Hello, I'm not exactly sure where I stand as far as PhD applicants for bioengineering go and I was hoping people could give me some advice about what I should be expecting during this upcoming application season. My stats are as follows:
Undergrad Institution: Small/local Public University
Major(s): Electrical Engineering and Physics
Minor(s): None
GPA in Major: 4.00/4.00
Overall GPA: 4.00/4.00
Demographics/Background: White Male
GRE Scores: Haven't taken it yet. Started studying and am planning for July.
LOR: 2 Great and 1 Good.
Research Experience: 3 years in a cell bio lab at home university, 1 summer at a US national lab, 1 summer at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. (Nothing this summer though).
Publications/Abstracts/Presentations: 0 publications (the weakest point of my application?), Posters on the Hill Presenter, 1 Poster presentation at a national conference, 1 Poster presentation at an Undergrad conference
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Goldwater Honorable Mention (applied again this year but didn't receive the scholarship), 2 year long research grants at home university, full ride academic scholarship at home university
Fellowships/Funding: About to start applying for these.
Research Interests: Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology
Institutions/Programs: MIT, Washington University, UCSD, Stanford, UPenn, Rice, still looking for more...
I'm worried about applying with no publications, even though I've been working in a lab continuously for 3 years and also that I didn't get any REUs this summer.
Am I shooting too high by applying to only top ten schools? Any suggestions for me? I wasn't able to get an REU for this summer, is there anything I should be doing in place of that?
Thanks!