madbiochemist

I'm in the same boat as jenner, coming from Biochemistry and (hopefully) going into tissue engineering. I've asked professors and admissions reps about how willing BE/BME programs are to admit biology students and all of the ones I've worked with have been more than happy to extend offers to biologists (I've worked in tissue engineering, drug delivery/nanomaterials, and stem cell biomechanics), provided that they have demonstrated some math, physics, and programming aptitude. They say that certain professors are prejudiced against biology (particularly in biomechanics), but depending upon your discipline you should be able to find a good fit somewhere. Also, I've been told that if the BME program comes from the medical school (like Johns Hopkins) they are more likely to admit biology students than if it grows out of the engineering school (MIT, UCSD).

Hey cmdundas! We have similar stats as well and applied to several of the same schools. I thought my application was pretty solid too (Goldwater HM, 3 pubs, an REU, and international research), but my quant GRE is my big concern (159). I haven't heard a word yet, so I'm not really sure. Most of the professors I talked to said that they never look at test scores or GPA, but the committees might screen the applications before the faculty get to see them. I think your chances are pretty good of getting in to a few more, as long as they don't do a quantitative GRE cutoff. Best of luck!

Thanks for the link to the thread and the suggestions, guys. I'll keep all of that in mind as the process continues...

So, I applied to several graduate programs and am waiting to hear back. In the meantime, I've been a little bit stressed about my significant other trying to find a job in the same city as my school while I'm trying to get my PhD. He has his master's degree in structural engineering and will (hopefully) be working at some sort of firm. Any experience on how to navigate the two body problem? Specifically: How did you guys prepare for the unknown while waiting to hear back from graduate schools? Was it difficult to find a suitable job by August? What were some challenges you ran into and how could I attempt to prepare for them?

So, I worked with a POI a couple of summers ago and we have a pretty good relationship (he also wrote one of my LORs), but I received this email the other day: "Did you apply just to Bioengineering at UCSD or also the BMS program?" And that was basically it. Is he saying that I'm probably not going to get into Bioengineering, so hopefully I applied to another program as well? Ah, I hate waiting.