aberrant

See if this can make you feel better. My first (lab) presentation was far worse than yours since I rotated in a lab that does interesting things but I have zero background in that field. Here is the bottom line -- this PI told me that I was "clearly not prepared" and "clearly wasting our times" so "why don't you wrap this up". Long story short, I know that same thing won't happen twice, especially on things that I'm much more familiar with (or with basic knowledge.) So I didn't dwell on it for long. There are many good advice here that you can follow... although I prefer semi-freestyle with my presentation after (relatively) carefully making my slides. Just be open-minded and let yourself make mistakes. I always encourage my audience to correct mistakes that I have made during my presentations. That's just another way to learn (the topic and your presentation skills), besides finding friends/housemates to do multiple mock presentations/trials.

That. 1 on 1 kinda meeting -- ask the speaker if he/she kind enough to comment on your work (especially if one is in the same field.) Have him/her to ask questions about your research or vice-versa. Lunch/dinner -- talk about science / things that they are interested in. Just keep it simply and network with the speaker. Sharing stories is always a great way to maintain the dynamic as a group, generally speaking.

Curriculum of a program, faculty members in the program and their research. Ranking might give you a general idea but it never really is an absolutely accurate reference.

Not sure if it fits in (and too late to suggest) but a quick summary (take home messages) at the very end will be very helpful. Also, try to put more figures and less texts on your presentation. Keep it simple is always better imo. A rule that you can follow is limit yourself with 7 items per slide. An "item" can be the title, a figure, or a sentence. The rest is kinda summed up in TakeruK's post

That actually depends on the field of study, and sometimes, depends on the member (of the adcom) who reviews an applicant's profile. Some field is a lot easier to get published than the other (e.g. organic synthesis (chemistry) can get published in months, whereas structural biology may years, depends on the topic.) I'm not sure what do you mean by "author in a major conference". Assuming your research has been published in a journal, and you presented your published research in that conference, then there are 2 things going on: 1. you published, and 2. your presented. In terms of publication, some adcom members only concern whether an applicant's publication has a high impact factor (e.g. Science, Nature, etc.), while some others care less about the impact factor and more about the position (contribution) of your name in a publication, other than the quality of the manuscript. It depends on a lot of factors, including but not limited to how the reviewer found him/herself familiar with the applicant's background / research (e.g. an evolution biologist may not know who's "hot" or "big" in higher energy physics research.) If you were the main contributor in that research project, that you want to have them aware of that. Give credit where credit due, you deserve every bit of your recognition if majority of the published work was yours. ps. Based on the same logic, having a 1st author publication that is totally rubbish will not help ones chances for admission. that's why sometimes grad school admission is rather "unpredictable".

You definitely want to let them know that you are in the U.S. and are available for in-person interview. I don't think a skype or in-person interviews affect ones chances much, but obviously, the latter one allows the program to have more time and evaluate you as an applicant (other than face-to-face, 1-on-1 interview.)

If I were you, I would wait until next year when you have completed more chemistry and biology classes that required for your interested programs and boosted your GPA. After all, those classes are freshman / sophomore classes for the majors. It may also be a great idea to prepare for your GRE now, too. Edited: you want more things / accomplishment under your belt and an upward trend of your GPA. you should also consider taking graduate level classes when opportunities come.

Just came back from a conference, and I totally agreed with cleverfool. It's more about what you know than where you are graduated from. Graduated from an ivy might get you more interviews, but that does not guarantee you a job offer. After all, scientists are generally realistic -- with a degree in <insert the name of a subject here>, if one can't even perform a <insert a fundamental experiment routinely use in the same subject>, this person's degree is useless, no matter how prestige the program is.

