jd921

To find a job in a hospital look at MS degrees in more clinically oriented stuff. There are certainly opportunities outside the lab/research with a PhD but honestly you'll be looking at making ~40k/year after graduating for some time, doing postdocs, working in a lab. You could make that amount or more with an MS in a biomedical field in a hospital job (or a Research Associate position after 4 or 5 years in the lab). I'd only pursue the PhD if you know you want research to be the majority of your career, and the MS if you want to remain more flexible and have a higher chance of jumping to industry/hospital work.

Thanks for the info! I didn't know UW was such a stickler for GRE scores...but with my lower gpa (from an avg. state school, nothing special haha) I need all the help I can get I think. I'm mostly banking on my LoR's, research exp. and personal statement making more of an impact that my 2 numbers...just getting through the initial screening is my worry. @Virion Yup I'm at OHSU, not too many other Virology opportunities in Oregon haha.

Hi everyone, I'll be applying this Fall 2012 for PhD programs, looking for Virology but I'm going to focus on molecular bio/immunology also since most programs don't have a designated Virology unit. Does anyone know where I can find some avg. GRE/GPA stats for students accepted to some of these programs? I'm looking at: Safety/Backup: OHSU Competitive: University of Washington Reach: UCSF, Harvard, etc. My stats: GRE - 560V/670Q/5.0 GPA - 3.36 Exp - 2 years Research Assistant in a major Virology lab, no papers yet but one (as a co-author) going to be submitted soon. Any other major programs that have a good amount of Virology research going on that you could recommend? Thanks!

Hi, good luck on your MD/PhD applications. I need some clarification though, are asking: a) if you are are admitted to MD/PhD and THEN decide you want the PhD only, could you stay in your thesis lab to complete your degree? If this is the case, typically you'd have completed the first 2 years of medical school and then yes, you could just stay and complete your PhD if you've already started it. if you are asking if you want to do a PhD instead of applying to MD/PhD and want to make the lab you're currently working in your thesis lab, then yes you'll still have to apply to the PhD program, rotate through labs and then hopefully the lab you're working in would pick you as a graduate student to do your thesis there. Sorry if I misunderstood your question, but I hope that helps!