[Recommender still hasn't responded]

Thanks guys! I sent my third reminder to both email addresses of the professor on Tuesday but still get no reply. I guess I will just wait until the deadline. 

[Recommender still hasn't responded]

5 hours ago, GreenEyedTrombonist said:

How long until the letter is due? If it's not due for a while the prof might just be focusing on other things. It's also possible that they don't check their email as often during the break or are currently away for a vacation despite usually being available. I'd send a follow-up just asking for confirmation they got it if you go a week or so without a response.

One is due in one week and the rest of them are due at the end of the month.

[Recommender still hasn't responded]

I asked the professor for a reference letter for summer positions I'm apply to before the winter break and he said yes without any hesitation. At that time I didn't have the list of positions so I asked him if it were okay for me to send him the list over the break and he said it is totally fine. He also said he is generally not busy in January and it doesn't take him much time to write an letter since he knows me well. But the thing is, I sent him the email five days ago and he still hasn't replied. I even forwarded the email to his other email address yesterday. I'm in a foreign country right now, so I can't go to his office or call him. And it is kinda late to ask other professor. I don't think my email ended up in the spam because I was sending from my school email address to his school email address.  I was wondering if it is possible that the professor suddenly decided not to write the letter and is indicating it by not responding to the email? Or should I be patient and wait a few more days? 

 

[Prospective computational biology/genetics]

On 1/4/2017 at 10:38 PM, Oddich55 said:

Will it make you look bad? Nope. To be honest, you have more math and computational background than I do and in this current application cycle I'm getting interviews at Columbia, Yale and Cornell, to put things in perspective. I know several people from previous years get into Comp Bio programs with almost no Biology knowledge - so you shouldn't have a problem. 

Comp Bio is a cross disciplinary field. Got to know a lot for it. Don't worry about "starting late". I started research my junior year, and currently have 4 papers out, with 1 first author - with another 4-5 projects that can turn into papers. Show off what research you have and get involved. Present at conferences, etc. grad schools care more that you know what you're getting yourself into than if you took microbio or not (I never did).

General rule of thumb- aim for 160+ for both Quantitative and Verbal. I'm applying with a 166Q and 160V and it seems to be fine. 

All in all, I would say the best thing to do to boost your chances is do research. Don't worry about the classes. Don't stress too much about the GRE (practice though). Focus on research.

Are you applying directly from undergrad? You are really productive! Thank you for your answer!

[Prospective computational biology/genetics]

Hi guys, 

This is my first time posting on this forum. I'm a junior looking to apply to grad school this fall. I'm mostly interested in the intersection of computational biology and molecular biology, i.e. I'm not a big fan of benchwork, but I want to have some wet lab component in my future grad school research because I don't want to spend all my time sitting in front of computer. Currently I'm a biological sciences major, but I've taken stats, probability, linear algebra and multivariable calculus and three computer science classes (2 programming + 1 theory). I'm about to start a research that is purely computational biology (no wet lab involved). I had a significant summer research involving wet lab and my last research at school is computation biology but not very sophisticated as I didn't have much knowledge back then. 

I think I'm most likely to apply to biological sciences programs that offer the option to focus on computational biology but I realized that I actually don't have a lot of traditional biology classes like microbiology under my belt, although I'm expecting to take higher level/grad level genetics classes. I wonder if this situation will make me look bad since after all, I'm applying to a biology program?

My other concern is that I started my computational biology research relatively late because I have to accumulate cs/math knowledge before I can get in one. Will that be a disadvantage?

My last question is how important is GRE score especially verbal? I'm not concerned my quantitative part, but I've read that the average verbalxscore for top tier biological sciences programs are really high. 

Any input will be much appreciated!!! Thank you so much for your help!