International Applicant - Grades but no Publications. Chances?

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi everyone,</p>

<p>Will be applying for US graduate schools this year. I'm an international applicant, and would like to solicit the opinion of the forumers here on how difficult admissions into US graduate schools will be.</p>

<p>I'm from a semi-decent undergraduate program based in Asia, majoring in Chemistry. I have excellent grades - current GPA @ 3.88, GRE Chem @ 97th percentile, GRE General not taken but I probably should expect 580+ Verbal, 780+ Quantitative and 5.5+ Analytical Writing.</p>

<p>Trouble is that by the time I submit my application at the end of this year, I would have about 2yrs of research experience in 3 different labs. Unfortunately my research experience has not translated into any papers, be it published, submitted or in preparation, and I am doubtful that I can churn out anything by December.</p>

<p>So... I was just wondering how important are papers when it comes to international applicants? Yes, I know the official word is that publication at the undergraduate level is not expected. But come on, one has to be realistic... just because people say it, it doesn't necessarily means that it is true. I do know that alot of bright students from my institution (good grades) got rejected earlier this year, and the ones that got accepted all have some form of publication... so ultimately I'm concluding that GPA and GRE count for nothing at the end of the day. Btw, I'm not talking about Harvard here, I'm referring to good public schools like UWM and UIUC.</p>

<p>For the record, I'm aiming for the good public state schools, as I kind of given up hope on private schools given my lackluster profile.</p>

2

<p>Are you looking only into graduate programs in chemistry, like your undergrad? Or what programs are you looking into?</p>

3

<p>Graduate program in Chemistry. I’m fine with some overlap into physics and/or biology, but I believe that I want to work in a computational lab for my PhD, so traditional wet-lab chemistry is out. Stuff like bioinformatics and systems biology sounds interesting, but I do not know if I have the requirements to apply given the nature of my background.</p>

<p>Also, another problem with my application is the lack of relevant research experience. To date, my 1.5yrs of research experience has been wet-lab based, and in the field of Chemical Biology. Unfortunately, after so much investment into research, I realized that I do not like benchwork, and so I will be switching to a computational project for my Senior Year. Effectively I would have only 6mth of relevant computational research experience by the time of my application in Dec 09.</p>

4

<p>Hardly anyone has publications from their undergraduate.</p>

5

<p>I wish that were true, but not from my observations. Also, pls do note that I am an international applicant, so the standards are significantly higher.</p>

6

<p>I think you’ve definitely got a shot, especially at the schools you mentioned. If you wanted to apply to the top schools in the country, I would say apply for a masters now, and then go PhD later. But I would say you have a good shot with stats and the research experience, even if nothing was published.</p>