Hey guys I posted here a couple weeks ago(link to post below) with no idea and direction on what kind of an applicant I am but you all gave me some great feedback! After a lot of careful evaluation and looking at my current research interests and future goals, I have decided I will be applying for Biostats PhD's.
I recently just had a publication accepted to a biology journal! I worked on the statistical analysis and genomic data visualization in this paper. By December I might have 1-2 more potential papers being published too with this same group. At the moment though, will this publication help me for applications? I am looking to go to a program like MD Anderson, Vanderbilt, Columbia, or NYU, and am also going to apply to a couple of the top 5 programs to see if I get lucky.
Something I forgot to mention in my previous post: My freshman year was pretty terrible. I finished calc 1 with a B, and calc 2 with a C (retook it the summer after freshman year and got an A) and finished the year with a cumulative 3.3 GPA. However, after freshman year I have been getting only 4.0's every semester which includes my upper level math and CS classes and am up to a 3.8 now. Will my freshman year grades hurt my admissions chances or will they look over it because of my improvement?