here is my story, thank you in advance for your advice.

[snap]

Just trying to get some advice form the gradcafe community here.

Here is my story.

I transfered to a State School in NY (SUNY Plattsburgh) form a "not known" school in Kathmandu, Nepal. I had 2 years of college in NY as well as Nepal. The education system in Nepal is different from American system in that you don't take any general education or liberal arts classes at all. i.e. right form your first day as a freshmen you start with whatever major you picked, in my case it was Biochemistry. After two years when I transferred to NY, the admissions people at SUNY saw a lot of credits on my major field and approved a lot of them for transfer. Hence, I took only few upper level classes in NY (although they made me take all 100 level bio, chem and phy classes).

My grades at SUNY were fairly good (GPA 3.5) compared to what I had before I transferred (GPA 2.4). I think I hit a turning point when I made the transition to America, became more responsible or something and magically improved my grades (part of the credit also goes to the SUNY policy not to include GPA form classes taken in other universities/colleges in their transcript, without such policy my GPA right now would have been 3.0).

While in college, I had 2 and sometimes 3 part time jobs to survive financially which not only affected my grades but also took away the time I could have given for independent research. Also, since I was in college in NY for only 2 years I had less time to accommodate to the academic setting and find a professor to start an independent project with. The only real independent work I did involves creating flash animations to illustrate molecular mechanisms which was used for instruction in Cell Biology class.

I graduated in in Dec 2008, with hope of getting a job as a research technician and getting some experience before I applied to grad schools. However, the closest I have got to my plan is having a part time job as a laboratory assistant (duties: feed zebra fish and clean fish-tanks) in Boston.

I am thinking about applying to grad schools but I dont know if my credentials are good enough to get accepted into a program with funding.

My GRE scores are: Q 740, V 340, AWA 3.5. (considering retaking)

I was accepted to a MS Bioinformatics program at RIT for this fall but had to decline because I received very little scholarships.

Thank you for reading my post thus far. If you have spent your valuable time reading through my story I am sure you can spare a minute and post your advice.

The following questions are of my specific interest:

Q. Should I apply for a PHD program at all? (it seems like there is more chances of getting funding for PHD compared to a MS)

Q. What schools should I apply to? (primary focus: Bioinformatics, also interested in cell biology and immunology)

Any other advice are also welcome, Thank you for reading.

[Dreams]

Just trying to get some advice form the gradcafe community here.

Here is my story.

I transfered to a State School in NY (SUNY Plattsburgh) form a "not known" school in Kathmandu, Nepal. I had 2 years of college in NY as well as Nepal. The education system in Nepal is different from American system in that you don't take any general education or liberal arts classes at all. i.e. right form your first day as a freshmen you start with whatever major you picked, in my case it was Biochemistry. After two years when I transferred to NY, the admissions people at SUNY saw a lot of credits on my major field and approved a lot of them for transfer. Hence, I took only few upper level classes in NY (although they made me take all 100 level bio, chem and phy classes).

My grades at SUNY were fairly good (GPA 3.5) compared to what I had before I transferred (GPA 2.4). I think I hit a turning point when I made the transition to America, became more responsible or something and magically improved my grades (part of the credit also goes to the SUNY policy not to include GPA form classes taken in other universities/colleges in their transcript, without such policy my GPA right now would have been 3.0).

While in college, I had 2 and sometimes 3 part time jobs to survive financially which not only affected my grades but also took away the time I could have given for independent research. Also, since I was in college in NY for only 2 years I had less time to accommodate to the academic setting and find a professor to start an independent project with. The only real independent work I did involves creating flash animations to illustrate molecular mechanisms which was used for instruction in Cell Biology class.

I graduated in in Dec 2008, with hope of getting a job as a research technician and getting some experience before I applied to grad schools. However, the closest I have got to my plan is having a part time job as a laboratory assistant (duties: feed zebra fish and clean fish-tanks) in Boston.

I am thinking about applying to grad schools but I dont know if my credentials are good enough to get accepted into a program with funding.

My GRE scores are: Q 740, V 340, AWA 3.5. (considering retaking)

I was accepted to a MS Bioinformatics program at RIT for this fall but had to decline because I received very little scholarships.

Thank you for reading my post thus far. If you have spent your valuable time reading through my story I am sure you can spare a minute and post your advice.

The following questions are of my specific interest:

Q. Should I apply for a PHD program at all? (it seems like there is more chances of getting funding for PHD compared to a MS)

Q. What schools should I apply to? (primary focus: Bioinformatics, also interested in cell biology and immunology)

Any other advice are also welcome, Thank you for reading.

I have to say you are in quite a bind. Given your lack of solid research and lab experience, you are at a disadvantage against people who will be applying with that. Your GRE scores may have also precluded you from being awarded any merit based university fellowships.

I definitely suggest you retake the GRE to improve your verbal and writing score. Your Q score is fine and I recommend you go the

[snap]

That actually sounds right, thank you FSIA.

I only applied to RIT and UVM, (yes that was stupid). I wanted to work after I graduate, so I did not pay attention to GRE or application stuff until january, by then the chances of finding a job seemed slim. I applied in a rush, had 15 days of GRE preparation, and my SOP was probably mediocre.