I give up. I need some advice.

[greengenes25to4]

Alright, so I am entirely down for making genetics my life's work. I've known this for awhile now and am finally getting around to applying to PhD programs in the subject. However, the thing that has persistently stood in the way of my seeking a PhD has been a personal fear of big-name schools. Names like Yale, Harvard and Berkeley are always met with great admiration and, at least during my undergrad application process, were nearly untouchable.

I received my BS in MolBio from a small, lesser known liberal arts university a year ago. I did pretty well for myself and was excepted as a bright student in the bio department. I've been told to apply to some of the top-ranked umbrella and genetics PhD programs by advisers, but I really am not sure how I stand in comparison to the rest of the application pool. Is my ratio of "reach" to "safe" schools skewed too far to the left based on my credentials?

Here are my barebone stats:

GPA: 3.7/4

740 Quant, 560 Verb

2 years undergrad research with 2 small grants awarded and one paper accepted

1 year post-bacc research (current position) at top-ranked institution, one presentation at national meeting and 2 submitted papers

1 letter from current PI, 3 letters from BS institution including department chair

The following is my current application list, in order of USNews ranking (Note: this is far from my sole basis for applying. I have made spreadsheets, box plots and elaborate ranking systems for narrowing down my application list. Clearly, I'm over-thinking it.)

Harvard Systems Bio

UCBerkeley*

JHU BCMB*

Yale BBS*

Scripps*

UCSF Tetrad

Washington University*

University of Chicago

UCSD Biology*

Rockefeller

University of Pennsylvania*

A star indicates that I am definitely applying to the school. I am going to apply to a handful of the non-starred schools, but don't have enough money to apply to them all. UMaryland and BostonU have fine programs that I might apply to for safety purposes, but I'm not as excited about them.

Let me know what you think and, for anyone on the other side of this mess, is the transition from small school to big school a

[greengenes25to4]

whoops, pulled a rick perry... let me finish my sentence:

Let me know what you think and, for anyone on the other side of this mess, is the transition from small school to big school a difficult one? I actually love the institution I am at right now for the quality of the research, but I have noticed a more defined distance between faculty and their students.

[Loimographia]

As someone fairly familiar with the UC system's big schools (attended one as an undergrad, and my father taught at UCSD, so I've seen both sides) I'd just give a warning of my impression of distance between faculty and students. I don't know much about smaller schools, but from what I've heard the relationship between faculty and students is a fairly close one, and if you feel distance already at a small school, I certainly wouldn't expect it to improve at a large school where professors have even more students vying for their attention. That said, if you really fight for a connection, it's definitely possible to feel close to your professors if you make the effort. But the larger the university, the more self-motivated you have to be.

[greengenes25to4]

Thanks for the advice, Liomographia. At smaller schools, you have a lot of room to ask stupid questions, but still be recognized for making good insights to make up for it. There are simply more opportunities for interaction. I've noticed, from the large institution I am at now, that faculty do keep their distance and are less likely to open windows into their personality. The question is what is best for a graduate education. In research, there is much wisdom in how to plan and budget a project. Time and money management isn't in the appendix of your biology textbook. Finding a good mentor is going to be important.

[Krypton]

Your application looks fine to me, greengenes. Three papers at the time of application is very much above average, and if your letters are strong, I expect you will receive interviews from most of the schools you apply to. As for the whole "reach" to "safe" ratio thing, I don't think it's something even worth considering. The quality of your PhD is going to directly influence your downstream career path, so my philosophy is to apply only for "reach" schools. (On the list you provided, I wouldn't call any of those schools "safe" anyway.) And lastly, you're not overthinking anything. You're doing exactly as you should: not relying on bogus US News rankings to decide the best graduate programs for you.

[BassAZ]

Grad school isn't the same beast as undergrad so I don't know if you can accurately describe what it is like going from a small school to a big school because you're also in flux going from undergrad to grad studies.

For schools, ask yourself "If this were the only school that accepted me, would I be ok studying there?" A lot of times the answer will be yes because you've plotted out multiple people you're interested in working with. I ignored this for one of my schools and absolutely wrestled with the thought of going to this particular school until I was accepted elsewhere. It's not that it was a bad school; I have friends that enjoy their program, it just wasn't right for me when I got down to really thinking about attending. If you can say "yes" to any of the schools on your list, I'd say it's fine.

A friend of mine told me to look for the 3 P's of the lab: PI, people, and project. Figure out which is going to be most important to you - are you someone that needs a lot of face time with your PI? Do you need the lab dynamic to be great and vibrant, or do you look more outside for your comradery? Are you just looking to get the PhD or do you want something that really is going to tickle your fancy (not to say that a bad project is easy - get something you like but does it NEED to be exactly what you're looking for right now or o you have an open mind about it)? Do you absolutely LOVE what the PI is researching, or is it more important that this particular person is your mentor? That type of thing. G'luck with the applications.

[greengenes25to4]

"For schools, ask yourself "If this were the only school that accepted me, would I be ok studying there?"" is the perfect question to ask and I can confidentially say yes to every one of those schools on my list. Thank you for the replies BassAZ and Krypton. I'm looking forward to being on the other side of these applications.