Yet another chances thread

[opencircle]

Very sorry for starting yet another chances thread but I am honestly unsure about my qualification - I just don't feel that I have much context to judge the quality of what I've done so far (and I've read through some of the threads here) so hopefully you will bear with me.

I've just finished my third year of university and hope to apply to PhD programs this coming fall (2011). GPA is 3.75 (major GPA is > 3.8, haven't bothered to calculate it exactly; I'm guessing it's around 3.85). I haven't taken the GRE or subject yet - I'm planning to take the revised general exam. I've worked for three years (both during academic year and intervening summers) on the same project in the same lab - basically started at the beginning of my freshman year and have continued ever since. Am listed as co-author on two papers as of this point - 5th out of 15 for my first one (in Sci Transl Med) and 8th out of 18 for my second one (in a mid tier, much more specialized journal), but haven't presented at any conferences yet. Want to study genetics and genomics in grad school. Also, I do go to a major research university and my PI has a top reputation (but not in the same field that my undergrad research has been in even though I may end up in that field as a grad student), but I don't know how much that will help me.

As to programs, I'm considering MIT Biology, UCSF Genetics, Harvard BBS (maybe also MCB if they do genomics there), Stanford Biosciences, Berkeley MCB, and maybe University of Washington Genome Sciences. I realize that these are all top programs that are extremely difficult to get into which is why I'm so unsure. (I've also been advised to look at Cambridge Genetics because of its close proximity to MRC and the Sanger Institute but UK PhDs are shorter than US ones so I'm not particularly inclined to apply there. Any comments on this are welcome.) So, I'm just wondering what my chances are to get into one of these programs, or if perhaps I should take a gap year to gain some more research experience before I apply (in fall 2012, in that case).

Any advice on this would be great. Thanks!

Edited June 19, 2011 by opencircle