Etern Posted November 25, 2013 Share Posted November 25, 2013 Hello everybody, was wondering whether you could give me some feedback on my profile. I come from a biological background, but I am applying for biostatistics PhDs now: Undergrad Institution: Top 30 in the UKMajor(s): Biology and EnglishMinor(s):GPA in Major: 4.0Overall GPA: 4.0Position in Class: 1Type of Student: International Male Grad Institution: Imperial College LondonMajor(s): Quantitative BiologyMinor(s):GPA in Major: 4.0Overall GPA: 4.0Position in Class: 1 Grad Institution: King's College LondonMajor(s): English LiteratureMinor(s):GPA in Major: 3.5Overall GPA: 3.5Position in Class: Middle Did both of my masters simultaneously. Wrote my English dissertation on a scientific topic relevant to my biological interests GRE Scores (revised):Q: 160 (78%) V: 165 (95%)W: 5.5 (97%)Research Experience: 3-month internship in a DNA lab 6-month bioinformatics project for my master 3-month research assistant position in bioinformatics 1-first author publication in preparation 2 conference talks Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Won awards for being the top student at undergrad and at graduate institution. Won an award for most diligent first year student Won a business award for an innovative business plan Received travel grant to attend a workshop Received an award for outstanding services to the student union Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Teaching: Tutored throughout my undergrad for 3 years (undergraduate biology and academic english) Worked as a teaching assistant at Imperial for a programming class Currently started working as a high school teacher in biology for the remainder of the year Service: Student representative for Quantitative Biology (1 year) Student representative for Biology (1 year) Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: I am fluent in four languages (Luxembourgish, German, French, English) and conversational in Mandarin Chinese Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Member of a couple of biology societies Took a lot of professional development classes Took all biochemistry courses during undergrad in addition to my compulsory courses LOR writers: My personal tutor from undergrad. The course director from my MSc, and my MSc thesis supervisor. Applying to Where: Oxford- Genomic Medicine and Statistics Sanger Institute- 4-year PhD Cambridge- Mathematical Genomics and Statistics Harvard- Biostatistics Harvard- Public Health: Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics Yale- Biostatistics I am mostly worried about the my low Q score in the GRE and the distraction that the English component composes. I am also applying to a couple of other schools which are more biological. Any chance in hell that I will get accepted to any of them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bedmas Posted November 25, 2013 Share Posted November 25, 2013 I think we need some information about what math courses you've taken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyberwulf Posted November 25, 2013 Share Posted November 25, 2013 You are applying to exactly 2 biostat PhD programs in the U.S.; if you really want to do biostat, that isn't nearly enough, particularly as the departments you've chosen are extremely competitive (Harvard) and extremely small (Yale). The main issue you are facing isn't your GRE score (it's not great, but won't sink you) or English studies (not relevant), but your relative lack of mathematical background. I would guess you don't have a lot of math beyond the pre-requisites, plus you are international, so you are going to face an uphill battle to be admitted to most top 10 departments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkoverload Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 your background and preparation are still so good. I believe you will get at least one admission from schools you will apply for. However, your previous majors are not perfectly suitable for biostat phd i guess. biostat is quite a statistics program not biology. how do you think of adding some biology phd programs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkoverload Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 (edited) i guess it will be very hard to get admitted to harvard biostat phd. they will prefer peking math or stat majors to you. Edited November 26, 2013 by Funkoverload Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkoverload Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 your gre scores are just fine and you will never fail due to your gre scores. how about your math spec? have you ever taken any upper level math courses such as real analysis, measure theory, measure based prob theory? or some computational stat/biology courses? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkoverload Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 Luxembourgish, German, French would be redundant. gradschoolroulette 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Etern Posted November 26, 2013 Author Share Posted November 26, 2013 Thank you everybody for your comments. My MSc included quite a few math-y subjects. I took: 3- weeks Mathematics for Biology (Basically covers all of 1st year undergrad math without proofs) 3- weeks Statistics (from t-tests over to GLMs and GAMs) 1-week Bayesian Statistics 1-week Maximum Likelihood 2-weeks Mechanistic Modelling and R 1-week Advanced computing for Biology (Parallel programming and shell scripting) 1-week Modelling Complex Communities (Lotka-voltera model and other mathematical models in biology) 1-week Population Genetics (Basically statistics for genetics) 1-week Quantitative Fisheries Management (Modelling population sizes of fish) 1-week Other Topics (Bayesian Networks, Molecular Stochasticity, Wave Spectra in Biology) And yes, as I said in my opening post, I also applied to 7 other programs that are not biostatistics (Entomology, Genetics, etc...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkoverload Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 not impressive coursework yet all. sorry. your preparation is not very good for biostat. you have very good so many redundant backgrounds. finalrez, Funkoverload, lidon and 1 other 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkoverload Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 i believe you spent about 1 semester for stat/math in your life. very weak preparation. how were you interested in biostat in a very short time period? Funkoverload and lidon 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkoverload Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 (edited) english literature has nothing to do with biostat. biostat requires math + stat/biostat + a couple of related biology backgrounds + research experience and paper + programming skills. these are the major factors for potential students to survive in the program! even if you will get admitted into the phd program, you would need to spend a couple of years on coursework. however, your background will be very very suitable for epidemiology phd. Edited November 26, 2013 by Funkoverload Funkoverload and lidon 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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