nevg

BassAZ, you are completely right in all your statements. Tufts and BU have excellent programs but I realize there is a greater possibility of getting into those programs than say into Harvard or Stanford. I didn't mean to devaluate a program's prestige by calling it a safety school, I think my terminology got stuck from when I was applying to college. By safety I mean a program that I would be very likely to get into, although I know there is never an absolute guarantee. My fear is that I am aiming to high and will be rejected from all the programs I want to apply to; I know it happens sometimes. I need to know what programs would even consider as a competitive applicant and that is what I really what I am calling a "safety" and "match" school. Thanks for your input!

Hey all, I will be applying to grad school next year and I am trying to narrow down my choices. I have an overall 3.6 GPA from a top 5 school in the US and a 3.7 GPA in my biology major. By the time I apply to grad school I will have over 3 and a half years of research experience in a single lab, but I am unsure if I will be published by then. Also, I still have to take the GRE. My top choices include: Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, MIT, Harvard, Scripps, UC San Diego, Rockefeller, Cornell, and Duke. My more realistic choices are UCLA and Chapel Hill, while my safeties are Tufts and Boston University. I am not sure if UCLA is really a realistic choice, though. Can anyone recommend some schools with strong molecular or cell biology programs that I am likely to get into? I would prefer for them to be either in the west or east coasts and to be close to other research institutions. I would greatly appreciate it