2023 Computational Biology/Bioinformatics/Systems Biology PhD Admissions

[melch]

Undergraduate: BSc (Immunology, Pharmacology) @ University of Sydney

First Masters: MPhil Medicine (cancer research) @ University of Sydney

Second Masters: MSc Bioinformatics @ Johns Hopkins University

 

Minority status: International, female, Asian

 

Relevant work experience and achievements:
(1) Graduate intern at Stanford University (cancer bioinformatics) - ongoing

(2) Founder of a digital health startup

(3) Involvement in wet-bench cancer research for ~3 years

(4) One manuscript, one review, one poster

(5) Oncology research consultant

 

Programs of interest (in descending order):

1. Stanford Biosciences (Biomedical Informatics, Genetics, Cancer Biology)
2. Harvard HILS (BIG)
3. Harvard-MIT HST MEMP
4. UC Berkeley (BCB)
5. MIT CSB
6. Tri-I CBM (backup plan)

 

Questions:
(1) Are any of the programs/schools "off-limits" for international students?

(2) Should I cast my net wider? Is my profile competitive enough for the aforementioned programs?

 

 

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by melch

[Henry13579]

Hi! I am a PhD student in bioinformatics in one of the top 20 schools in the States. 
I am an Asian male with a biomedical background, no permanent residence, not LGBT, with no governmental funding from my home country.
I applied only to the top half of Ivy (including on-par schools like Stanford and UCSF) for the first round and failed, and got an offer from an okay school in my second round.

Short answers to your question:
1. Yes, nearly all of them are hard for internationals.
2. Yes for the first one; no for the second question.

Some of your disadvantages of your CV include:

1. Not in the domestic pool: 
Unfortunately, it is extremely hard for internationals to get a PhD in bioinformatics in the States, since most of bioinformatics programs receive training grants not available for internationals without permanent residence.

The first thing that I would say is try not apply to the bioinformatics programs that receive NIH/NLM training grants:
https://www.nigms.nih.gov/training/instpredoc/pages/PredocInst-Bioinformatics.aspx
U Arizona, UCSD, UCSF, Georgia Tech, JHU, BU, MIT,  Duke, UNC, Brown
Harvard BIG usually does not take many internationals as well. 
Penn GCB, Stanford Biomedical informatics are difficult for internationals as well.
Many Chinese people get in Yale computational biology and bioinformatics by getting China Scholarship Council - Yale World Scholars Program, but you have to be nominated by these 9 Chinese top universities.

Sometimes these schools have 1-2 positions supported by private foundations, and you can try the chances of winning lottery.

See. The top 20 are almost there.
 

2. Not coming from a quantitative background
Bioinformatics is a field reigned by computational people, and they prefer people from engineering/math/physics/CS backgrounds.
Taking a bioinfo master means that one can either do simple bioinfo analysis, or create a simple package; for Bioinformatics professors, however, this credential is far below an applied math/statistics/physics degree with a perfect GPA with no project experiences, unless you have something like lead authorships in Nature Genetics/Nature Biotechnology/Nature Biomedical Engineering. 

3. Wet bench experiences are good for personal training and for your career, but to Bioinfo professors these could be distractions.
It's okay to talk about how you become interested in bioinformatics because of bench work, but try not to talk like a bench expert who wants to master both.

Last but not least, Asians are usually not considered as minorities in academia in the States, but it is okay to talk about women in STEM.

I would also recommend you to try Oxbridge and other European top schools, which tend to care more about the potentials of people. 

Try to apply for more schools, get great recommendation letters, and establish connections with professors (also try direct admission offer).  Good luck.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Henry13579

[melch]

On 8/28/2022 at 5:26 AM, Henry13579 said:

Hi! I am a PhD student in bioinformatics in one of the top 20 schools in the States. 
I am an Asian male with a biomedical background, no permanent residence, not LGBT, with no governmental funding from my home country.
I applied only to the top half of Ivy (including on-par schools like Stanford and UCSF) for the first round and failed, and got an offer from an okay school in my second round.

Short answers to your question:
1. Yes, nearly all of them are hard for internationals.
2. Yes for the first one; no for the second question.

Some of your disadvantages of your CV include:

1. Not in the domestic pool: 
Unfortunately, it is extremely hard for internationals to get a PhD in bioinformatics in the States, since most of bioinformatics programs receive training grants not available for internationals without permanent residence.

