<p>Hello, Thanks for reading my post. I am thinking about applying to biology grad program for fall 2008. Here are my stats:
740Q (80th percentile)
610V (87th percentile)
4 in the writing section</p>
<p>I have 3.78 from UC Davis. </p>
<p>I have diverse internship experience including a summer at NIH. I do not have a publication, but I do have one poster presentation at NIH. </p>
<p>My top choices are MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, & U of Michigan.</p>
<p>What are my chances? I would greatly appreciate your input. Thanks.</p>
<p>We can't really give chances for grad school programs. It doesn't work like undergrad. Please read the Grad School 101 thread for other information.</p>
<p>I am also in the same shoes as you applying for bio grad program in Fall 2007 for 2008 Top choices: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UCberkley, UCSF, John Hopkins .. Are you thinking of regiving the GRE? Are you gonna be giving the GRE subject test? My stats are as follows:
GRE V:570 M:780, AWA 5.0 UGPA- 4.00
2 labs research experience (no papers though)
1 internship experience
(I am international student though, it will be much harder for me)</p>
<p>DespSeekPhd: I understand that PhD admission is very subjective, and you can not predict odds from the numbers, but would you know if my scores fall into the range that would make me competitive for the schools i am applying. Thanks. </p>
<p>MCB: I am not going to retake the GREs. I think these scores are fine. I have talked with a couple of deans of admission at good schools, and they all said the same thing: Letters of rec and your personal statement will have the greatest impact on your admission.</p>
<p>I am thinking about taking GRE biochem, but i am not 100% sure. </p>
<p>OP - you ask if the scores fall within the range - I would suspect so, but what I was trying to tell you in my previous post is that it doesn't matter whether you're in range or not. Your scores are not what make you competitive. Your letters, SOP, and previous experience are what makes you competitive. As I said, it is very, very different from undergrad admissions.</p>
<p>Yeah...I am gonna take the GRE biochem...but not very sure right now..You said that you talked to deans of admission at good schools, do you think that improves the chances of getting in?? Were they helpful?? Did they make the talk worthwhile??</p>
<p>One problem is that someone who gets into one of {Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley} is likely to get into all of them, and someone who doesn't get into one is likely to get into none. There's quite a bit of overlap between the students invited to interview and ultimately admitted to those programs -- you see the same people at interview weekends all winter.</p>
<p>I would ask a trusted professor if he/she would suggest that you broaden the range of your applications to include some more schools ranked between about 15 and 25.</p>
<p>What is your opinion? Should I include some more schools?</p>
<p>I am thinking about including some more schools:</p>
<p>UoMich, UoWisc, UCSD, UCD, WashU, Duke & Princeton. </p>
<p>This would make the total of 12 schools. The other things I was thinking how would I make it to all these interview? Does anyone know if the schools are receptive to rescheduling the interview? Thanks.</p>
<p>Most schools will have two or three interview weekends. Since each program will generally have its interview weekends on the same weekends each year, they know which other interview weekends conflict. Programs in the same city will often hold their weekends together -- for example, Harvard's interview weekends are Thurs-Fri-Sat, while MIT's are Sat-Sun-Mon. Stanford, Berkeley, and UCSF have a similar complementary overlap. I applied to nine schools and didn't have any interview overlap, although once I had gotten into a few schools I really liked, I declined three interviews, because the constant traveling was making me a little crazy.</p>
<p>I don't think it would be a bad idea to apply to one or two very safe programs. Still, you have to consider that 1) you should really only be applying to schools that you'd be willing to attend, and 2) twelve is a lot of applications and interviews. Honestly, I would advise talking to a professor to see what he or she thinks -- if the professor thinks you've got a good shot at the top programs, don't bother applying to other schools that don't interest you. (Well, bother to apply to one or two.)</p>
<p>I know 12 schools is a lot of schools, but I am having the hardest time deciding which schools not to apply. </p>
<p>I have just started looking into potential faculties I want to work with at the prospective schools, and I think I will eliminate schools will least potential faculties. My aim is to go down to 8 schools. </p>
<p>You mentioned in your post that you were able to decline a couple of schools after having a couple of good interview. Do the schools tell you about the admission decision during the interview? Please let me know. The anxiety about the school admission is killing me!!!! LOL!</p>
<p>If you're going to be admitted to a program after interviews, the program will often let you know within a few days that you've been admitted. They often don't let people know if they've been rejected until later. You can look at this</a> site to see a general timeframe for decision notification. It does vary somewhat -- they don't usually notify everybody on the same day, even if they're notifying by phone or email.</p>
<p>I was able to decline some interviews because my first choice, Harvard BBS, doesn't interview -- they just admit or deny students directly. I was notified in late January that I'd been admitted to BBS, so I was able to decline interviews from schools that I wasn't as interested in.</p>
<p>Nice. I thought that all the schools interviewed their prospective students before admission. Are there any other programs that do not require interview? </p>
<p>But, it is nice to get into the first choice without getting into all the hassle. I can not wait for Spring 2008.</p>
<p>BBS doesn't because it is larger than many of the other programs -- each incoming class is about 70 students, which is larger than the other biology PhD programs at Harvard and larger than most of the other top programs. Logistically, it would be difficult for them to interview a large number of candidates, then get the whole faculty to evaluate them.</p>
<p>BBS is the only program to which I applied that didn't interview, but I'm not sure which others don't. (You can presumably get this information from most program webpages, or by emailing program administrators.) BBS does have recruitment weekends, though, and their recruitment weekend is identical to other programs' interview weekends, except that you already know you're admitted. At any rate, interviews are a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed them.</p>