bsharpe269

I would retake... Mainly because I have heard of fellowships requiring a minimum of 4.0AW to be considered. Maybe others here can confirm or disagree with that. Outside of that one concern, I don't think admission will be affected at all since your verbal is very high and would eliminate any concerns. Otherwise, your scores are amazing!

I think would be honest with the research advisor and say that the new job is insisting on getting letters from your old research advisors. I would add that you understand that they may only be able to write a generic letter but since the job is requiring the letter from each research advisor that you hands are a bit tied.

It seems like you are really liking the program and are just dealing with homesickness! You are dealing with something that most students feel at some point and that you unfortunately will have to feel more times throughout your life. It is clear that you have many acheivements or else you would not be in a PhD program so do not let those acheivements be in vein. If you let difficulty with change and homesickness define your life and your career then think about where that will take you. First, you will not finish your phd that you worked hard to get into. Also, your future grad school options, post doc options, job options will all be limited. Your adventures in life will be limited. Finding a spouse will be limited to finding someone who also never wants to move from the few hour radius of your family. This is no way to live life! I encourage you to try to move thoughts of transfering from your mind and focus on creating a home for yourself in your new location. It sounds like you are meeting lots of people which is great. Continue to find new ways to meet more people like going to grad school events that involve other departments too. If you like to workout then classes at the gym are a great way to improve your mood and meet even more people. Also, make sure your living situation feels homey. Put up pictures and decorations and try to make it feel like home. I really encourage you to at least give the program a year until you consider transfering. Maybe tell yourself that if you still feel like this in a year then you will put in transfer applications. For an example similar to what you are going through, my friend moved to NYC after college and really struggled for about 6 months. She flew home whenver possible and called upset alot. She told herself that she was going to push through 2 years to get her career in writing started and then come home. Guess what? It has been 3 years and NYC is now her home. She cannot imagine living anywhere else and wants to settle there permantely. The piece that you feel is missing is home and you can create home where you are, it will just take time.

I would redraft your SOP. You may end up copying some sentances over but you currently dont know which parts of your applicaiton were strong and which were weak (unless you asked the programs and they specifically mentioned that your SOP was great). I would work on strengthening your SOP like you did the rest of your application.

Im going to disagree with MsAmira. What are your percentages? My guess is that you are around 50%Q and 70%V so those scores are average. Keep in mind the average of those taking the test will be lower than the average of those accepted to programs so your scores are probably lower than the average of those accepted, especially when considering top schools like you those that you are interested in. Since it looks like you have a great application overall, lower than average score may not kill your chances. That is not a risk that I would want to take though and im sure that you would hate to get rejections due to GRE scores when you have worked for years to create a solid applicaiton. My advice would be to retake. Scores over 80th percentile are generally what you would want for top schools like U Michigan and U of Illinois.

The free lunch thing at school is a great thing to mention! We have weekly luncheons with speakers and its a great way to network while eating free food. I actually might go overboard with book buying. I learn best by reading textbooks (as opposed to hands on learning or lectures) so I always buy books that are optional for classes because I end up learning alot from them. I do always buy them on half.com or amazon though used and get old editions if possible. If you buy the 1-2 editions old books then you can sometimes get them for under $5 even. If a professor puts a new edition book on the sylabus then I always ask if the old one is fine too.

This is a great point. Applications are thrown out all the time with a simple glance at GPA. I dont think that the school did anything unethical here. They are not required to review your complete application. I agree with others who mentioned that they at least probably skimmed them over quickly, checking for outstanding applicants like someone with a first author publication in science for example. I doubt this process is all that different than how domestic applications are handled. I bet the knock off half of the applications with a quick glance through the pile. I do agree with the OP that it would be great if the school was more upfront about their policies. For example, they could mention on their webiste that they only accept X number of international students on average each year. If this number is less than 1 then many international applicants might reconsider applying.

Do you have any biology or computer science classes? Those would definitely be useful. You have enough math classes for the biomath programs but your class load still looks light for a math major since I don't see real analysis or math modeling or anything. Are these in the couple classes left that you still have to take? Modeling would definitely be a good class to take if you are interested in biomath. Also, do you have any idea what you want to research? For example, infectious disease or more of anatomy related modeling? I think you have a shot at schools like NCSU and FSU. Some other schools you might want to look at: UC Davis, Univ of Delaware, and Ohio State. I considered getting into biomath for a while, before heading more towards biophysics. These were some of the schools that I had looked at. I cant remember if each actually had a biomath department or if you would just apply to regular math department but I do remember that all of them had lots of PIs doing biomath reserach.

