Could you guys help me evaluate my chances?

[Catch22alex]

Hey guys, thanks for looking at this thread. I'm currently finishing my bachelors and am trying to figure out what schools to apply to. Frankly I have no idea which schools are better than others so I'm interested in your input.

My stats are as follows:

Will grad with a Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology with concentration in behavioral neuroscience. from Florida Atlantic University (4th Tier :shock: ) 3.8GPA

Graduate Certificate in Environmental Sciences

Participated in Senior Honors Psychology Seminar

GRE 570V/750Q/4.5AW

Im currently doing work in a campus lab separating, purifying, and analyzing components of cone snail neurotoxin.

Should have good LOR's from the teacher who's lab i work in, a major professor, and The head of the office for student retention where I was involved in piloting a program called supplemental instruction for classes with low pass rates.

Forgot to add, I'm really trying to get into a PhD program as opposed to a master's (kinda need funding)

So far these are the schools im looking at.. if there are any you think i definitely couldnt get into be honest and tell me.

UC davis neuroscience

Oregon health and science university neuroscience

University of washington neuroscience

Washington State University - viticulture and enology (random i know)

CU boulder neuroscience

University of Vermont Neuroscience

SUNY Buffalo neuroscience

I also am interested in some schools in boston but havent taken a good look at programs yet.

Any other programs that you guys could suggest for me?

Thanks again!

[frankdux]

although i'm not familiar with the field, i'm guessing purely based on the reputation of those universities that those are all solid programs.

1. california schools such as UC Davis are probably going to be harder to get funding from. the recession has hit california the hardest and so their public universities probably aren't going to have as many funding packages to hand out.

2. be sure to have some safety schools to apply to as well.

[belowthree]

California schools such as UC Davis are probably going to be harder to get funding from. the recession has hit california the hardest and so their public universities probably aren't going to have as many funding packages to hand out.

I happen to be bouncing between one UC from undergraduate to another for graduate work. As much as our schools are getting completely rocked right now and faculty recruitment is shot, staff retention is shot and undergraduate enrollments are being restricted... graduate students are just slightly more insulated. For one, they've been explicitly excluded from the pay cuts that are likely to implemented in the UC system shortly. (As far as I know they'll be implemented about 2 minutes after they figure out how to program the payroll systems to do them, they already announced the new policies.) Second, grant money funds a lot of this type of thing. We're really hurting for state funding, but California schools aren't losing grant money any faster than anyone else is. TA positions are going to be around still. Probably restricted a bit, but they'll be alive.

Now in terms of first year fellowships, that will probably get impacted. There's some UCs that generally don't fund students until their second year and you might start seeing that in more departments. I'm not disagreeing with frankdux that funding will be a bit harder, but I just happen to know a bit about how the UC funding streams work and graduate students happen to be lucky to be on the ones that aren't as affected by the whole California melting down thing.

Or so I'll keep saying, unless they tell me not to expect my stipend in September. If they do, I'll let gradcafe know.

Don't get me wrong, funding is tight everywhere. But in this instance I'm not sure UC schools are a whole lot worse off than some of the schools that lost amazingly large percentages of their endowments. At least in terms of graduate student funding. In every other respect... we're really hurting.

Sorry for the digression, just wanted to address this since I've seen people say these types of things lately.