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PhD Molecular Biology, selecting programs


shovonreza

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Hi, I am a college undergrad from Turkey and I am currently completing my junior year. My major is Molecular biology and Genetics. Next year I am willing to apply to different schools in USA that offer funded PhD programs. I have a decent CGPA of 3.95/4.0 and currently the top student in my class. I have been working in the lab of a professor here for two years and will be undertaking a graduation project next year from him. I have already taken the revised GRE and scored decent (Quant 167 Verbal 166 AWA 4.5). I am also preparing to take the subject GRE for Biochemistry in September.This summer I will be visiting Concordia University in Canada to work on a project with a professor there. I am hoping that I will be able to manage some decent LOR's from my professor and the Canadian professor. One thing I am concerned about is that I have no publication in any scientific journal.In Turkey, there are not a lot of opportunities available for an undergraduate to be able to publish research works independently.  Since applying to any grad school in US costs at least 70-100 $ I am thinking of applying to 5 schools at best. At this condition, considering my lack of journal publication, which schools should I apply to? Is it practical to go for top tier schools like UCLA or UCBerkeley? I have also heard good things about Johns Hopkins. It'd be great if you guys could enlighten me on how important the roles of journal publications are in candidate selection process by the Grad schools and possibly name some grad schools that I could apply with a higher chance of getting in with funding with my current profile. Thanks a lot

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My understanding is that publications are great, but you won't look bad if you don't have any especially when you are fresh out of college. What matters is that your research experiences has publication potential and that you didn't just mindlessly do PCRs for others at your lab. So if you are confident about your research experiences and your LORs, go for it.

Edited by elegans
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Hi! Very few people coming straight out of undergrad have publications when applying. A publication certainly can only help, but I definitely don't think it's required and/or even expected, especially since the rest of your profile looks good!

 

In terms of choosing schools to apply to, I think whether or not your research interests align well with the school (i.e. can you find at least 3-5 faculty you'd be interested in working with?) should probably be your foremost consideration, but I've heard that applying to public schools in general is often more competitive for international students, just for funding reasons. I don't think this is true for ALL public schools, but I've heard, for example, most schools in the UC system admit only a couple international students a year. Private schools generally have a larger international percentage per class.Thus, my advice would be to look into more private schools! I know Weill Cornell is one that takes a large number of international students.

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Hi! Very few people coming straight out of undergrad have publications when applying. A publication certainly can only help, but I definitely don't think it's required and/or even expected, especially since the rest of your profile looks good!

 

In terms of choosing schools to apply to, I think whether or not your research interests align well with the school (i.e. can you find at least 3-5 faculty you'd be interested in working with?) should probably be your foremost consideration, but I've heard that applying to public schools in general is often more competitive for international students, just for funding reasons. I don't think this is true for ALL public schools, but I've heard, for example, most schools in the UC system admit only a couple international students a year. Private schools generally have a larger international percentage per class.Thus, my advice would be to look into more private schools! I know Weill Cornell is one that takes a large number of international students.

Hi, thanks a lot for your reply. I will keep these in mind and look more into private schools. One question though, before applying is it better to contact a faculty that i would like to work with if admitted or should one just apply directly? Is there any list or survey or something like that that I can refer to for selecting schools that have a higher acceptance rates for international students? thanks again.

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