<p>Hello everyone, I am going to be a senior at Cornell University next year, and I have been thinking about applying to grad school. I have some questions regarding what grad schools take into consideration when looking at your application.</p>
<p>Do they consider GPA based only on the difficulty of your courses, or also based on the college itself?</p>
<p>In other words, would my 3.25 at Cornell as a bio major make it very difficult for me to get into some of the top grad schools for research? Should I have just gone to some other college instead and applied to be a bio major there?</p>
<p>I have been doing research continuously every summer since junior year in high school and I have worked with a medical school as well as a biotech company. In addition, I have been doing research in a lab on campus. </p>
<p>I know I can get fairly decent recommendation letters.</p>
<p>I have yet to take the GRE and subject test, but I will be doing so in the near future. </p>
<p>So assuming my GREs will be above average to very good, what are my chances at some top schools like Rockefeller and Columbia?</p>
<p>I am not sure of what your chances are but i do know these facts:
Having research experience is a big plus! Graduate schools will focus a lot on research so having the experience prior to it would definetely in your favor.
It doesn’t matter where you go to school for Undergrad but your gpa matters a lot! Schools will be most interested in your major gpa and how you fared in the more difficult courses. They will also be interested to see how much you challenged yourself in college…you will need high GRE scores (in the 90-95th percentile) as some schools have very high cutoffs for GREs. If you can manage to get recommendations from professors who were once involved with a school you are applying to or has some connections to the school can be most beneficial.</p>
<p>They will take your school into consideration. </p>
<p>Getting into a PhD program in biology is very different from getting into an MD program, and your research background is much more important than your GPA, particularly if you come from a school with a good reputation.</p>
<p>molliebatmit-
so which school you are coming from is important in what respect? as in prestige-wise or just how rigorous the program is in that particular school? I am curious since I have seen a lot of people from not-so-prestigious schools with gpa of around 3.5-3.6 get into extremely competitive and prestigous schools…how important is it that you go to one of the big schools for your Masters?</p>
<p>It’s not a make-or-break – you don’t have to be from a good school to get into a good program. But if you are from a good school, you’re usually given something of a break in GPA.</p>
<p>I did my undergrad at MIT and got into all of the top PhD programs in biology with a 3.3.</p>
<p>molliebatmit-
That makes sense…i am from a state school and i have noticed that in state schools it is sometimes extremely difficult to get As in classes, like 1-2 out of 80 students are given As…do you know if there is a difference in private and state school grading system?..also I didn’t do well in the first couple years of college but since then I have had GPA of upwards of 3.7 consistently…do grad schools look at your improvement?</p>