Bioenchilada Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 Hey! I'm going to be applying for a couple top Ph.D programs and wanted some feedback on my credentials and potentially my "chances" of getting into the programs I want to. Also, knowing what GRE score I should shoot for would also be helpful. School: Well-known research institution Race/Ethnicity: Hispanic GPA: 3.95 Majors: Cell Biology, Genetics Minors: Anthropology, Biotechnology Research Experience: 6 semesters of research at home institution, 1 summer at UPenn, 1 summer at Harvard Med, 3 national conferences (LANS twice and SEA-PHAGES National Symposium at Janelia Farm), 1 publication from HHMI-funded national research project. Practice GRE score: PowerPrepII Q:163 V:157 LORs: Expect strong letters from PIs at Harvard, Penn, and home institution professor (2 of which that were confirmed to be strong by Harvard PI) Potential grad schools: Harvard Med, UChicago, UPenn, Stanford Med , and Cornell VetThanks for your input! (There's a moderate to high chance that I'll take a year off to effectively prep for a joint degree program, but that's a separate issue lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bioquant Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 I can offer a GRE score suggestion, but that's about it. A simple approach would be to aim for meeting the average percentiles from the admission stats at one of the programs you are interested in. I found some for the UPenn MCB program:GPA: 3.7 | V: 85% | Q: 82% | AW: 4.4Then use the Score Interpretation data that ETS publishes to figure out what that corresponds to as a score. That translates to:V: 160 | Q: 162 | AW: 4.5Another thing you might want to check out are the Intended Major Score Distributions from ETS. A quick calculation using the stats for those declaring Cell Biology as intended field gives 656 students scoring 160+ on Verbal, 730 students scoring 160+ on Quantitative, and 867 students scoring 4.5+ on Analytic Writing.Hope some of that is helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bioenchilada Posted August 30, 2015 Author Share Posted August 30, 2015 Okay, so I have now taken the GRE and got the followingQ: 159V: 155W: 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowFairy Posted September 6, 2015 Share Posted September 6, 2015 I think you're smart enough to already know that your chances are pretty strong and make you a competitive applicant. You can definitely bump up those GRE scores a little higher though, or so long as you score around 80% percentile! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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