The first thing that I would say is try not apply to the bioinformatics programs that receive NIH/NLM training grants:
https://www.nigms.nih.gov/training/instpredoc/pages/PredocInst-Bioinformatics.aspx
U Arizona, UCSD, UCSF, Georgia Tech, JHU, BU, MIT,  Duke, UNC, Brown
Harvard BIG usually does not take many internationals as well. 
Penn GCB, Stanford Biomedical informatics are difficult for internationals as well.
Many Chinese people get in Yale computational biology and bioinformatics by getting China Scholarship Council - Yale World Scholars Program, but you have to be nominated by these 9 Chinese top universities.

Sometimes these schools have 1-2 positions supported by private foundations, and you can try the chances of winning lottery.

See. The top 20 are almost there.
 

2. Not coming from a quantitative background
Bioinformatics is a field reigned by computational people, and they prefer people from engineering/math/physics/CS backgrounds.
Taking a bioinfo master means that one can either do simple bioinfo analysis, or create a simple package; for Bioinformatics professors, however, this credential is far below an applied math/statistics/physics degree with a perfect GPA with no project experiences, unless you have something like lead authorships in Nature Genetics/Nature Biotechnology/Nature Biomedical Engineering. 

3. Wet bench experiences are good for personal training and for your career, but to Bioinfo professors these could be distractions.
It's okay to talk about how you become interested in bioinformatics because of bench work, but try not to talk like a bench expert who wants to master both.

Last but not least, Asians are usually not considered as minorities in academia in the States, but it is okay to talk about women in STEM.

I would also recommend you to try Oxbridge and other European top schools, which tend to care more about the potentials of people. 

Try to apply for more schools, get great recommendation letters, and establish connections with professors (also try direct admission offer).  Good luck.

Hello Henry, 

Thank you for your comments. May I know which program are you in?

I've updated my list of target schools:
- Stanford (BMI, genetics)
- Harvard (BIG, SSQBio, BBS)
- MIT (CSB, Bio)
- Princeton QCB
- Columbia Biomedical Informatics
- NYU Vilcek 
- UPenn 
- Carnegie Mellon Biological Sciences
- Scripps Skaggs-Oxford
- Rice University

Do you think my list of schools suffice or should I apply for more? Aside from Stanford, I think the remaining schools have a fair percentage of international admissions.

While I do not have a quantitative background, I'm extensively involved in a deep learning project at Stanford University and will have a publication on the topic by Dec 2022 prior to grad school interview. I also have near-perfect GPA for my MS in Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins University.

Are there any direct admissions for PhD programs? How to apply for direct admissions?
 

 

[compbio-wal]

On 9/5/2022 at 12:39 PM, melch said:

Hello Henry, 

Thank you for your comments. May I know which program are you in?

I've updated my list of target schools:
- Stanford (BMI, genetics)
- Harvard (BIG, SSQBio, BBS)
- MIT (CSB, Bio)
- Princeton QCB
- Columbia Biomedical Informatics
- NYU Vilcek 
- UPenn 
- Carnegie Mellon Biological Sciences
- Scripps Skaggs-Oxford
- Rice University

Do you think my list of schools suffice or should I apply for more? Aside from Stanford, I think the remaining schools have a fair percentage of international admissions.

While I do not have a quantitative background, I'm extensively involved in a deep learning project at Stanford University and will have a publication on the topic by Dec 2022 prior to grad school interview. I also have near-perfect GPA for my MS in Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins University.

Are there any direct admissions for PhD programs? How to apply for direct admissions?
 

 

Based on what I know, the international students who got admitted from those top programs mostly had very strong backgrounds such as top journal (PNAS, GR or NC...or even higher...) first author publications, Phi Beta Kappa in ivy leagues, very strong recommendations from big names or someone with strong connections...but in fact quit many of them still could not land on those top programs eventually...

when you are applying for those programs, you will face direct competition with them, but deep learning project, graduate intern or near-perfect GPA for master program in my personal view are far not stella enough when compared them. 

the harder way is to stay few more years trying to become one of them and wishing your first author project would be published on top journals, and off course, the easier way is to avoid directly competing with them...

[M-A-Maher]

This is my second round of applying; I applied last year but got all rejections. 
I am an international student who has a bachelor's degree in biomedical sciences, Computational Biology, and genomics concentration. 
I graduated from ABET accredited University in Egypt.
GPA 3.57/4.00 with Honors.
One publication in Scientific reports based on my Bachelor thesis, first author with equal contribution. 

