UK Bachelors to US Grad School Neuroscience?

[scotsman]

Hi, I'm a first year student at Oxford University in England. I'm studying a three-year BA degree in Neuroscience/Cell and Systems Biology.

 

I would like to apply to Neuroscience PhD programs in the US as well as in the UK. 

 

This summer I'm doing a research internship in a lab in Oxford. I will then do a lab project in 2nd year as part of my degree. The summer at the end of 2nd year I will likely do another research internship. Obviously, I would need to start applying to grad school in the first term of my third year.

 

So my worry is, looking at entrance requirements at the top US schools, they require lots of lab experience (including papers) as well as a good GPA and LORs. But the way the Oxford system works, I won't have a degree classification til the end of third year. The only 'official' evidence I will have will be my prelims results at the end of this year. And I don't know if I will be able to get enough research experience in the next year and half for these LOR. I mean, UC Berkeley says you need a year of research experience!

 

But I can't afford to pay for an extra unfunded masters in the UK before applying to the US schools. Is it very common at all for UK BA's to go straight to US grad school without a masters? Is it doable? What do US schools think of Oxbridge degrees?

 

I guess its a bit early to worry about this, but ideally I want to go the US straight from bachelors, so it would be great to know what kind of things I should be trying to do over the next year and a half.

 

Sorry for wall of text.

 

[JYP]

Maybe you could ask your tutors/professors at your department about it. Also, some of them should be US university graduates so they could provide you with good advice. You could also contact POIS at US universities.

You may also get funding for your MA via reseach councils so how about checking with oxford, imperial and ucl (among other places)?