Biomedical Science/BioEngineering

[mac293]

Hi there,

I realize of course that this is somewhat of a futile guessing game rather an exact science, but I thought I’d toss it out there anyway for the wolves

Any thoughts on my chances for successful PhD app in biomedical sciences (biochem, biology, neurosci, etc.) and/or biomedical engineering at the top US programs (eg. Harvard, Caltech, Stanford, MIT, Rockefeller, etc.)?

Program: (4-year by end) Biomedical Science (interdisciplinary, but a lot of biochemistry, cellular/molecular biology, and research methodology/design, with lots of other stuff like neurosci, anatomy/physiology, etc., and of course standard full year of physics, math, stats, chem, and an orgo)

+ 2-3 (700-level) half-year graduate-level courses in biomedical engineering during this upcoming year (my 4th and final UG year)

Three-Year cGPA: 3.9 (Canadian->US GPA conversion) (majority of grades are A+s (my school is annoying and splits the “A” band into “A” and “A+”), with a small handful of A-s (one shameful B+ in math during first term of university :S that I’m not proud of)) (first year is dragging me down a bit, as my second and third years were 3.94 and 3.92 respectively, but anyway that’s life)

GRE: Writing in August (so fingers crossed!)

Research: 6-years this fall (started summer of Grade 10) across 5 distinct areas ranging from chemical biology and drug design to stem cell biology, epigenetics, and molecular neuroscience
+ 2 competitive research fellowship awards

Papers: 1 First-Author in medium-level journal on epigenetics (written during summer after first year)
             +1 (likely) to 2: 1st or 2nd author Nature Chemical Biology paper by this fall

Thesis Work: 2 theses (3rd and 4th year) Research Seminars/Posters: 3 separate

References: Extremely positive references from 5 PIs + Dean + 2 Prof Emeritus (3 did their post doc at Harvard, another at Berkley, and another is VP Research of the Dept Medicine at highly-respected NA university; 3 PIs have published in Nature/Science)

Also, was editor-in-chief of undergraduate health sciences journal by the end of my first year, and this past year founded the university’s now official multidisciplinary, post-doc reviewed UG research journal that has been endorsed by university president, our school of graduate studies, and all the faculties, and will be integrated into university course curriculum across several faculties.

Also have been designing stuff on my own since early high school, have a very large portfolio of theoretical blueprints like a novel semi-biological/synthetic neural AI on a chip, several theoretical de novo drug leads for pharmaceutical therapeutic applications, artificial synthetic muscle fibre that is also powered by blood glucose, a novel protein for reducing atherosclerosis, yada yada yada

There’s a bunch of other stuff, not related to hardcore science like founding an orchestra, arts stuff, and things of that nature, but not really relevant to the graduate application process.

In any case, looking forward to your thoughts!

Cheers

Edited June 5, 2014 by mac293