your GPA. If you are willing to think a little more broadly (assuming you have taken some statistics courses and have relevant work experience), you may be viable for PhD programs in biostatistics, epidemiology, or proteomics/pharmagenomics/metabolomics (etc.) as well.

6

I agree with @xraymancs who is always so helpful with grad school admissions advice in the sciences. In today’s world you are going to have to find a bridge that shows you can handle a PhD program, whether some self funded masters work or other research to compensate for your undergrad GPA. But keep the faith and perseverance, you can do this! My husband had a .8 (yes, a .8!) in an early college semester in undergrad, but showed a consistent upward trajectory over the following years before PhD program admissions. He didn’t get a masters between but worked a field relevant job for two years. He didn’t start his PhD until almost 29. The program was challenging but he made it through.

7

Thanks for the responses. It makes sense that I should try to demonstrate that I can get a high GPA, and to that end, I totally see the logic in going for a masters in the interim.

Dazed, I would love to diversify what I’m applying to, and it makes sense to – at the current moment I’m looking at 15 PhD programs spanning a very wide range of schools.

I’m hoping to catch one (any one!) with this shotgun approach. I don’t care what institution my PhD would be from – I think my work stands on its own (I do care about research funding a bit, but if I do move into more computational, that would be much less of an issue).

So, here’s my current objective: see if I can weasel my way in somewhere in this round of acceptances. How should I explain my low GPA at the start? My academic advisor from undergrad said basically “you have a publication, going on two, and a lot of experience. But this GPA NEEDS to be explained. I recommend being honest.”

To what extent should I be honest? Is it a massive deterrent to say I had a bout of depression? I know if I were on an admissions team, I would be highly concerned that the exact same falling out could happen. Personally, I’ve gotten treatment, and made a lot of lifestyle changes, and I am virtually certain that I can get through a PhD program without failures of the sort I had in undergrad.

I’ve been on an upward trajectory for three years now, but I’m still paying a penance for my immature poor decisions. Do y’all think there’s any way for me to get into a lower end PhD program in this round? If so, how should I go about explaining myself?

I’ll have one year of a full time field relevant job under my belt by the time I would enter next year. If I could just crank this paper out, it would probably go a long way – but it probably won’t be out until the next round of admissions.

Again, the advice is really appreciated. I hope my efforts in this round aren’t futile. And Dazed, I have taken quite a bit of biostats. I would love to switch into it: but I have no demonstrable experience in it, and my project calls for a lot more molecular work at the moment. I just solved the issues with CRISPR in my plant, and now I need to verify that my new angle of attack is working.

Is there any way I can spin my current upward trajectory? I know best would be to demonstrate that I can have a high GPA in a grad program, but is there any hope for settling for a more obscure PhD program?

8

If you are near a research university, I recommend enrolling in a related grad class as a non-degree student. Get an A, maybe do it again, and then consider applying to grad programs. Your GPA of below 3.0 will not satisfy the graduate school entrance requirements in many universities.

9

I think that we are all guessing a bit.

You are highly likely to need to first do a master’s. Then as you are finishing your master’s you can apply for PhD programs. You will want to work very hard and get very good grades in your master’s program. Assuming that you get into a good master’s program, try to get an A or A+ in every class. Also, don’t go back to get your master’s unless and until you are ready to work very hard and strive for top grades in every class. You have pretty much already used up your opportunities to slack off and still recover.

The uptrend should help you. The 3.7 your last semester is quite good, particularly since you did this at Cornell.

Some work experience should also help you as long as you work in your field (flipping burgers will not help). Work hard and try to get good references from your current employer.

You probably also should apply to a range of universities. I know that for undergrad schools in Canada only look at your last year or two of high school. I don’t know whether the same is true for admission to master’s programs. However, it probably would be worth including a couple of Canadian schools in the list of schools that you apply to. Coming from upstate New York, the closest ones are in Ontario, which is NOT the most economical province for international university students.

Also, I would not count on any financial aid for your master’s program.

If you don’t get in anywhere the first time that you apply, work hard and try to get some good work experience. You can apply again a year or two down the road.

10

I lead a biomedical research group at a private medical school with reasonably competitive graduate program. You would not be able to convince our PhD committee to accept you, unless you stated up front that you would be self-funding and not require a stipend. Even then it would be iffy.

If you are intent on applying this cycle, I suggest you apply to large state universities in the middle of the country, to PhD programs housed in departments that have large undergraduate programs as well. These departments need PhD students to serve as lab and course TAs, and often have state funding to support them. These departments would be more willing to gamble on applicants with less than stellar records. Thus you should be looking at PhD programs outside of medical schools, e.g. biology departments in colleges of arts and science rather than genetics departments in schools of medicine; biochemistry departments in colleges of arts and sciences rather than molecular biology departments in schools of medicine.

Even though you have not applied your biostatistics knowledge to research, you should consider applying to some biostatistics PhD programs in non-top-tier schools. At my school, the biostatistics and epidemiology folk have a hard time finding suitable candidates for their PhD programs.

11

@PhDPlease - The big problem is that with an overall GPA below 3.0, the admissions committee might not even look at your personal statement or letters. This is particularly true for highly selective programs that get many applicants each year. Your best chance at getting a look is to apply to a smaller program that looks at all applications because they are not swamped. This is the case for my own institution, Illinois Tech. Under these circumstances, the personal statement and the explanation of the GPA is vitally important.

The best way to spin this is to point out that you had a poor transition to college level work. You did not know how to manage your time and how to study independently. Then you can point to your last semesters to demonstrate the level of work you are capable of.

Good Luck!