Thesbane

You seem like you have good stats for either the BioE or ChemE program at Stanford; ChemE would probably demand more in terms of the quantitative aspect. If you are interested in genetic engineering / biological circuit design, then Stanford BioE has a couple labs active in those areas (Smolke, Endy, Qi labs). BioE offers self-paid masters position (about 5-6) every year, where Chemical Biology does not. Also suggest you looking into MIT BE program. Weiss, Church, Collins are a few labs that come off the top of my head. In particular, Weiss and Collins labs are probably as deep into genetic circuit engineering as one can get. From what I understand the Chemical Biology program research focus concerns itself either with the chemical aspect or the system level. Genetic engineering is a vastly different field than that. Regarding do you stand a chance: It's a crab-shoot when you are an international student applying to Stanford or MIT. That being said, your GPA is definitely great (in top quartile at Stanford BioE I'd say). GRE Quant could be better (ideally 90%+) but not a deal breaker, nobody really cares about general GRE. Did you graduate from an international school? If so, faculty may have a hard time calibrating your GPA and the quality of your courses. I'd suggest taking a GRE subject test in Biochemistry / Chemistry / Physics / Maths, whichever you can do well on and try to get above 85%. Do you have quality publications? Probably the single best indicator of whether you stand a chance is whether if you have published on well-respected journals as first or second author.

Thank you! I am still waiting to hear back from Columbia Integrated program before I make my decision. UT Southwestern is definitely one of my top choices considering the number of faculty they have there who work on research topics I am interested in.

Just finished my interview at UTSW for Division of Basic Sciences on the past weekend. Received phone call today from the Dean to extend offer! Good luck to all those who I met during the interview!

To add on top of M-index. A very general rule of thumb is: M ~ 1 (good research scholar), M ~ 2 (excellent research scholar, likely to be found at R01 research institution), M ~ 3 (research superstar, there are only a handful of them e.g. Edward Witten in Theoretical Physics).

I know that in my field, faculty often use H-index and M-index to evaluate other PI. H-index is the X number of publications a PI has with at least X number of citations. M-index is just H-index divided by the number of years since that PI's first publication, it measures the rate of H-index increase. I also know that titles and awards like "HHMI investigator", "NSF CAREER Award" etc. are used as calibrators. People also look at sub-field conferences (e.g. Gordon Research Council) and see who lead the conferences. They are usually the big dogs of the field. If your PI publishes frequently on NCS journals, I'd assume he is likely very well recognized in his field. Hope this helps.

I have gotten only two interviews this season. I guess I kind of expected that given my very borderline gpa (3.46). I have been thinking about backup plan in case I don't get accepted anywhere (the one program I interviewed at a month ago hasn't gotten back to me, so I suspect I am either waitlisted/rejected). I have had quite a bit of research experience as an undergrad (probably more so than my peers at my school) and have a pretty good idea of what I want to study for graduate school, although I really would not mind doing postbac research for a few years and explore other options. I am just not sure if my situation will get better at all after even more research experience, or maybe I should just lower my expectation in the future.

Bostonbio, thanks for sharing! Did you apply to grad school when you just graduated? If so, how did it go?

Hey all, I would like to hear your opinions on the pros/cons of postbac research experiences. A few rumors I have heard is they can make up for a mediocre GPA when applying to very competitive programs. Is there anyone who can testify to this with their personal experience? Thanks in advance!

Sorry to hear this Eco, I was wondering if your status on the application has changed?

Congratulations! There's only so few of you who heard back =)

Interview dates are Feb 6-8 (Quantitative/Comp Bio, Biophysics,BME focus), Feb 20-22 (Cell regulation, Biochem focus), and March 6-8 (Cancer Bio, Molecular Microbio focus). Good luck, hope you hear back soon!

My track in order of preference was: Molecular Microbiology -> Cancer Biology -> Cell regulation.

Just for those of you who applied to UT Southwestern, I just got an interview invitation two hours ago. Fairly surprised that their office still sends out emails on sunday, but delighted to receive the invitation nonetheless =)

Hey Immun0, can I ask which home program did you apply for at Stanford? Thanks in advance.

From what I know, Goldwater scholarship is quite competitive, but it is an extremely prestigious award. There are also a ton of other research fellowships (e.g. REU) for undergraduate students from NSF / NIH. I am an international student myself and hence ineligible for any of these awards/fellowships. I have limited information regarding competitiveness of applications for these programs. I suggest you look up requirements on the internet and inquire your faculty adviser or a career service office if you've got one at your school. The most important task for you right now is to get in touch with a faculty of interest via faculty member at your own institution. If you succeed in making contact and receiving positive response from the faculty member, inform them that you are in middle of applying for awards/fellowships. I am positive that a lot of faculty members at well-funded labs are willing to cover partially, if not fully, expenses for a visiting undergraduate student. Just make sure you stay in good communication with the faculty members regarding statuses of your fellowship application.

