How do I choose some good safety schools?

[vnatch]

Hello, I am a junior undergrad (majoring in biology) and I am very interested in pursuing a PhD program once I graduate. I have already done quite a bit of research on which schools to apply to, but I am a bit overwhelmed and not sure how to properly choose schools. My plan was to follow the same strategy as for undergrad, choosing a few "reach" schools, a few matches and a few safeties. However, I'm realizing that it won't be as easy to do the same for grad programs. No PhD programs show mean GRE scores or undergraduate GPAs, or even what percentage of students are accepted, so I have no idea where I stand in applications. All of the sites I read advise me to just apply to programs which are a good fit, but I'm not quite sure what that means. All that I know for sure is that I want to live in/near a major city (I've narrowed my options to San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, or Boston). In terms of program requirements, I honestly love all aspects of molecular/cell bio, so after researching a bunch of schools, I could see myself getting excited about being a part of any molecular bio program. Since I'm not so picky about the program or the place where I end up, the only thing that has been attracting me to certain programs and not others is the prestige/rank of the school. So I already have a pretty huge list of top-tier schools I want to apply to, but the lower-ranked schools don't get me as excited, and frankly they all start to look the same to me after a while. Of course, I'm not even sure when to draw the line for "top-tier" or "safety", since no schools provide that info. So my main question is: how do people tell which schools are safety and which are a reach? 

It'd be great if I could get some feedback on schools that would be a pretty good match in terms of competitiveness, and to see which of my schools may be too much of a reach, so here's some info about my academics: 

By next year I will have graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in Biology (as part of the Distinguished Majors Program) and possibly with a second degree in Biostatistics. My GPA is around a 3.85, and almost all of my classes have been math or science related. By the time I graduate, I will have been involved with Independent Research in molecular biology for 5 semesters (as well as some time spent over the summer). I just started undertaking my own project in my lab, and my professor says it may be good enough for publication if it works--so I may or may not have a publication under my belt by the time I'm applying to grad schools. I haven't taken my GREs yet so I'm not sure exactly where i stand in that aspect. With this in mind, some of the schools I'm very interested in are: Stanford, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, U Penn, Columbia, U Chicago, NYU, Boston U. 

Like I said before, any opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated! 

[rising_star]

40 minutes ago, vnatch said:

All of the sites I read advise me to just apply to programs which are a good fit, but I'm not quite sure what that means. All that I know for sure is that I want to live in/near a major city (I've narrowed my options to San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, or Boston). In terms of program requirements, I honestly love all aspects of molecular/cell bio, so after researching a bunch of schools, I could see myself getting excited about being a part of any molecular bio program. Since I'm not so picky about the program or the place where I end up, the only thing that has been attracting me to certain programs and not others is the prestige/rank of the school. So I already have a pretty huge list of top-tier schools I want to apply to, but the lower-ranked schools don't get me as excited, and frankly they all start to look the same to me after a while. Of course, I'm not even sure when to draw the line for "top-tier" or "safety", since no schools provide that info. So my main question is: how do people tell which schools are safety and which are a reach? 

I think the problem here is that you don't know what you want to study, you just want to go to grad school. That may work for a master's program but it's unlikely to work for a PhD program. For a PhD program, you're going to be spending 4+ years working in one lab on one type of research so, it needs to be something you're interested in and at least somewhat passionate about, otherwise you're not likely to ever finish. 

By fit, what they mean is how well your research interests are or can be supported by the faculty in that department and at that university. For example, if you really, really, really want to study the genetics of apples but no one at the school is doing that work or anything similar, then that school is not a good fit for you. Just applying to top tier programs or programs in the city you want to live in with no real sense of who you want to work with is not going to bode well for your applications. 

That said, conventional wisdom is that there are no real safety schools at the graduate level. If the fit is bad, you may not get in even if your GPA and GRE are above the median for the department.