What kind of research did you / do you do in the past 3 years? Are your publications in print, in review, or something? Your GPA really hurts your chance and I would like to believe that publications that are published would mean something, depends on where you are in the author list. I know 1 person who has a sub-3.0 GPA who got into TSRI / Scripps, but that's a special case. I don't think that taking a 1-year master program will help you much if you're applying Biophysics/Biochemistry. You might as well take more relevant classes to boost your GPA and continue with your research. Try taking relevant graduate level courses and do well in them -- they may be helpful to you in a long run especially if you're determined to go to grad school. ps. a 2-year master (thesis) would be another option if money isn't a problem

To be brutally honest, I personally thought that your numbers are not out standing for local applicants. While these stats is just one of the criteria for graduate school admission (and also the competitiveness of the programs varies their bars). you may want to consider your alternative options just in case if things don't work out for you.

You may want to talk to the admission office / graduate admission / whoever has the knowledge of the historical statistics in this regard. My former PI would tell me the same thing, but the truth is even though this PI was (and still is) on the admission committee, this PI may / may not know the competitiveness for the application pool (international students in particular). I agreed that your scores are good, yet I think it can be great if you can boost your GRE AW score and TOEFL iBT (your GRE verbal is excellent, and your GRE quant is fine.) If money is an issue for you, then perhaps you don't want to waste your money just to boost your scores a little bit. You do need to find a way to do more research while you're waiting for grad school application though....

I thought it depends on your PI. But I personally don't think it's a good idea to ask them such question until you are accepted for admission, or even accepted the offer.

exactly. you'll need to drive 110/I-5 or I-5/110 depends which school you visit first. it'll be about 1 hour to get to the city (one-way). the train station at Irvine (Amtrak) isn't extremely close to Irvine campus anyway so you'll need a cab / car to commute the station and the campus.

i believe that's the way it works for graduate school in Canada. If 1 professor accepted you to his/her lab, then the program will accept you. You may consider this as unofficially accepted, but you'll still need to fill out the paperwork, application, and whatnot.

This is my perspective (as an former international applicant, who was out of school for 2 years and research and etc.) assuming you have strong SOP/PS and LOR, just like everybody else. 1. GRE AW score doesn't mean much, but it can be detrimental to your application if you have a low score. Therefore you should retake it and get at least a 3.5 (ps. it's less about english grammar but more about critical thinking and reasoning). 2. I would say you need at least a 105 in IBT in order to be considered by Cal and Stanford 3. 1 year research experience is minimal if it was a full-time research. You should consider working in a lab now and accumulate more (hopepfully independent) research experience. What kind of seminar presentation? Who are the audience? The department from your school? A regional meeting? Doesn't mean much unless you can put it in your CV and consider it as a professional activity. 4. If your "volunteering , extracurricular experience" are not related to chemistry, they may not be helpful. 5. While I sympathize your situation, I don't think it's a legit justification for having a downward trend of your GPA (as Quantum Buckyball mentioned.) You might have hope to get into any school by compensating with a almost-perfect GRE subject score; or else, I won't be optimistic about your chance to get into top-tier schools with your stats -- being an international applicant. 6. You may have a better shot for these schools if they offer a MS program and if you go to their MS program first. What you should also realize is that who you will work with means more than where do you go to school. Therefore, you should consider schools that are not "top-tier" (labeled by some subjective rankings) that do good research with good/great researchers. And that's just my 2 cents.

If you, somehow, know the number of the Chemistry students admitted and accepted the offer from Cal for Fall 2012, then it may help. In Fall 2009, Cal has 52 (or 53) new PhD students and only ~2 of them are international students (not that it matters). Considered Cal is definitely one of the top programs in Chemistry, if the number drops for Fall 2012, then you know that the budget cut does make a difference, regardless how big / small the impact is. ps. And I graduated from another UC. Top or not -- that depends on the field of study, not so much about the reputation from the general perception.

That's not entirely true, especially for science PhD programs. If anything, schools from California are tougher to get in nowadays due to the budget cut, such that many programs are shrinking their sizes and accept fewer students, and that includes many science programs. However, to anyone who is applying UCSF - you might as well applying to other top tier bio programs in the country, considered how competitive it is to be accepted to UCSF.