8 months of experience in the Biotech industry as an R&D bioinformatician. 
No GRE, 7.5 IELTS. 
Courses in Undergraduate studies: 
Basic biology courses plus: Molecular biology, comparative biology, Developmental biology, structural biology, Human genome, and disease. 
Basic chemistry courses plus: Analytical and Physical chemistry
Calculus 1 and 2, Linear algebra, Discrete Math, Numerical analysis, and Biostatistics. 
Introduction to programming, Data Science, Systems biology, Bioinformatics, Data Structure, and Algorithms for Computational Biology

I have 3 strong recommendations, and I submitted 4 recommendations in some of them. 

My list: 
Virginia Tech:   Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology
University of Tennessee in Knoxville: Ph.D. in Genome tech
Brown university: Ph.D. in Computational Biology
Cornell:  Computational Biology PhD
Emory: Genetics and Molecular Biology Ph.D. with Computational Biology concentration
University of Rochester: Biostatistics 
Dartmouth University: Quantitative Biomedical Sciences Program
Boston University: Ph.D. of Bioinformatics
Yale University: Ph.D. in biological and biomedical sciences, Computational Biology, and Bioinformatics
Delaware: Bioinformatics Data Science PhD
Georgia Tech:  Bioinformatics (Biology) PhD
Pittsburgh (Carnegie Mellon): Pittsburgh - Carnegie Mellon Joint program in Computational Biology

Can Someone reflect on my List, and please share your list maybe we have commons

[Boolakanaka]

7 hours ago, M-A-Maher said:

This is my second round of applying; I applied last year but got all rejections. 
I am an international student who has a bachelor's degree in biomedical sciences, Computational Biology, and genomics concentration. 
I graduated from ABET accredited University in Egypt.
GPA 3.57/4.00 with Honors.
One publication in Scientific reports based on my Bachelor thesis, first author with equal contribution. 

8 months of experience in the Biotech industry as an R&D bioinformatician. 
No GRE, 7.5 IELTS. 
Courses in Undergraduate studies: 
Basic biology courses plus: Molecular biology, comparative biology, Developmental biology, structural biology, Human genome, and disease. 
Basic chemistry courses plus: Analytical and Physical chemistry
Calculus 1 and 2, Linear algebra, Discrete Math, Numerical analysis, and Biostatistics. 
Introduction to programming, Data Science, Systems biology, Bioinformatics, Data Structure, and Algorithms for Computational Biology

I have 3 strong recommendations, and I submitted 4 recommendations in some of them. 

My list: 
Virginia Tech:   Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology
University of Tennessee in Knoxville: Ph.D. in Genome tech
Brown university: Ph.D. in Computational Biology
Cornell:  Computational Biology PhD
Emory: Genetics and Molecular Biology Ph.D. with Computational Biology concentration
University of Rochester: Biostatistics 
Dartmouth University: Quantitative Biomedical Sciences Program
Boston University: Ph.D. of Bioinformatics
Yale University: Ph.D. in biological and biomedical sciences, Computational Biology, and Bioinformatics
Delaware: Bioinformatics Data Science PhD
Georgia Tech:  Bioinformatics (Biology) PhD
Pittsburgh (Carnegie Mellon): Pittsburgh - Carnegie Mellon Joint program in Computational Biology

Can Someone reflect on my List, and please share your list maybe we have commons

Hmmmn, no University of Washington?  Its my understanding it is one of the premier programs?

[M-A-Maher]

8 hours ago, Boolakanaka said:

Hmmmn, no University of Washington?  Its my understanding it is one of the premier programs?

I choose those based on (Program, Location, previous Egyptians there, and fee waiver) 
I hope i get into one of those :" 

[northeast_hopeful]

Hi everyone,

This is my first round of applying. Senior year undergraduate student at a public university. 3.98 GPA, two publications (one co-first author, one co-second author). About 2.5 years of research experience + goldwater scholarship. I'm applying to 19 schools (yep its a lot haha). The programs are:

- MIT CSB

- Harvard BIG

- UW Genome Sciences

- Stanford BMI

- University of Washington DBBS

- Yale CCB

- Weill Cornell Tri-I

- Brown Comp Bio

- UPenn GCB

- CMU Pitt Joint Comp Bio

- UNC Chapel Hill BBSP

- Caltech Bioengineering

- Rutgers Molecular Biosciences

- UCSF 

- UCLA

- UC Berkeley

- Duke CBB

- UCSD

- Princeton QCB

Goodluck to everyone, very stressful times ahead. We should know about some interviews/rejections this upcoming week. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by northeast_hopeful

[northeast_hopeful]

Received an interview invitation from UNC BBSP on the 10th. Really excited!