[peachypie]

@rising_star really covered all the points.  There is no standardized way to determine an applicant's ability for a PhD program.  You  may be very skilled in the classroom or on the gre but you may not fit the school very well.  This is why it is pointless to try to determine a safety school or a reach school.  Saying "i could be happy doing work at any molecular bio" program is a bad sign.  It means you have not figured out what it is that even interests you.  You should have one or two schools that really speak to your realm of research and the long term goals they are trying to accomplish there.  Take some time really reading about what general things draw you in.  What big questions do you hope to answer and hopefully will a school have people trying to do the same.  Getting a PhD should not be the next logical step in schooling, it really needs to be something about interest to you and gives you drive.  This is a different world than UG and masters and it isn't about completing coursework and picking the "best" university with highest prestige to go.  You have so far some great grades and experience and I think you could be successful going forward at many schools such as the competitive ones but I would say your weakest point is your lack of direction and I would guess your SOP is going to be weaker than most if you can't explain why you want to do what you are hoping to do.  Work on those aspects and you should be in much better shape and just delete the idea of a safety school out of your head now.

[vnatch]

Thanks for the input. I see what both of you mean, but I suppose my followup question would be: do people really have goals and interests that are that specific? It may sound corny, but when I said that I love all molecular bio, what I meant was that I think I would be able to pick many different projects and be equally happy with all of them. What really draws me to research in general is the problem-solving aspect of it, it fascinates me that people can find out so much that they can't see or directly observe just by using standard molecular tools and putting pieces of a puzzle together. So no matter what it is (with certain limits), I feel like I would love anything if I delve deep enough into it. With this mentality in mind, it confuses me that some people actually think "The one thing that truly interests me more than anything else is apple genetics (or whatever)". 

If its true that everyone else applying is this specific in their interests, it worries me slightly that my interests are much broader. As peachypie said, it might make for a weak SOP. Do you or anyone else have any pointers on how I could combat this? I suppose the most accurate thing for me to portray in my SOP is that I am passionate enough in general biology that I will love almost any specific research topic once I delve in. Obviously, when applying to schools I will first pick a lab that strikes me as the most interesting, but it would be wrong of me to write as if my sole purpose in applying is to studying that one topic. Again, I'd love some feedback. 

[rising_star]

Honestly, yes, a lot of people are more specific in their interests. I knew what specific subfield and methodological tools I wanted to use going into my PhD and only applied to work with people who could help me do that. Because, at the end of the day, while I love my discipline and all its craziness, there are a whole lot of projects which I do not want to be doing. I have a research agenda based on my interests and though the topics I investigate may be a bit diverse, they're united by the same theories and methodologies. For my master's, I was less certain but I still had a few clearly defined interests (that is, I didn't have specific tools or theories or frameworks in mind) within the broader discipline. The only way I can see your approach working out, vnatch, is if you pitch yourself as an experimental/theoretical person, rather than someone with a specific interest in molecular bio. 

[biotechie]

6 hours ago, vnatch said:

Thanks for the input. I see what both of you mean, but I suppose my followup question would be: do people really have goals and interests that are that specific? It may sound corny, but when I said that I love all molecular bio, what I meant was that I think I would be able to pick many different projects and be equally happy with all of them. What really draws me to research in general is the problem-solving aspect of it, it fascinates me that people can find out so much that they can't see or directly observe just by using standard molecular tools and putting pieces of a puzzle together. So no matter what it is (with certain limits), I feel like I would love anything if I delve deep enough into it. With this mentality in mind, it confuses me that some people actually think "The one thing that truly interests me more than anything else is apple genetics (or whatever)". 

If its true that everyone else applying is this specific in their interests, it worries me slightly that my interests are much broader. As peachypie said, it might make for a weak SOP. Do you or anyone else have any pointers on how I could combat this? I suppose the most accurate thing for me to portray in my SOP is that I am passionate enough in general biology that I will love almost any specific research topic once I delve in. Obviously, when applying to schools I will first pick a lab that strikes me as the most interesting, but it would be wrong of me to write as if my sole purpose in applying is to studying that one topic. Again, I'd love some feedback. 

