<p>I'm an undergrad in the United States.</p>
<p>I'm majoring in biology and will be in my third year of undergrad in the fall; I have a 3.47 cumulative GPA and a 4.0 major GPA. I have finished my gen eds, so odds are my cumulative GPA will rise substantially by the time I actually start applying to graduate school. (Read - I will probably get As in the rest of my classes, considering the only ones remaining for me to take are physics and upper-level major classes!)</p>
<p>Tell me about these schools, especially their graduate programs in the biological sciences, particularly zoology, genetics, neuroscience, and marine biology:</p>
<p>Stanford (probably pretty self-explanatory)
Dalhousie
University of Lethbridge
Universita degli Studi da Napoli Federico II
University of Queensland
University of Tasmania
Universite de Caen Basse-Normandie
Brown University - MBL
Brooklyn College
University of Hawaii - Manoa
University of Florida</p>
<p>The reason I am planning to apply to these particular schools is that there is at least one person who is studying what I want to study or anything related to it (comparative neurobiology of cephalopods to vertebrates with a focus on cognitiion and perhaps some genetics thrown in there).</p>
<p>BEFORE YOU POST:</p>
<p>No. I am not applying to Harvard/Yale/Princeton/OtherIviesExceptForBrown unless there is someone there who is studying what I want to study.</p>
<p>I was going to apply to Berkeley, but the dude there whose lab I want to work in is retiring.</p>
<p>CollegeConfidential having a reputation for having a large population of Ivy wannabes, I somehow suspect this is going to be glossed over.</p>
<p>Hey,</p>
<p>I don’t know about those specific programs, however, I moved across the US to attend a graduate program because my advisor was studying some very specific that I was interested in. My suggestion to you is to contact those PIs at the universities. Introduce yourself, tell them your background, and your future goals. You might even find yourself able to do summer field/lab work for them, which could led to either a graduate position in their lab or at least a great letter of recommendation.</p>
<p>
I hope you’ll find that the denizens of the grad school board are actually rather sane, knowledgeable individuals who are fully aware that the “prestige” of a university is meaningless for PhD applications. We also care a lot more about your research interests and your previous research experience than we do about your GPA.</p>
<p>I don’t think we have too many people this year applying to the foreign programs you listed, but I agree with mantidguy that it would be great for you to be in contact with the PIs you’re interested in prior to your application. They might even be able to give you advice about the application process to their particular programs that might not be obvious to you applying from overseas.</p>
<p>It’s great to have strong interests in particular PI’s work, but 1.) What if you get to grad school and you change your mind 2.) What if “your mind is changed for you”, meaning what happens if your lab of interest a.) can’t take a student b.) you find out the PI is a bad mentor c.) turns out to not have the project you want d.) moves to another school e.) <em>insert unknown and unpredictable variable here</em>. It’s important to think about these things in addition to the specific labs you’re interested in. </p>
<p>I just interviewed at a top-5 biomedical program and it really was exciting to meet the PIs who run the labs I’m highly interested in. It was perhaps more exciting to meet PIs who do things I never even thought about or have areas of expertise completely different from my own. While it’s crucial to have several labs you’re highly interested in, stuff happens and for many reasons, often times completely out of a student’s control, people join labs that have nothing to do with what they do as undergrads. </p>
<p>I think for that reason it <em>is</em> important to consider places that have top-notch zoology, genetics, neuroscience, and marine biology, rather than just places that have one lab that does “comparative neurobiology of cephalopods to vertebrates”. I think the best places are places that have large numbers of good labs period, regardless of whether you think the work being done dovetails with your current interests. So I think for that reason you should not dismiss the “prestige” programs out of hand, because many of them are simply loaded with labs that are doing amazing science, even if it isn’t the science you find amazing as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Hello!</p>
<p>You do not mention if you would like to be funded.</p>
<p>I can tell you straight away that Caen (and most other French unis, except maybe Montpelliers and a few others) does not hire PhD students on a PI basis. They will always favour a French applicant over you. Most PhDs in France are NOT funded, and most students have part-time jobs on the side. If they are funded, they are associated to a very specific project, and in 99% of cases will require you to be from the EU.</p>
<p>Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter to you!</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>