Standing out from the BME PhD Applicant Crowd

Graduate School
1

<p>Hey guys.</p>

<ol>
<li>Asian male</li>
<li>Rising junior at georgia tech</li>
<li>4.0 gpa</li>
<li>I do research in two separate labs, will probably have 2 fully wrapped up and published second-author publications by the time of PhD applications.</li>
</ol>

<p>I really want to be able to get in to top programs in my field, but I feel like my current accomplishments don't really stand out at all from a whole lot of other (asian, male) people applying to PhDs in BME. I even see people in the 2011 or 2012 engineering admissions threads with similar gpa/publication set-ups getting rejected all over the place.</p>

<p>What else do you guys think I should or could try to do to make sure I get in? I don't think my current trajectory is going to cut it.</p>

2

<p>I think you sound like a great candidate. Sometimes people just don’t get in because of the mass of applicants, and that’s just life. Apply at many different places, and some are sure to pick you. The only thing I could think of to fill out your application would be to do something on the side, like write an engineering/science column in a popular news publication at your campus, or build up computer/web skills and list some examples of your web-design or your proficiency at some difficult programs or programming languages in your application (i.e. AutoCAD, database software, Excel, Photoshop, Java, C++, etc.).</p>