Ecology/ichthyology

[Themistocles]

Hey everyone,

I'll be applying to various fish biology programs soon and I was wondering if anyone could chance me or suggest new programs. At this point, I'm only solidly interested in a few doctoral programs, and I'll most likely be applying to CUNY, American Museum of Natural History, Columbia, and Scripps Institute of Oceanography. I'm considering UW - School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences as well. I have no idea how I would fare applying to these programs, so any idea would be a lot of help. In addition, I definitely feel that I should apply to more programs, so any help there would be great as well.

My GPA is pretty low; 3.36 overall and 3.5 in major. This is mainly due to the standard story (I played a little much as a freshman/sophomore), however I'm also at a relatively well-known college with hard grading policies. I haven't yet taken the GRE or GRE Biology, but practice tests suggest something around ~650 verbal and ~720 quantitative. I have 1 yr of paid work as a research tech in ecology/ichthyology, won a research grant for a few thousand dollars, am currently working on an honors thesis, and I've started working on study that won't be submitted/published by the time I apply. I also did some manual writing on field methods that might be published by a federal/state agency and I have some experience working in a museum collection. I'll have very solid recs from well-known researchers in their fields, although one will only be from a professor that taught me a class (the others from researchers/professors I've worked under). Outside of these, I'm very solidly bilingual (I've heard this can be a bit of a boost) and I've volunteered ~200 hours as a tech at an aquarium, dealing with the fish in about every aspect you can imagine. I'm also a member of a professional organization dealing with scientific work in diving.

If you guys could help me out, I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks.

[runonsentence]

Have you tried looking around in (or posting in) the forum for biology students? You might find the most helpful advice on programs to look at there.