<p>Hi everyone,
I have several questions regarding what my expectations should be regarding graduate school. First off, I will post my "stats":
Junior
U.S. Citizen
CS major, Mathematics minor
GPA 3.7
CS GPA 3.9
~2 year co-op at a software engineering firm (tuition paid by them)</p>
<p>I am studying to take the GRE right now, so we'll see where that takes me. Also, I certainly don't go to a top school. It is a 4-year, state university that emphasizes teaching and a liberal arts education. I know two professors fairly well. I've taken a class with each, and one is my academic adviser. The other has agreed to do a bioinformatics-related independent study with me over the summer and the semester after. Thus, I expect to have two strong letters of recommendation. I will likely get a letter from my employer as well as another from another professor for 4 letters total.</p>
<p>Anyway, let me get to the questions:
1) Will admissions look highly at my work experience if they consider I've worked 20 hours or more (30 hours this semester) each week? Will this offset going to a lesser known school or any other "scars" that my application materials may possess?</p>
<p>2) I haven't taken a biology class since I've been attending the university, yet I want to go into computational biology. However, I have AP Biology credit and will probably take a genetics class next fall. If I do research in computational biology in addition to this, will this eliminate any doubt about a biological background? Most bioinformatics graduate programs expect a background in computer science and/or biology (sometimes mathematics, chemistry, or other majors are included in this) and are willing to admit students with a deficiency in one or the other.</p>
<p>3) Finally, assuming I do well enough on the GRE (I expect to do so), do I have a well-rounded application that would be suitable for a PhD program? I realize I'm likely not top-tier material, but do I have a reasonable shot at some PhD programs? Any gauge of the "tier" of programs I should expect?</p>
<p>I will be discussing graduate schools with my professors in the months to come, but I want to sound reasonable in my ambitions.</p>
<p>Hi jpell,
My lab has some bioinformatics projects, and they are being done by people who had almost no background in biology when they arrived. You'll have no trouble convincing schools that you can be effective with a background mostly in CS. I don't think that the genetics class + comp. biology research can "eliminate any doubt of a biology background" - in fact you will be learning the basics in only 1-2 subfields of biology - but you probably don't need a biology background to be successful, anyway. If you do feel that demonstrating a strong foundation in biology is necessary to make your application competitive, one option is to study for and take the Biology GRE Subject Test...but I think that's unnecessary.</p>
<p>You also don't need a phd to do a lot of the computational biology work- its a very new field and thus jobs are not particularly hard to find for people with some cs skills. When I started working in my lab the computational person had an MA with little or no biology background, yet had several papers in Science. One of my friends who graduated several years ago with a physics major and no biology background is now working at the Broad. So the question is why do you want to get a PhD, especially if you feel that you can only get into a lower ranked school. It is mostly the top schools that have good computational biology programs, as they require lots of money to generate the data to be used in computation.</p>
<p>To answer the PhD question, I would like to get one for a number of reasons. First, I enjoy research and I'm leaning towards research in academia rather than industry. As I mentioned in my first post, I've had a software engineering job for two years now and while I enjoy it, I would rather do research (i.e. school is more enjoyable than work). Second, funding is an issue. I would rather not have a job while I'm in school, nor do I want to go into debt. I work a lot, and I take a full load of classes. I would like to be able to just be in school.</p>
<p>Now, I didn't say that I <em>couldn't</em> get into a "top" school. I just had that impression based on other people who have posted their academic profile and had trouble getting into schools. I realize nothing is definitive with graduate admissions, but I just wanted to get a feel of whether or not I have a solid enough application to bother applying. Essentially, if I get good GRE scores and my research turns out well, are there some computational biology graduate programs that would (probably/maybe/possibly) accept me? What "tier" should I consider a match? Safe? Reach?</p>
<p>my point was that you <em>can</em> do the same research in academia w/o a phD that you can while getting one or after having one. They also get paid quite well (my friend at the Broad is making >70k a year) The only thing that you wouldnt be able to do would be to be a professor.</p>
<p>ec1234,
I appreciate your feedback. I definitely would have no problem in a situation such as that, but I don't want to rule anything out at this point. I don't want to aim for a master's and go in debt and then finally decide to get a PhD. I would rather aim high first. Plus, I don't want to rule out becoming a professor. I realize it is a lot of work, but academia is a type of environment that I enjoy being in. I don't want to be so restricted in what I research. Freedom in my job means a lot to me as well. I really just want to know where my graduate school aspirations should lie rather than what I will do with a master's/PhD degree.</p>
<p>Hey jpell,
Even Harvard realize that people with quantitative background like math, cs, systems engineering, or even quantum physics bring some really interesting theory parts into biological science, which mostly end up in Nature and Science journals. That's why they have the Systems Biol program there, it's a good way to bring new aspect into the research community. Lots of professors you may end up working for will have no clue about the algorithms or analysis they hire you to do, and your job will be to do it for them and make them understand it pretty much in "lay" terms. </p>
<p>It's okay if you don't know a whole lot of biology, but you are expect to survive some biology classes after you get into the program. These classes can be a big jump for you because it goes right into research methods and ideas in experimental biology etc. </p>
<p>Look at the GCB prelim topics at Penn: Penn</a> GCB - Preliminary Examinations
It's much easier for somebody with quantitative background to get through that than somebody with experimental biology background. I am the latter type, which is kind of sad for several reasons.</p>
<p>Really, your stats look quite solid, and if comp bio is like comp neuro they will not mind your relative lack of bio background. A couple of things, though...</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Your research, LORs, and SOP (and luck, and having researched schools well) will likely make the difference in admission, since your stats are good enough.</p></li>
<li><p>You can get in without much of a bio background, but you need to get a solid bio background eventually. I have a friend who's a PhD student in one of the top bioinformatics programs in the country, who double majored in math and bio as an undergrad and had extensive computer science experience. She HATED it when people from a CS background would come into the program thinking that they were too awesome to care about being proficient in bio (also when bio people thought the same about CS, but there were fewer of those). She said that they missed/didn't understand obvious things.</p></li>
<li><p>You should look into an IGERT program. I know there are some in comp bio/bioinformatics.</p></li>
</ul>