[Mrahcdlo]

Did you hear anything from Princeton?

[melch]

17 hours ago, northeast_hopeful said:

Hi everyone,

This is my first round of applying. Senior year undergraduate student at a public university. 3.98 GPA, two publications (one co-first author, one co-second author). About 2.5 years of research experience + goldwater scholarship. I'm applying to 19 schools (yep its a lot haha). The programs are:

- MIT CSB

- Harvard BIG

- UW Genome Sciences

- Stanford BMI

- University of Washington DBBS

- Yale CCB

- Weill Cornell Tri-I

- Brown Comp Bio

- UPenn GCB

- CMU Pitt Joint Comp Bio

- UNC Chapel Hill BBSP

- Caltech Bioengineering

- Rutgers Molecular Biosciences

- UCSF 

- UCLA

- UC Berkeley

- Duke CBB

- UCSD

- Princeton QCB

Goodluck to everyone, very stressful times ahead. We should know about some interviews/rejections this upcoming week. 

Hi 

 

We have several overlaps. I ended up applying for 15 programs:
- Stanford Genetics/BMI
- Harvard BIG, BBS, 
- MIT CSB, Biology
- Princeton QCB
- Yale CBB
- Columbia BMI
- Tri-Institutional CBM
- Skaggs-Oxford

- WUSTL

- Carnegie Mellon (CMU-Pitt)

- University of Southern California

- MD Anderson

Stats (as mentioned in the first post):
(1) International student 
(2) BSc and MPhil from an Australian University, and recently MSc Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins
(3) GPA: 3.91 for JHU MS (but very low GPA from my foreign BSc when converted to 4.0 scale)
(4) LOR: Two senior professors (one HoD at Stanford and another was the Director of an Australian Institute for more than a decade). Two more letters from a post-doc (now asst prof) and a program director.
(5) Research experience: 5 years of relevant research with one first-author publication.
 

Question:
Do you think my profile is competitive for those programs as an international student?

[northeast_hopeful]

11 minutes ago, Mrahcdlo said:

Did you hear anything from Princeton?

Nope, going by last years results they should be sending out interviews this week

[northeast_hopeful]

7 minutes ago, melch said:

Hi 

 

We have several overlaps. I ended up applying for 15 programs:
- Stanford Genetics/BMI
- Harvard BIG, BBS, 
- MIT CSB, Biology
- Princeton QCB
- Yale CBB
- Columbia BMI
- Tri-Institutional CBM
- Skaggs-Oxford

- WUSTL

- Carnegie Mellon (CMU-Pitt)

- University of Southern California

- MD Anderson

Stats (as mentioned in the first post):
(1) International student 
(2) BSc and MPhil from an Australian University, and recently MSc Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins
(3) GPA: 3.91 for JHU MS (but very low GPA from my foreign BSc when converted to 4.0 scale)
(4) LOR: Two senior professors (one HoD at Stanford and another was the Director of an Australian Institute for more than a decade). Two more letters from a post-doc (now asst prof) and a program director.
(5) Research experience: 5 years of relevant research with one first-author publication.
 

Question:
Do you think my profile is competitive for those programs as an international student?

Yeah of course, you're very competitive as an international statement. Hope all the best happens for you!

[M-A-Maher]

19 hours ago, melch said:

Hi 

 

We have several overlaps. I ended up applying for 15 programs:
- Stanford Genetics/BMI
- Harvard BIG, BBS, 
- MIT CSB, Biology
- Princeton QCB
- Yale CBB
- Columbia BMI
- Tri-Institutional CBM
- Skaggs-Oxford

- WUSTL

- Carnegie Mellon (CMU-Pitt)

- University of Southern California

- MD Anderson

Stats (as mentioned in the first post):
(1) International student 
(2) BSc and MPhil from an Australian University, and recently MSc Bioinformatics at Johns Hopkins
(3) GPA: 3.91 for JHU MS (but very low GPA from my foreign BSc when converted to 4.0 scale)
(4) LOR: Two senior professors (one HoD at Stanford and another was the Director of an Australian Institute for more than a decade). Two more letters from a post-doc (now asst prof) and a program director.
(5) Research experience: 5 years of relevant research with one first-author publication.
 

