<p>I'm a senior graduating this spring from the University of Minnesota Duluth. I currently have a 3.52 GPA, I have been doing research for the past two summers, I have competed in cross country and track throughout college and am CC captain this year.</p>
<p>I am looking at applying to Ph.D. programs in either genetics or molecular biology. Right now I am looking at applying to Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Washington, and UNC-Chapel Hill. I have talked with my advisors and they have suggested that I apply to two "fall-back" schools in addition to these schools.</p>
<p>I'm not quite sure what a decent "fall-back" school would be for me and was just looking for suggestions for schools that I could look in to and decided whether or not I would be interested in the research the schools are doing?</p>
<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>There aren’t really any “fall back” or safety schools for PhD programs. You should ask for each school if you only get into that one school, will you be happy going there for your degree?</p>
<p>When looking for schools to apply to, you should consider research fit very carefully. Are there PIs doing research in areas you are interested in? Just because you think a school is “safe” doesn’t mean you should apply there, because there may be no one you want to work with if you get in.</p>
<p>What you need to do is to find a couple of program that you feel you will be happy going to and that are not as selective for admissions as the top ones you have chosen. Your professors are the first place to ask about what programs might be a good choice but you can also look at rankings and the date form the last NRC survey [PhDs.org:</a> Jobs for PhDs, graduate school rankings, and career resources](<a href=“http://phds.org%5DPhDs.org:”>http://phds.org)</p>