MS Bioinformatics

Graduate School
1

Hi, I’m an Indian student planning to come to USA in Fall 2015 for MS in Bioinformatics. I have applied to following universities:

  1. Northeastern University (got accepted)
  2. University of Washington
  3. University of Buffalo
  4. R.I.T
  5. Boston University
  6. University of Michigan
  7. IUPUI

My profile is:
GPA: 3.7/4.0
GRE (revised) -310/340
TOEFL iBT- 113/120

I would like your opinion on these universities, life in US, prospects after completing masters. Do you suggest applying to any university other than these 7 for Bioinformatics / Computational Biology program (MS)?

Thanks & Regards

2

Hi! This reply is so late, but I was looking at information on other students who applied for an MS in Bioinformatics at Northeastern, and I saw your reply so I just decided to answer. Congratulations on getting accepted!

I currently attend BU, and have friends who attend Northeastern. I’ve lived in Boston my entire life, and am applying to both BU and Northeastern for my MS in Bioinformatics because I want to stay close to home due to personal reasons.

Boston University is a great school. I took a Bioinformatics course this semester on the BU medical campus, and there were also other graduate bioinformatics students in the class. It was one of the MOST useful courses I took, and we also had a guest lecturer come in from the bioinformatics program at BU, and she was very knowledgeable and clear in her lecture. So in the little exposure I’ve had to the Bioinformatics graduate program at BU, I would say it’s been a great experience.

A lot of my friends have said that Northeastern played a big role in helping them find jobs/internships/co-ops during their undergraduate career. And I know the Bioinformatics program at Northeastern works with the students to place them in internships as a part of their studies.

I don’t know much about life at the other universities, but if you like living in an urban area that isn’t crowded like NYC, then Boston is great for you. I don’t particularly enjoy cities where it’s always crowded with people because I feel like I need my place, which is why I like Boston because it’s not too crowded and not too empty. It gets really cold in the winter and snows a lot - but the other seasons are beautiful. It’s also a pretty small city - you can probably explore all of downtown and the main city area in less than a day. And since there are so many colleges here, there are always lots of places to eat or go have fun.