Question:
Do you think my profile is competitive for those programs as an international student?

I overlap with you with Yale, CMU -pitt, and Southern California ( just got the waiver) 

[Mrahcdlo]

On 12/12/2022 at 12:57 PM, northeast_hopeful said:

Nope, going by last years results they should be sending out interviews this week

I applied to Princeton's Biophysics program. QCB and Biophysics are essentially ran by the same group of people, so I guess the two programs will send out interviews around the same time. I think you have a very strong profile! Waiting for great news from you.

[Silver-Lining]

International student, senior undergrad at a US university, GPA 3.98, 1 non-first author pub, 1 first author in progress

I am applying to:

- Harvard BIG, BBS

- Princeton QCB

- Tri-I CBM

- Penn GCB

- CMU-Pitt

- JHU BME

- Brown Comp Bio

- UMich Bioinfo (PIBS)

- NYU Vilcek

- MD Anderson

- Sinai

- USC QCB

- Duke CBB

 

No interview so far...

[metaxo]

International student, ongoing MEng Bioengineering at US university, BS Bioengineering from same school. GPA 3.85, one first author preprint, one third author pub, one mid author preprint, one first author in progress.

I am applying to:

- Harvard SSQBio, BBS,Harvard-MIT HST MEMP

- Princeton QCB

- Tri-I CBM

- Penn BE

- MIT BE,Bio,CEE

- JHU BME

- Columbia DBMI (Second choice systems biology)

- Duke BME

- UCB-UCSF BioE

-Caltech BioE

-Stanford BioE

-UW BioE

-Yale CBB

-Gatech-emory BME

-UCSD BioE

 

no interviews so far,

last year started the application very late (mid Dec) and got in BU BME, Cornell BME and Northwestern IBIS, decided to go for another cycle.

 

 

[melch]

Which university did you guys attend and who are you getting your LORs from?

[northeast_hopeful]

Just got an interview from Duke CBB!

UNC Chapel Hill - Interview Received (12/10)

Duke CBB - Interview Received (12/16)

[northeast_hopeful]

7 hours ago, melch said:

Which university did you guys attend and who are you getting your LORs from?

Im from a public university in the east coast. I got my LORs from my lab advisor, fellowship advisor, a course instructor, and my supervisor in a co-op I was in.

[melch]

9 minutes ago, northeast_hopeful said:

Just got an interview from Duke CBB!

UNC Chapel Hill - Interview Received (12/10)

Duke CBB - Interview Received (12/16)

Congratulations!!!

 

I'm starting to get nervous because I have not heard back from any of the programs that I applied for.

[northeast_hopeful]

3 minutes ago, melch said:

Congratulations!!!

 

I'm starting to get nervous because I have not heard back from any of the programs that I applied for.

Thank you! 95% of schools haven't gotten back to applicants yet so there's still plenty of time! 

[melch]

10 minutes ago, northeast_hopeful said:

Im from a public university in the east coast. I got my LORs from my lab advisor, fellowship advisor, a course instructor, and my supervisor in a co-op I was in.

My boss, who is the HoD at Stanford, mentioned that we need at least three letters from full professors to be competitive.

[northeast_hopeful]

1 minute ago, melch said:

My boss, who is the HoD at Stanford, mentioned that we need at least three letters from full professors to be competitive.

Three of mine are professors (along with the roles I mentioned) so hopefully I'm competitive ? Although I do know some people from industry who applied to Stanford BMI and got in, I'm assuming most of their recs were from bosses/supervisors. 

[tarnished-compbio]

Canadian applicant, only applying to a handful of schools (aimed at specific PIs of interest)

1. UW (GS and MCB)

2. Berkeley (CompBio)

3. CMU-Pitt (CompBio)

4. UC Irvine (MCSB)

5. JHU (CS) 

 

Stats:

- B.Sc in Comp Sci and Molecular Bio from Canadian university, currently finishing up M.Sc from top 3 Canadian university

- 3.7 undergrad GPA, 4.0 graduate GPA

- 6 years of research experience, 1 first author preprint, 1 first author in progress, 1 second author pub, 1 second author in review, 2 middle author pubs

- 3 LORs from current and past PIs

 

I know I'm not applying to many schools, not sure how competitive I actually am as an international student

Edited December 16, 2022 by tarnished-compbio