Whether you can RA or not, I would still volunteer in a lab asap.

I will be going to Ghana for a couple weeks to visit a friend! That being said, I did work spring break and last winter break and will work over thanksgiving and all to be able to do that. I do computational work and have a hands off PI. He expects his students to be self motivated and produce lots of results and put in as many hours as needed to get them. All of hte students that he agress to take on are extremely hard workers and go above and beyond the hours of most students in other labs. Along with this though comes lots of flexibility. Because the PI knows that everone in the lab works hard, if I show up one week with no results then he is not upset because he knows that means that I genuinely did not have time and wasnt just slacking. The same goes for my Ghana trip. He will be fine with me leaving for 2 weeks because he knows that I work enough hours most of the time to make up for the missed time. In my opinion, this is an awesome type of PI to work for!

I am running into this problem too since my interests are somewhere between computational biology, physics, and chemistry. Some schools have interdisciplinary programs with most of the PIs in my research area affiliated. I can usually find a phd program (whether it is biophysics, biochem, comp bio, whatever) with most of the relevant PIs affiliated at each school. I am not set on applying to the same department as my undergrad but instead am applying wherever the most PIs are. I think that you will limit yourself if you are set on applying to only 1 type of department which such interdisciplinary interests. I wouldnt assume that you can work with PIs in other departments but this is sometimes allowed. I think your bet bet would be to contact the specific departments and ask about their policies on this.

You arent supposed to have a thesis title chosen and email professors saying "I want to study this exactly, would you be inerested in advising me?" If you were at that point then it might even hurt you since PIs need grad students who are open to a variety of topics and flexible enough that they can mold their ideas to fit within the PIs interests and grants. At this point though you should be able to say that you are interested in a specific subfield(s) and would be interested in learning more about X,Y, and Z types of topics. For example, I am interested in a whole subfield of concepts right now and have tons of research experience. I know enough about my interests and subfield that I can tell you that I am more interested in the theory side and less in the computational side. I could list all of the well know PIs in my subfield, tell you who is speaking and leading the big conferences and then I could divide these people in those who fit with my interests and those who dont. Within those who fit, I can give examples of the projects they are working on that I would really enjoy working on too. However, I dont think that I could come up with thesis topic idea (well maybe ideas, but probably not really good ones) that these PIs should explore next. Over the first few years of my phd, I hope to get my PI's help in guiding my interests towards a specific area before I have to do this. I think that this is above where you should be when applying to PhD programs. You don't need to be ready to start your dissertation yet.

I have never ever heard of a student paying for a publication. Grant money should cover these costs as well as travel to show research at conferences or anything else research related.

I had similar scores before my MS program and decided to retake before applying to phd programs and was able to bring my total score up by 12 points. If you think that you can bring up the quant then it might be worth a retake. I think a quant score of 160+ is generally expected for people going into quant heavy programs and you are right on the line. You might be just fine wiht your current score but if I were in your shoes then I would retake. I am very happy and more confident in my application with my current score than I would have been with the lower but decent ones.

You have a solid profile so go where your research interests really fits with the department. Are these the strong schools for your particular subfield or are they chosen bc they are top schools? If they are chosen because of subfield focus then I think you should be in good shape.

This is an amazing point. I personally dont learn that much from classes. I go to most classes only because I am expected to. I am finding that grad school is much more about making resources available to you than about actually teaching you. I have access to whatever papers I want through my school and read them constantly, anywhere from a few a week to a few a day, depending on my schedule. I have brilliant professors around me who guide me through projects and answer questions about papers. I reanalyze data from papers and bring it to staistics professors to ask questions about the best methods to use. I dig deep into the models used in the lab and come up with ideas for own projects, not just follow along with a PI tells me to. If you want to learn then you can make it happen. I would figure out what you want out of this program... research with a PI, an internship, tons of time to read about a specific topic? Make a plan to acheive this goal with the resources around you at school.

I studied for about 3-5 hours a week for 3 or 4 months and brought by score from 157V, 161Q to 162V, 168Q. Studying makes a big difference, especially learning vocab and doing lots of practice questions.

I actually think the verbal is fine for Econ PhDs. Scores in the 150s are pretty normal for quant heavy phd programs and your writing score is good so I don't think they would be worried. You quant is fine too. I'd say that anything above 160 is good.

