<p>Glad I found this forum. I'd love to hear advices from you regarding my admissions plan, both positive and flaming comments are greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>International student
GPA: 3.7
GRE Subject 95%tile
GRE General: TBD (Powerprep scores 1520 and 1540)
Research - 3 full years with 2 1st author papers (impact factor 5 and 10) and another one being submitted during summer.
Recs: Very strong as far as I was told. </p>
<p>I plan to apply to biomedical sciences (most likely molecular cell biology) at the following schools:
Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, Caltech, UCSF, Baylor, Penn, Columbia, Cornell Hopkins, Berkeley, Rockefeller and Princeton. </p>
<p>What do you think? I personally don't want to settle for anything less, but if you think I should add some "safety" schools I'd love to hear them.</p>
<p>Well.. rather than thinking up more safety schools to apply to, I would strongly recommended reconsidering your current choices. Would you really interview at all 14 schools, plus some safeties? And do you really really want to go to all those schools? Look at the specifics of the program and make sure that it really seems like a good fit for you. Its too easy for people to just apply to all the top 10 programs because they are the best. You have excellent credentials and while you may not get into every single school you have listed, you will at least be accepted to half of them.</p>
<p>Just wondering, but what do you mean by 3 full years of research? Do you mean you did research 40+ hours per week throughout your undergrad career?</p>
<p>To sydneya: Thanks for your inputs. Again, the reason I'm going crazy with these schools is 1) I am international and so the chances of admissions are lower for us, and 2) I have done some research on the PI's from these schools and found some labs that I am serious about, since my area of interest is very widely studied. If given a chance to interview, I will try to attend as many as possible because I really think you can't fully judge a school until you have seen and talked with the people there. You are right, I may have too many in the list, and perhaps I should substitute some of the "reach" schools with a couple of safeties. </p>
<p>To ysk1: I took some time off after undergrad to work full-time as a tech in a lab, and I have recently figured out that research is what I wanted to do for the rest of my career.</p>
<p>OP, it's looking very good for you, but I'm wondering where you got your undergrad degree from. Is it a university that Harvard, etc. will have heard of? Are they on the four-point system? (If not, how did you convert your GPA?) Also, are professors at those schools likely to have heard of the PI you work for now? These are common hangups for international students. Even then, some schools (like Rockefeller) are more reasonable with international students than others.</p>
<p>I agree with sydneya that you need to narrow your list of schools. I mean, Caltech and Princeton for biomedical sciences? These are great institutions, but biomedicine is practically nonexistent at those places, neither of which is associated with a medical school. Also, Yale and Hopkins are in bad (dare I say unlivable?) towns. Hope that helps ;)</p>
<p>To snowcapk: appreciate your inputs. I got my degree from the University of Toronto in Canada and we use a 4 point system for GPA. The PI I work with is not Howard Hughes quality but is well-funded. You are right, the location of the school should also be taken into consideration, after all, its a big time investment in obtaining a PhD, so you better be happy in terms of lifestyle as well. One more question is, how does adcoms look at extracurriculars? I know research is the most important factor outside of the numbers game, but does participation in competitive sports at varsity level and teaching experience carry some weight?</p>
<p>Teaching experience could help, especially if you're going to be a TA for a while, but I don't think they'll care much about your sports activities.</p>