liddy

Not speaking English is unlikely to be a problem at a Max Planck- most good German departments will have a big international component and do most everything in English because of it.
 
3 years for a PhD can seem like a pro, but has its issues... A 3 year PhD is part of the reason some Americans look down on European PhD's- it is not realistic to think you will receive equivalent training in 3 years as you would in a typical 5-6 year American PhD. This is less of an issue for Germans because of how their system is set up. Essentially all Germans would do a 2-year masters in their field before a PhD. Then the PhD does not include any coursework, rotations, qualifying exam, etc. The German master's sort of corresponds to the first 2 years of an American PhD program- which is obviously time-saving to skip, but may not be the greatest idea as far as your training is concerned.
 
Rotations are also an extreme rarity in Germany, so if you went there you'd likely be committed to work with this one specific person. That could go great, but if it doesn't, you have very little back up plan, and living in a foreign country where you have minimal connections, established support network, friends, understanding of how their system is set up, is not going to make that easier.

Doing a rotation with a lab that doesn't have funding for new students really only makes sense if: 1) you have already found a lab you want to join, that is able to take you, and 2) the lab without funding does some method or works on some topic that is very appealing to you and is also unique enough you could not learn it in a different lab in your program that could actually take you. Picking up skills during a rotation is nice, but you will likely do this in any lab- until you have one or two viable thesis lab options it is best to limit your rotations to labs accepting students.

Searching for how much grant funding they have is actually quite easy.
 
For NIH (biomed specific) grants, go to:
http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm
and you can search by PI
 
For NSF (basic research, not as obviously medically linked, go here:
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/advancedSearch.jsp
and again you can search by PI
 
Obviously, there are other funding sources (especially HHMI, but that is just a matter of whether they are a HHMI investigator or not, and again easily searchable on the HHMI website), but for Micro/Immuno, those two (especially NIH) will be the biggies.

Your GRE verbal is fine, the quantitative is quite low (most programs want the equivalent of 700+ in the old system). Your undergrad GPA is fine, although not impressive.

When I interviewed at Micro programs, I got the impression that while a few really selected for high GPA/GRE, others didn't really care as long as they didn't fall below some threshhold the program considered alarmingly low. Programs that posted things like average GPA/GRE scores of their students (not many do) typically were in we consider GPA/GRE important group.

But no matter what, the GPA/GRE never seemd to be deciding factors- they apparently could keep you out if atrocious, but never got anyone in. At every program I interviewed at, by far the most important factor seemed to be research experience - having meaningful research experience, being able to write and speak coherently about it, and having letters from your supervisors saying that you did a bang-up job during said research experience. And bang-up job does not have to mean publications- I had none and was consistently told I had amazing letters. Most profs seemed very impressed that I worked independently and not under a grad student or postdoc, so maybe you could emphasize that you ran micro dept in the enviro lab and presumably had some degree of autonomy...

Your GRE verbal is fine, the quantitative is quite low (most programs want the equivalent of 700+ in the old system). Your undergrad GPA is fine, although not impressive.

When I interviewed at Micro programs, I got the impression that while a few really selected for high GPA/GRE, others didn't really care as long as they didn't fall below some threshhold the program considered alarmingly low. Programs that posted things like average GPA/GRE scores of their students (not many do) typically were in we consider GPA/GRE important group.

But no matter what, the GPA/GRE never seemd to be deciding factors- they apparently could keep you out if atrocious, but never got anyone in. At every program I interviewed at, by far the most important factor seemed to be research experience - having meaningful research experience, being able to write and speak coherently about it, and having letters from your supervisors saying that you did a bang-up job during said research experience. And bang-up job does not have to mean publications- I had none and was consistently told I had amazing letters. Most profs seemed very impressed that I worked independently and not under a grad student or postdoc, so maybe you could emphasize that you ran micro dept in the enviro lab and presumably had some degree of autonomy...