gradcafegirl

joro: nope, I'm not attending that program you mentioned. Both of my scores were in the 600s; however, while my verbal was high (94th percentile), my quant was low (58th percentile), especially for life science programs. Not rock-bottom, but considering many of the top programs I applied to had average quant scores in the mid 700s, it was quite low. Especially since my overall gpa was not great.

I got in with a combined 1300, both scores in the 600s. writing score = 5. verbal was high, quant was low for my field. I had a high major gpa but a mediocre cumulative gpa.

I will be 30 when I start my PhD program this year! You are not too old.

It's so encouraging to see all these posts by fellow "older" students! I'll be 30 in the Fall, and throughout this process I've been told by most that it will be difficult for me to compete with all the younger applicants. However, as you can tell by my signature, this wasn't this case :-) My only worry now is that I will feel out of place amongst younger classmates, but judging from this thread, I guess the "older" student isn't as rare as I thought!

General GREs in the 600s, cumulGPA=3.3, MajorGPA=3.8, 1st author abstract, 1 year research. My stats aren't that impressive, but I believe it was my LoRs and SoP that stood out. Also, I was very enthusiastic in interviews.

Cool, are you going then? You are probably going to be at Parnassus by the looks of it...

anyone?

Update: applied: umich pibs, uva, upenn, ucsc, ucsf, northwestern, az, einstein, city of hope, washu accepted: umich, ucsc, einstein, city of hope declined interview: uva, northwestern, az interview: ucsf rejected: upenn, washu

BS biochem from low ranked state university overall gpa 3.3, major 3.8 Average GRE scores (both in the 600s), high writing score. 1 first author abstract at national conference 1 year research experience programs are all bio applied: umich pibs, uva, upenn, ucsc, ucsf, northwestern, az, einstein, city of hope, washu