I might be unclear on my logic so apologize for any confusion. When I'm new to a material / reagent that I have to prepare, I personally would record the weight and color (if applicable, partly due to my former practice as a chemist) of each material, amount of materials that I need to make the reagent that I want. Those numbers should be exact (e.g. some molar of NaCl in a 1 L buffer should be ##.## g of NaCl.) In terms of writing up a protocol, the concentration / numbers change while optimizing it. But usually people (or my former lab) has a "standard protocol" -- a template where we start off with, and tweak here and there until we are happy with it (by happy, it means we get what we want. e.g. purify a protein). So, when a protocol is developed, those numbers (e.g. reagent use) don't change. Mainly because I would prepare a large amount of a reagent at once (i.e. buffer) as 1 prep probably consumes quite a lot of it, therefore, the exact amount of reagents that I use are relatively less important as long as it agrees with the "sig. fig." And this is what I mean. For example, if I want 1 L Buffer X to be a 0.2 M Salt A, 50 mM Buffer X at pH 7.5, then it is okay that the reagent we use is not exactly 32.155 g of Salt A, 75.01 g of Buffer X (solid), adjust the pH to 7.500, then add ddH2O up to 1 L. I think there is always some uncertainty in these measurements, hence the condition of this buffer (in terms of sig. fig) "sort of" take care of it. As a result, each time I prepare a buffer, I can't really say it is exactly the same because I might just have 32.105 g of Salt A this time, and then 32.133 g next time. However, the Salt A concentration of this buffer should still be 0.2 M though. (In other words, 0.19 / 0.21M = close enough for us). I'm pretty sure this cannot be the case for some other fields, particularly synthetic people (whether organic or inorganic) since the system that we are dealing with are totally different (in terms of how one system / reaction would react to a slight changes on some sort of factor(s)). So my essay could ultimately be saying the same thing as you said lol. In my field, I don't think it is a common practice to put down a specific time daily, especially when you get used to an experiment that you have to do it all the time... (the amount of time an experiment needs to perform would be in a protocol, though.) TL;DR -- depends on the field, I guess :\

My answer would still be the same. I would only copy any experimental procedure onces and refer to that page in the future (plus a side note for modification). For the reason that modification of protocols is pretty often in what my field, therefore I prefer to make updates in my electronic research lab notebook, which is a whole lot easier to edit (and share to other lab members, if necessary).

I prefer a electronic version of my lab notebook for it is easier to organize and make it readable (I don't have good handwriting). Hence I personally don't really care what my "actual" lab notebook is, for it's just for me to bullet point my plan for the day, or put down the data that I have in scramble.

I don't think biotechnology PhD is big in the U.S. you may consider programs in East Asia countries tho.

I wouldn't put a private school where scientific research isn't their forte on the list.

I'm not sure if you aware how difficult it is to get a lab tech position as a person without any research experience PLUS being an international student (or non-resident). For the complicated paperwork and processes, it is extremely unlikely to have an international student (who did not get his/her bachelor degree in the U.S.) to get a lab tech position in the U.S (not to mention the experience issue). As a result, your lab tech suggestion is true and valid for many cases, but definitely not for foreign applicants. Bottom line is this -- if you are not a resident in the U.S., to get a job in the U.S. you will need 1. a bachelor degree (why? to apply) 2. a working VISA. 3. you need to show that you are financially independent, or that you have money to support yourself for a certain amount of time. However, noticed that without getting an official offer (here, a lab tech position), chances of getting a working VISA is almost impossible. So yea -- you need money and qualification to make some tiny money (I would't expect any PI would pay a lot for a lab tech, unless he/she is qualified / overqualified). I got my bachelor degree in a big state school after being on-and-off from school. I never considered applying the MS program at my school only because I do not have any money for the MS program. Hence I just applied PhD programs and got in somewhere. Imho, going into a MS program for ANY students who did not have previous research experience is almost always the best option -- not only you learn how and what to do in research, but you also (legitimately) take classes and put it under your belt (for job or grad school application, if necessary), you get TA experience which will be helpful, just a fewer things more than being a lab tech. If the OP can get a free ride for his MS, I don't see why shouldn't he go for it.

Isn't that what normal people do when they find something that they have passion to do? Not sure if "makes you feel good enough" part is true tho. Some people often get out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves, like Richard Feynman.