From what I understand, most honors/senior thesis project will require that you have a faculty member as your adviser. So it is best that you discuss with your adviser regarding the proposal write-up. In general, you should at least (I hope) have some ideas of experimental set up that will allow you to address your research question in mind. Writing a good research proposal is no easy task. It is best you start preparing early and discuss with your adviser as soon as possible.

Absolutely. Many undergraduate students (myself included) spent a summer or two working with labs at institutes other than their own alma mater. I personally picked research topics outside of what was available at my own institute to get a better sense of what kind of research I enjoy doing. From personal experience, I have learned so much working at a different institute. If you get to choose between working for a summer at your own institute or at another institute, definitely go out and explore. Most professors are receptive towards students introduced via colleagues (aka professors at your own institute) and with some form of research scholarship (e.g. Amgen, Goldwater etc.) Make contact with your professors and do some networking, also try to apply for scholarship that will financially support your research visit. The chance of success is quite high if you get these two components right.

First off, developing bioelectronics and generating artificial memory in cells are pretty different research topics. To elaborate my point a little, there are two sub-fields within Biomedical Engineering that universities sometimes fail to make a distinction, but in fact they have very different research approaches. One is Biomedical Engineering (BME) which normally is to apply physics, computation, and engineering to make some kind of silicon-based devices for medical applications. I think your weakness in biology will not do too much harm for this sort of program as long as you can convince the program you have all the quantitative skills necessary to succeed in this program. Normally, it's much harder for someone good in biology but weak in quantitative courses to get into BME than someone like you. The second sub-field is chemical engineering/synthetic bioengineering. This sub-field draws already existing principles from biochemistry, molecular biology, cellular regulation to generate new cellular behaviors / functions using cells. It still is very much an engineering field with a need for quantitative skills. But I think you will also need to have a pretty solid understanding of how cells work on the molecular level. And for that, most programs (or PIs) in this sub-field would like to see you have done well in chemistry and molecular biology courses. I can't tell you what programs to apply to, but I think you should consider which of these fields (including physics that you mentioned) has more research topics that interest you. P.S. A P.I. you may be interested in that does work on generating artificial memory in cells is Drew Endy. You may want to look him up.

If you are certain about pursuing a PhD, you can't give up on it so easily. There will be many more road bumps along the way once you get in. GRE is probably the least important aspect of your application package anyway. What matters more is your experience and enthusiasm in research. Why do you want to apply to such and such program? Is there faculty whose research interests you? Read their articles, and try to make contacts with these individuals expressing your vision and desire to partake in their research projects. If a faculty likes you enough, he/she will do everything possible to get you through.

Got an invitation to Columbia for Cellular Molecular and Biomedical Studies program via email (interview dates: JANUARY 16-19, 2014). I am very excited for this!

I just submitted all my applications last week! Feeling so relieved now! I would like to hear some feedback on my profile as an international student. I am little worried about my GPA (oh well, not much I can do about it now). Undergrad Institution: West coast liberal arts, strong grade deflation. Has very well known biology program (within top 5 by phd productivity) Major(s): Biology Minor(s): None GPA in Major: 3.55 (meh) Overall GPA:3.46 (meh) Position in Class: I think maybe top 25% in school. definitely top 25% in department. Type of Student: International. Not a very special ethnicity. GRE Scores (revised/old version): Q: 167 (95%) V: 160 (84%) W: 5.5 (97%) B: 780 (81%) Didn't submit to most schools unless they said "strongly recommended" TOEFL Total: Don't need it for all my programs. Research Experience: I have done research at more than 6 different labs since freshman year. I have consistently worked at the same microbiology lab at my school for 2 years now. One summer project at a cancer research lab in asia (internationally well known school). One summer at MIT bioengineering lab with a pretty famous PI in bioengineering. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: one co-authored publication based on my work in cancer research, published on impactful journal (IF=10.2). A range of miscellaneous research grant and funding. iGEM gold medal award one year. Not eligible to apply to the majority of scholarly awards anyway. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutor in biology or chemistry since sophomore year. Special Bonus Points: One recommender from my school. One recommender from MIT, the PI whom I worked with. One recommender from cancer research lab (PI is reasonably well known in his field, H-index of 48 in his 20 years career). All three letters are believed to be outstanding. Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Visited UC Berkeley MCB, made acquaintance with one faculty there who provided advice on app over phone and had kept in touch with me. On SoP, I provided a mini-project proposal based on the area of research I am very interested in. Have brought it up to several researchers in the field and they agreed with its significance and feasibility. Applying to Where: UC Berkeley MCB Stanford Biosciences - Microbiology&Immunity MIT Molecular Biology Harvard MCO Yale BBS Columbia MCB Mount Sinai Basic Sciences UT Southwestern Biomedical Sciences UCSF Tetrad U Penn CAMB Good luck to everybody! Hopefully we all get to hear some invites soon =)