How to determine School that are in my range

[nrobseni]

Hi all,

Junior at a small university studying Biochemistry. I have a true passion for biochemistry. However financial situations and work have prohibited myself from excelling academically. I'll be graduating spring of next year. I'll have a summer and one semester of research. I'll be graduating with a cumulative gpa of 3.3ish. I can't guarantee any publications. I do attend ACS events and I am a member of the ACS.I could only guarantee myself two strong letters of recommendation. Could anyone point me to possible schools that I could expect financial aid and acceptance? I'm sorry if this isn't the appropriate place to post for guidance. I'm new to the site. Also, I usually do very well in standardized test, so I expect to do well for the GRE.

[microarray]

While I can't recommend any schools, I can tell you that as a science major, you should get tuition waived and a stipened. The stipened may be in the form of a TA where you will have to teach for x amount of semesters or a GRA - graduate research assistant (often funded from your PI's grant).  Many schools also guarantee fudning for you for 5 years - including summers.  The stipeneds seem to be about 24,000 to 30,000 a year. It will be important to take into consideration where you will live (ie is housing cost really high?)  and to make sure that this will be enough to live on.

 

Best of luck!

[thegirldetective]

HI there,

 

I'm not familiar enough with biochemistry to recommend specific schools, but I have a few pieces of advice.

 

1) Make sure you stay in touch with your research mentor from the summer you spent doing research. Not to scare you, but their letter could make or break you. So do what you can to cultivate/maintain that relationship. Recommendations from professors are good too, but it's your research mentor's letter that will matter the most.

2) A 3.3 is a little low, but not an awful GPA, especially if you have great GRE scores, letters, and SOP. I would contact a few programs you are interested in and ask them what the range of GPAs for accepted students are, and if they have any hard cutoffs. This will help you determine a reasonable range of schools to apply to.

3) As Microarray said, any PhD program in the physical or life sciences worth going to will give you tuition and a stipend. They typically do not admit students who they aren't planning on funding. Masters programs are often unfunded, however.

[ERR_Alpha]

Hi all,

Junior at a small university studying Biochemistry. I have a true passion for biochemistry. However financial situations and work have prohibited myself from excelling academically. I'll be graduating spring of next year. I'll have a summer and one semester of research. I'll be graduating with a cumulative gpa of 3.3ish. I can't guarantee any publications. I do attend ACS events and I am a member of the ACS.I could only guarantee myself two strong letters of recommendation. Could anyone point me to possible schools that I could expect financial aid and acceptance? I'm sorry if this isn't the appropriate place to post for guidance. I'm new to the site. Also, I usually do very well in standardized test, so I expect to do well for the GRE.

When this admissions season winds down take a look at the Fall 2014 Application thread under biology. A lot of people post stats and where they got accepted/rejected. Although it's not a perfect measure, it can give you a decent idea where to aim for.