Hello! I was hoping to get a review for my application for PhD program.
Student Type: Canadian Male
Education: Bachelor's Degree in Medical Physics from one of Canada's top 10 universities
GPA: 4.0
Research: 1 year of research (summer + school year) in hyperpolarized MRI. Got an internship position in Germany afterwards in the same field. Continued corresponding with German group after the summer to get the manuscript ready. Did a Bachelor's thesis applying mathematical and physics-based modelling to EEG data. Current research lies in spiking neural networks and biologically plausible learning algorithms. (Overall I have ~2.5 years of sustained research experience)
Awards: Most notable is that I graduated with the highest standing average (calculated in percent) across the entire Faculty of Science at my school (a cohort of ~1000 students) and therefore I led the academic procession at my convocation. Several Canadian research awards and grants. A German research grant. Several international learning awards. Several awards due to academic performance.
Publications: 1 co-first author publication in Nature Communications with the German group. 1 manuscript (also first author) in progress.
Letters of Recommendation: 4 letters. Three of them are from supervisors I've directly worked under, one from a professor I am close with and performed above and beyond the requirements in her course.
Other experience: Fluent in Python and Matlab.
Extra-curriculars: Part of the committee (for 2 years) which ran an annual conference for undergraduates in physics to present their work.
Schools I am applying to: Stanford, MIT, Chicago, UCSF, UT Austin, Duke. I still am looking for supervisors at "safety" schools that I'd be interested in working with. Also may apply to a couple of other top universities (if I find supervisors I find intriguing).
I'm open to any criticism as well as school/supervisor suggestions!
Thank you!