Research experience and top tier programs

Graduate School
1

<p>I will be a senior at a pretty prestigious school this upcoming fall and am considering applying to graduate school to pursue a PhD in a biomedical field. I'm majoring in biology and minoring in history with a 3.6 GPA and have two summers of research internship experience. However, I waited pretty late to decide on research as my intended career path and will only be starting in a lab at my home university this upcoming semester where I will be working on an honors thesis.</p>

<p>I'm currently looking at a few schools that are top ten for the type of research I'd want to do and was just wondering if having worked on three different projects for relatively short periods of time would be detrimental. Would my lack of consecutive research experience be a precluding factor for acceptance to top tier programs? If so, would taking a year or two off to work full-time in a lab be a good idea? For what it's worth, I'm also an URM and have been told that I'm a strong writer. I've yet to take the GREs. </p>

2

<p>Publications?</p>

3

<p>Yes, it will be detrimental. That doesn’t mean that you absolutely won’t be admitted, but you will be competing with people who began doing research in their junior year or earlier, as well as some people who have worked for 2-3 years and/or gotten an MS in biomedical sciences fields.</p>

<p>Yes, taking 2 years off to work in a lab would be a good idea. I suggest that you apply selectively to a few top-tier programs this year, and see what happens. You also may want to apply to some funded MS programs. If you don’t get in anywhere, you can work as a research associate for 2 years and try again after that.</p>