<p>lol, I am already miserable in undergrad…in my reserach lab, all the biochemistry PhD students look so sad and complain about their lives, and i keep thinking what i would become if i do a PhD…and guess what, I actually work with radioactive material; ■■■.</p>
<p>grad students complain about everything! i think it is because somewhere someone told people it was cool to act like you are totally miserable… no small part thanks to piled higher and deeper, i am sure.
yes, grad school is a lot of work. yes, it is difficult to get in. yes, you spend most of your time trying to figure out what is going wrong. but keep in mind the alternative- ie shuffling paper. for one thing it is important to realize that you are making significant contributions to knowledge (no matter how arcane the grad students complain about it being) and you get to spend your whole life learning. plus, most people think you are smart because you are in the sciences (although we all know how stupid we really are).
complaining by grad students gets really old- it is nothing more than their way of proving to everyone else that they are working hard and suffering for their “art”. yawn.
of course, i like to complain a lot myself :)</p>
<p>This is my first post here but the title of this thread caught my attention, gave me a chuckle, so why not start here?</p>
<p>My GPA isn’t quite what I wish it would be (I graduate in the fall,) but my Biology (major,) grade will be pretty high when all is said and done. If I am reading correctly, the major GPA is taken into serious consideration when an application is being considered? If so, perhaps I’m better situated than I had believed.</p>
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[QUOTE=DebraBaker]
This is my first post here but the title of this thread caught my attention, gave me a chuckle, so why not start here?</p>
<p>My GPA isn’t quite what I wish it would be (I graduate in the fall,) but my Biology (major,) grade will be pretty high when all is said and done. If I am reading correctly, the major GPA is taken into serious consideration when an application is being considered? If so, perhaps I’m better situated than I had believed.
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<p>From what I’ve seen, both the overall GPA and the major GPA are taken into consideration, although the major is given more weight. </p>
<p>I’m hoping I’m a bit better suited than I thought, too…wasn’t sure what I wanted to do my first two years, dropped below a 3.0 overall (down to 2.8), then worked up to 3.2 overall and 3.6 major with two more quarters to go. Here’s hoping.</p>
<p>One more data point for the collection- I had a 3.4 gpa from college and was accepted to nearly everywhere I applied including Duke, UNC, Vanderbilt, BCOM and other well regarded places. Grades really aren’t everything.</p>
<p>What about liberal arts PhD programs? How can I improve my chances at acceptance in say, Russian History. I’ve talked with my Russ Hist prof and he has filled me in on the top grad schools in the field.</p>
<p>I’ll be a senior in the fall but am taking an extra semester to get more Russian language in and a study abroad next summer (graduate Dec 2010). I have a 3.5 gpa and haven’t taken the GRE.</p>
<p>I’m freaking out that I won’t be able to get in anywhere. Suggestions?</p>
<p>(sarbrius - post 16) I have to disagree. I could name at least ten people from my current institution who have between 1 and 3 publications, though most of those people do hover around a 3.8 GPA (in chemistry from a mid-tier UC). A few from that group have GPAs above 3.9 both overall and in chemistry. The top schools are not full of applicants with many defects on their application. However, as others have mentioned it is not impossible to be accepted with lower stats. I would still encourage people to apply to the schools they find attractive, but its important to keep a realistic outlook too.</p>
<p>I also wanted to comment on the posts about complaining grad students and the unhappy father. Perhaps I can only speak from observing the grad students at my school, but they all seem to be very happy people. In fact, I found it encouraging to see them so satisfied with their lives. Hopefully others who read this can feel encouraged as well. It may be that the grad students I know are a fluke, or it may be that the aforementioned grad students didn’t choose the right program.</p>
<p>Well, as I look at graduate programs’ web pages, I don’t see many publications for first-year PhD students. I’m sure it varies. And I also added “(maybe one)”, because there are many who do have a publication or two, but I think they’re exceptional, not typical.</p>
<p>My point was that a publication isn’t a strict prerequisite for admission to top programs.</p>
<p>Publications depend way too much on the field you are in, it is not fair to compare it with other undergrads unless they are in your subfield. There’s a difference if you are running stats for a paper in psych that just surveyed people on drug use and mood, vs. doing a 3 year experiment with double transgenic mice, on which you are then doing stereotaxic surgery that don’t even breed well. My point is that it only makes sense to compare amongst people applying to the same PhD programs or coming from the same undergrad programs.</p>
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<p>Wow, you really have NO idea who long, complicated, and complex psychology research can be! I’m slightly offended, honestly.</p>
