structuralBio

Accepted to both. Wisconsin has a narrower focus on biophysics and the coursework for the first year seems more useful for what I want to do, which is structural biology, and the focus of people's research seems more focused on basic science than medical application, which appeals to me. it also has a very impressive NMR facility that is better than Vanderbilt's and NMR is what I think I am most interested in. They have a better rank in terms of NIH funding and I think the reputation of the program is a little higher than Vanderbilt, which doesn't really matter that much to me because both are excellent schools, but it's coming down to very small differences to make this decision. In Vanderbilt's favor is a higher stipend compared to cost of living by about 20%, a much milder climate for someone from the south, the possibility of changing what I end up doing to some extent because it is an umbrella program (eg: cell biology or molecular neurology instead of biophysics), and the presence of an electron microscopy facility with a direct electron detector as I would like to do a rotation in a cryo-EM lab because its such a fast-emerging field. The biggest pitfall for Vanderbilt is that their graduation time over the past few years has increased from 5.3 to 5.7 years. 5.7 years isnt much more than Wisconsin's 5.4 but I'm worried if that trend continues if I will have spent 6.5 years there by the time I graduate.

I toured Johns Hopkins, though was not admitted. I had to say I was a little concerned for safety because baltimore is known for crime. I have to say the following though. The area north of the medical campus is a little bit sketchy, but in general if you avoid certain bad areas of the city you will be fine. the homewood campus and surrounding area is VERY safe. JHU has invested millions in campus security so on campus at either the med school or homewood you will be totally safe. There is also shuttle transit for the students so you don't have to walk through bad areas. As far as the city of Baltimore in general, there are a lot of really safe places, and some pretty bad areas, but if you stay away for certain neighborhoods and generally have common sense you shouldn't feel unsafe at all.

Well, for me thats not the problem. I did very well in my intro classes, its more a question of whether having a bad last semester will really hurt me

thanks guys, yeah I do genuinely think I lacked confidence in the interviews and it showed, and also most importantly I think my research interests didnt overlap well enough with the people I was interviewing with. I just wanted to set my mind ease that my bad last semester wasn't going to really hurt me.

So having not gotten into any graduate school I need to apply again next year, the problem is that I think I have messed up my last semester. I haven't gotten my grades back but I think I will get my first C and everything else will be a B. That's not horrible, but my GPA will drop from a 3.78 to probably a 3.67. Its not that my final GPA will be that bad, but do I need to worry that school are going to look at my application and see that I messed up at the end? How will I fare given that I didn't get in anywhere and now I will be an even weaker candidate the second time around (assuming I don't get a research job for the interim period, which is looking less and less likely? I'm worried.

So I'm re-applying next year with a quite a few lessons learned and realized I might have gone for the wrong focus in applying for schools, and maybe should have looked for schools that are specifically known for their experimental rather than computational biophysics programs. So now I'm looking to gather a list of such schools, are there any you could suggest? I'd like to not be in the middle of nowhere, or in the deep south, but preferably not in a huge city like NYC either and preferably not some place where the winters get down to single digits routinely. I know that's kind of specific but none of these are absolute requirements for me.

Regarding your analytical writing scores, that you highlighted in red, while it is a little more impactful on foreign applicants than american applicants (since less scrutiny is given to our ability to read and write English), it is honestly not a big deal, if your TOEFL scores are good and your SOP is good they will be able to see that you understand English well. the analytical writing section as I understand is given little credence because it is poorly setup and poorly graded and schools understand this (I'm a native English speaker and I only got a 3.5 myself!), so no you don't NEED to retake the GRE. Regarding your research, just because your name isn't on the published paper doesn't mean you didn't make a real contribution. Though having your name as first author is very impressive, its quite rare for it to happen without already having a graduate degree. Your letter of rec from your superior should fully explain how involved you were in research and your contributions and I think schools will find that quite impressive, you can also point to specific research papers, that although you are not listed as an author on that you can claim to have been involved in. Overall, I think you look pretty strong, just do well on the TOEFL and make sure your SOP is very good (have multiple people who speak fluent English, especially English native speakers if possible, look over it)

thanks for the advice. I think I might try tutoring high school students or something in my year off.

So I didn't get in anywhere and will be re-applying next year. other than lowering my standards and applying to way more schools, I want to re-apply to one of the programs that I interviewed at and really liked. I've heard that committees don't like to see the same applicant twice and you shouldn't re-apply to the same program, because your rejection is even more likely the second time, is that true?

So my NSF GRFP application was denied, which i was expecting, but in the reviewer comments they mentioned that i didn't appeal enough to the broader impacts criterion, both in the benefit of my research proposal and in my personal history. Since I'm in the life sciences, my proposed research would have benefits which would be mostly medical (which is a big no-no for the NSF I was told?) I tried to frame it in the context of designing a new protocol that would expand the scientific tool kit which didn't work well with one reviewer. Additionally, my personal broader impact is pretty weak, i really haven't been involved in and kind of community outreach or tutoring that they love to see. So what can I do to buff this area of the application when I inevitably try again?

So in light of not getting in anywhere for biophysics, I need to fill the coming year with relevant experience when reapplying. I was thinking about a post-bacc but I have a few questions 1) Is a post-bacc basically like a year-long post graduate equivalent of an REU? or is it sort of a prep school focused on getting you lab experience while getting you up to speed in coursework? or is it basically just a 1 year temporary entry level lab tech position? 2) Is it too late to apply? I know from applying for REU's it would be much too late by now but what about post-baccs? specifically, NIH's post-bacc wants you to apply 6-8 months in advance and commit for at least 12 months, even though they say they consider applications year round, does that mean that if i started in say October of this year and wanted to go to graduate school next year that I couldn't because i was locked into a 12 month commitment and couldn't start in mid august? 3) other than NIH, do you know of any that are related to biophysics (ideally) or biochem that are still taking applications? 4) would getting a normal job part time and doing volunteer lab work, or getting a lab tech job in a field that is not as closely related look like I "wasted an opportunity" to departments when I'm reapplying compared to a post-bacc?

inorganic? their biochem program must be through a chem department because honestly knowledge of inorganic chemistry is fairly trivial for most biochemistry

Speaking ss a biochem major, you could be able to do this provided you have taken a thorough general biochem class. It may not be strictly speaking required but a p chem course on thermodynamics and kinetics would also be good. I will assume you have taken 2 semesters of physics? your 2 semesters of calculus and 2 of organic are sufficient in those areas. Can I also assume you have taken a cell bio course? if you haven't you really should. other than that, what other people have been saying is true, your research matters a lot. if you were working in say an ecology lab, while that doesn't rule you out, it may put you at a disadvantage compared to working in a lab that does biochemistry or cell biology (my research was in biochem and now I want to do biophysics so I'm in such a situation where your research isn't as directly related as it maybe should be)

that's just what i heard from some chem majors in my classes, i could be wrong