<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>This is my first time posting on this forum, so please bear with me. I am currently a newly admitted M.S. student at a few lower-tier schools for biomedical engineering. I recently struck out for all of my Ph.D applications to nearly 20 schools. My stats are posted below and will help explain why this happened. I am wondering if going to a lower-tiered master's program will be worth it at all and increase my chances for getting into a higher-ranked program. I am not saying anything negative about the schools I've been accepted to. I just realize that there are more opportunities in the schools I do want to eventually go to. I am most interested in drug delivery/biomaterials but have always been open to neuroengineering as an interesting subject.</p>
<p>My stats:
2.991 ugpa from UC Berkeley - B.S. Bioengineering
1440 GRE - 800 quant. and 640 verbal with 4.5 AW
2.5 years undergraduate research experience with nanoparticle delivery systems
- 1 publication (2nd author)
2 years as a research associate in a developmental biology lab at UCSF after graduation
- working on small molecule screens and characterizing zebrafish mutants
No fancy academic awards since most of them tend to be awarded for high gpa</p>
<p>Schools I've been accepted to and now considering:
1) UC Riverside (M.S.)
2) University of Illinois, Chicago (M.S.)
3) NYU-Polytechnic University (M.S.) - Most likely not attending</p>
<p>I just don't want to have wasted my time/money going after a master's degree that would ultimately not help me. In the most recent cycle, I sent out around 20 Ph.D. applications that resulted in only one interview which fell through. I am currently leaning on UC Riverside since it is much cheaper (as I am a CA resident), and I figure its proximity to UCLA/USC would mark it more favorably for collaborations and networking. But it's a newer/smaller program than UIC which also has its pros and cons. </p>
<p>I would appreciate any advice you guys can give me. Thanks.</p>
<p>It’s not surprising that you got 20 rejections, because a sub-3.0 UGPA is pretty much an automatic reject for Ph.D admissions. My guess is that you will not be accepted anywhere for doctoral studies without completing an M.S. somewhere first with a quality GPA. You’ll have to take advantage of that opportunity to develop and show your research abilities, and show that you’ve improved your academic focus.</p>
<p>UC Riverside is not <em>that</em> “lower-tier.” Also given the financial aspect (I assume you haven’t been offered any assistantships) that should pretty much guide you toward UCR.</p>
<p>I suppose I felt my research would help carry my way forward despite my gpa. My only concern is whether to stick with the choices I have now and just kick ass there before going on for my Ph.D. My other choice (and riskier in my opinion) is to wait for the next admissions cycle to apply to more highly ranked schools for their M.S. programs. However, I do realize that a lot of Ph.D. rejects are offered M.S. spots if the school just doesn’t have enough funding that year for them. </p>
<p>Another question regards prestige. Even if I go to Riverside and kick ass there in terms of gpa, would that still be enough to get my application looked at…let’s say one of the Top 10 or Top 20 schools?</p>
<p>And no, I have not been offered any sort of assistantships besides a small fellowship based upon merit. I’ve already talked with a potential PI there and she says she might be able to help fund me once her grants are approved (which doesn’t seem likely in Cali and in this climate).</p>
<p>If you don’t want to commit to a MS, why not a post-bac program? That would be less time and give you the opportunity to complete advance science courses and hopefully show PhD programs that you can get good grades in though courses.</p>
<p>I just don’t see a few advanced science courses taken post-degree as being much of a bump. 20 applications and only one even getting to the interview stage is a pretty clear signal that the OP’s qualifications weren’t really close to being competitive. Ph.Ds aren’t about coursework, anyway - they’re about research.</p>
<p>I agree with you Polarscribe, but OP’s research history (4.5 years) and a publication is good. I think the only ‘apparent’ weak link is his GPA. I think if he is able to do well in a post-bac with a rigorous course load PLUS additional research, than maybe the PhD programs will see that as enough improvement. OP didn’t list which 20 PhD programs they applied to, maybe OP needs to refocus which PhD programs applying to.</p>
<p>I suppose I didn’t seek to apply to post-bac programs since I didn’t really find many programs specifically for engineers. My friends in grad school think it’s far more beneficial to go for a master’s if the money isn’t as big of a concern. One thing to keep in mind is that my time as a research associate at UCSF was spent in a zebrafish developmental biology lab (granted it was working with high-throughput drug screens which I thought could be made relevant). But perhaps the adcoms believed it was not enough relevant experience to demonstrate my strength as a candidate. </p>
<p>I wasn’t an idiot and applied to only top 20 schools. I only selected 8 schools from the top 20. The other 12 were distributed pretty well throughout the top 21-75. </p>
<p>I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to recoup the opportunities I’ve squandered so far (i.e. my time in Berkeley) and be able to go where I want to go. Do you think going to Riverside and doing some solid research and kicking ass in classes will be enough?</p>
<p>Yes, I think having a MS degree will increase your chances. However, I think the most important area you should focus on is your research while building relationships with professors so you can get extremely strong letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>I’m going to agree with some of the other posters here… Your GPA was probably an auto-reject, or if not it moved you to the bottom of the pile. </p>
<p>A Masters might help you in the long run. But a Masters isn’t a safe bet. You might want to seriously consider not going into a Masters program for the following reasons:</p>
<p>1 - A Masters is not a guarantee that you’re going to get into a PhD program.<br>
2 - You’re probably going to have to take out student loans to get a Masters degree, which means you’re saddling yourself with a lot of extra debt that might not pay off.
3 - If you get into a PhD program, your Masters degree might not transfer over. I have heard of at least a few cases where the PhD granting institution did not transfer credit which meant that the student basically wasted the last two years.</p>
<p>IMO, you’d be better off getting a job for a couple of years. At which point you could try to reapply.</p>
<p>Perhaps applying to nearly 20 schools is part of your problem – I applied to about half that and thought that was almost an insane number - considering that amount of work required to complete one application (studying the school’s different program options, selecting the right program to apply to, scouring the program’s website to come up with a list of all potential faculty that match my research interests so that I could tailor (with PI names) my SOP to the program - so that my application argued that I am good match for program X, filling out all the online materials with the right word lengths, etc etc - whew). I wonder if you had applied to fewer schools and could have spent more time on each app if you would have had better returns…</p>
<p>@pseudoghost:</p>
<p>1 - A masters may not guarantee me for a PhD slot…but 20 rejects right now tell me that it’s not guaranteed period.
2 - You are right about the student loans…but Riverside isn’t as expensive as out-of-state schools. Plus, I figure even if I have no luck applying again…it’ll be easier for me to find work with an M.S. rather than just a B.S. The loans won’t be too debilitating.
3 - If I get into a PhD program, then I wouldn’t consider the previous two years getting the M.S. as a mistake. Plus, I figure if anything it may give me an upper hand for any of the classes I have taken similar classes for. </p>
<p>In regards to working for a few years, I’ve already worked as a research associate at UCSF for the past 2 years to no avail, despite the dissimilarity between research topics. Even if I do get a job in industry, I am not sure this will make me even more attractive to the adcoms since my gpa would remain the same. If anything, they may think that my mental faculties have decayed between the time gap haha.</p>
<p>@LAC operon:
You may be right about me not giving myself enough time for each grad application. Next time I do apply, I will be sure to start as early as possible and restrict myself to at most half that number of schools. I’m hoping a better grad gpa and more relevant research will just give me a better chance at those 10 schools…so that I don’t have to go for the shotgun approach.</p>