<p>I would consider myself ‘average’ for this board in regards to GPA and GRE scores. I had awful GRE scores 1100 4.5W (i can’t afford those stupid classes), and my GPA of barely a 3.4 from UCLA would be laughable here (though my major GPA was 3.7). I tried very hard to get all the experience that I could in my field and try to distinguish myself outside of the grades/gpa category. </p>
<p>I study middle east studies so i took off a year and traveled the middle east, taking intensive language classes, did an internship with a middle east thinktank, lots of community service stuff (in the middle east), and when i got back to UCLA i decided to pick up yet another language. Now, I got into most of the schools i applied to including UChicago, UMichigan, Boston University, and Columbia…and i’m going to UChicago in the fall on scholarship…</p>
<p>so if you want it bad enough, you can have it :-)</p>
<p>I’ve got a cumulative GPA of 3.3 (last couple quarters have been 3.7-3.8, three more to go), with a major GPA of 3.5; GRE of 770Q/640V; and I’ll have three strong LORs/been drafting my SoP for the past few weeks now. I’ve put a lot of thought into it, know the specific field I’m interested in (neural stem cell differentiation, with viral vector-mediated transfection), am only applying to schools with 2-4 PIs who match my research interests (and I’ve stated as much in the SoP), and know what I want to get out of my PhD. </p>
<p>I guess the thing with the research experience is shaking me up a bit, since I’ve only got about 6 months in each of two labs (one’s cancer stem cell biology/virology, the other’s a C. elegans lab where we’re screening for neuron development genes), and I’ll have about ten by the time my apps are finished. I didn’t know about research opportunities at my school until late last year, and I’ll be applying to neuroscience programs with no specific neuro background (although I have learned stem cell culture techniques, have had to learn to do a LOT of troubleshooting since the cells we obtained weren’t the highest quality, and have self-researched a lot of current publications on viral vectors). I’d apply to blanket bio programs, but I don’t want to run the risk of not being able to work with the PI’s I’m applying for.</p>
<p>I was looking through the biomedical acceptance thread, and it seems like high research experience seems to be a necessity, since I didn’t hear of anybody with less than two years of research being accepted. Can anyone confirm or deny this, and/or does anybody have experience with admissions at UMinnesota–Twin Cities? (Currently my #1 choice of school)</p>
<p>I received an offer of admission today from UM Ann Arbor’s PIBS program, and I’d like to say for next year’s applicants: non-“genius” applicants DO get in places. No part of my application was absolutely outstanding (3.3 GPA, 1410 GRE, 9 months research experience, graduating from a virtually unknown school in California), but I received interviews at five out of the ten schools I applied to (and we’ll see how I do in acceptances for the other four).</p>
<p>It’s the pot calling the kettle black, but…don’t stress. You DO have a chance.</p>
<p>Congratulations!</p>
<p>Congratulations - I’ve been accepted at PIBS too! I’m about 95% sure I’m going there - have you decided yet?</p>
<p>To the OP: I think something you need to remember about this board is that it’s a self-selected sampling: almost by definition the people posting here are more ambitious and motivated about grad school than the majority of applicants. For instance, I know that 925 people applied to UChicago’s BMS cluster, but looking through the Biosciences thread maybe 10-20 people posted about applying there. So there’s a hundreds of people outside this forum with different statistics (perhaps some above and some below yours) and those people also got interviews.</p>
<p>It’s more important for you to seek out the average GPA/GRE of the programs you are interested in (although a lot of schools don’t release that data). What they do release is applied/admitted statistics, usually broken down by department. This won’t tell you anything about the stats of the people applying, but it will tell you the interview/applied ratio and the post interview acceptance rate. If you’re worried about your stats look for some schools with a high interview/applied rate (UChicago’s BMS only interview 7.7% of applicants and UW-Seattle Microbio interviewed 12% which are both very competitive) and decent post interview acceptance rate (UW Seattle microbio’s is about 65%, UChicago’s microbio’s is about 30-40%, while other clusters in BMS at UChicago are different, MPMM is about 80%). They’ll usually give you multiple years so you can see if there’s a decreasing or increasing trend. Unfortunately most schools are seeing a huge increase in applicants and due to the recession can’t admit as many people. </p>
<p>Note that I only have stats for UW and UofC because those were the schools I applied to and got interviews. If you do some digging through the admissions/registrar sites of your choice schools you should be able to find similar info. If you’re motivated and put in the effort to find schools that fit you (as well as do well in school and hopefully get in some undergrad research experience) I have no doubt that you’ll find a program that you are excited about and are accepted. </p>
<p>Also, and I don’t mean to be snide about this, but it’s pretty insulting to call people with high stats “not real.” I know you didn’t really mean it, but it comes off as very demeaning and dismissive of their accomplishments. They’re still “REAL people.”</p>