If you want to know whether or not visiting can help then my guess is that yes, slightly. If you are wondering whether the visiting will help enough to justify spending a few thousand dollars (minimum) and taking a couple weeks of time off school or work to travel around to the schools then my guess is no. That is a ton of money! I think that skyping with professors, if possible, and using that extra money to apply to twice as many schools would be more advantageous.

I dont think you necesarily need to have a specific subfield chosen yet and given your more detailed explanation, it makes sense that you would target mostly top schools. It may be unique that I have such specific interests already. I really just fell in love with my MS research and know for certain that I finally found my niche. I do think its important to at least be at the point where you can skim the research interests of professors in your chosen departments and narrow the list down to a few that you might want to work with. There should also be some sort of theme to your list. For example, you might know that you want to study cancer but want to rotate with a few different labs who use different methods. Or maybe you are really set on using a certain method but could apply it to a variety of topics. There is still time to narrow in your interests more before applications. If you keep reading research papers in your field then I am sure you will see patterns in the ones you find most intriguing. At this point, I also think its ok to have a couple different themes and to write about whichever one that particular school is strong in. I guess the point is that you should at least be able to write about general themes to your interests at this point, even if you do change them later. Others who have been through the application process may be able to comment more or even disagree. These are my thoughts but I havent applied yet! Also, the upward trend in your uGPA will definitely help, especially when combined with your MS GPA and your great GRE scores.

Hi Gro133, our stats are pretty much identical and I will be applying for biophsyics and computational bio phd programs this cycle. I have a 3.3 uGPA and a 4.0 MS GPA and 168Q,162V,4.0 GRE. I do think that our uGPAs have the potential to hurt our applications but they arent horrible and I dont think we are doomed. I dont think you should worry about your GRE scores... they are great. I also wouldnt worry about taking the GRE subject test since your great masters GPA shows that you understand bio material well. Do you have a reason for the lower uGPA? I have pretty bad ADHD and didnt start treating it until grad school. I am trying to figure out how to touch on this in my SOP without saying it outright. I might just mention that a medical issue held me back during undergrad. If you have a reason for the low uGPA then I would figure out how to touch on it in your SOP without dwelling on it. A big part of phd admissions is research. Since you have a MS, I am sure that you have some decent research experience. Have you identified the subfield that you want to work in and are you actively reading papers in that field so that you can discuss it intelligently in your SOP and at interviews? Also, how good will your LORs be? These things matter as much as your stats. Since we have similar stats, I can describe my plan since it may serve as a good comparison for you. Most of the phd programs that I am applying to are ranked around 30 in my field. I am targetting schools based on research fit instead of ranking and this is where most of the schools that fit well for me fall. I am applying to a few "top" schools like UCSF, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins but most are around the prestige of programs like upitt and Stony Brook. Some of these top 30ish schools are actually my top choices due to amazing research fit. I would try to target schools based on research fit and the number of professors in your subfield. Unlike Med school, the name of the PI and research productivity matter more than the name of the school. I do think we both have a decent shot at good programs if we make sure our reserach backgrounds fit really well with the professors in our chosen departments! Good luck!!

I recommend retaking the GRE. Your GPA is fine but not great and solid GRE scores (especially a 160+ quant) could help make up for this. If you get the GRE up then I think that you will be in pretty good shape for these MS programs and can at least expect a couple offers.

Hi bio applicants, I have been working on drafting SOPs and should have some rough drafts in the next couple weeks. Is anyone out there interested in setting up an editing exchange system where we provide feedback on eachothers essays? I know a lot of people make "please edit this SOP" posts on here but instead of that, i was thinking it would be more helpful to get an email group going with a few people and over the next few months as we create and edit our SOPs, we can send them out to the group and edit eachothers. I was thinking that this would be less of a one time thing and more of an SOP support group where we help each other perfect our essays over the next few months. This would of course be helpful since we will each receive feedback on our own essays but I think that editing each others and seeing what doesnt work in eachothers essays and getting ideas from eachother could be just as helpful. Please comment here or PM me if you are interested in this. Chem and other science applicants are of course welcome as well! Thanks!

Definitely try to find an advisor, even if you do accept the TA spot. Do you know why the 3 professors turned you down? Did you just get unlucky and rotate with 3 professors who ended up with less money than expected? Did you choose super competitive labs to roate in? Did you slack off more than you should have? I think you should reflect on what happened here and make any necersary changes to find a spot in a good lab.

Since doing a rotation early seems to have benefits, why not schedule the first 2 with your favorite labs and absolutely work your butt off to set yourself apart from the other students? You can do a third and possibly fourth rotation in one of the labs that will be easier to get into.