I'm another molecular biologist that has a wide variety of interests. When I applied, I specified my interests as immunology and epigenetics as that's what I knew. However, I ultimately joined a lab that is in metabolism and doesn't do epigenetics at all. You do need to portray your interests such that you have obvious directionality. You want the adcom to see you as a student that can be successful but also as one that is fairly flexible. The problem with being interested in everything is that if you're not careful you can be viewed as unsure about your future or not committed to your graduate studies.

Most people can say, "I'm interested in cancer biology because I think transcriptional regulation is interesting." or "I believe that further understanding of epigenetics will yield new obesity treatments," because those are things they ARE interested in, but that doesn't mean it is all they are interested in. Most of us are very interested in several fields. I'll go to micro biome talks, but I don't work on the micro biome, etc. I'm very multidisciplinary in my own studies.

Umbrella or interdisciplinary programs might be of interest for you as they're going to have more different types of projects for you to choose from. Do NOT pick the first lab that is interesting to you. You need to pick for the whole package, the "good fit," which is: Good lab environment, good research mentor, a promising project, and a supportive program. If you get to application time during your senior year and you're still unsure about your own interests, it might be worth it to do a masters degree to prove to yourself that you want to do graduate school and it might help you see areas of science you're most interested in. I did a MS to prove I could do a PhD and that it was for me, though I already had a field of interest based on what I did as an undergrad (which I changed once I got to PhD), and I've been glad I did it through my whole PhD so far.

I say this over and over on these forums, but I don't think "safety schools" should be on your radar at all. You should apply to programs that you think you would be a good fit in. Don't pick simply based on rank (and in my personal opinion, you should throw rank out). You should be able to look at each program and think, "I could be happy if I went to school there." If not, and you get into a school you view as a "safety school," you'll never be happy there and it might hinder your success.

[ms_green_genes]

I don't think you need to know exactly what question you want to research when you apply. My daughter is applying this cycle. She knows she wants to do genetics/genomics research in a lab, in academia or industry, and definitely not field research. She mentioned some general types of broad questions in her SoP, but nothing very specific. She was very honest that her interests are broad, and she is applying to umbrella programs so she can experience lab rotations and get a better feel for narrowing down the research she wants to do. 

She has a 3.98 GPA; 167 Q, 162 V, 5.0 W on the GRE; 3 years lab research at university; 2 summers research in industry at a genetics incubator; 4 different field research trips; won the major research award at her university; 3 first-author posters; one middle-author paper in review for a major publication. She has received first-round invites for 5 top-tier schools so far; waiting to hear from Stanford and Rockefeller in January.

She was able to put together a solid package indicating she knows what research is and exactly why she wants to do it for the rest of her life, even though she does not yet know exactly what she wants to research. She knows enough to know there's a lot she doesn't know and won't be able to learn until she's actually in grad school. 

I think it's okay not to know exactly what you want to research when you apply, if you put your application together directly.

 

[ms_green_genes]

I forgot to say my daughter didn't pick her schools because they were top-tier. She picked them because she found professors there doing research in areas that intrigue her, as well as because the schools are in areas/cities where she could see herself being happy for the next 5-6 years.

[biotechie]

3 hours ago, ms_green_genes said:

I don't think you need to know exactly what question you want to research when you apply. My daughter is applying this cycle. She knows she wants to do genetics/genomics research in a lab, in academia or industry, and definitely not field research. She mentioned some general types of broad questions in her SoP, but nothing very specific. She was very honest that her interests are broad, and she is applying to umbrella programs so she can experience lab rotations and get a better feel for narrowing down the research she wants to do. 

She has a 3.98 GPA; 167 Q, 162 V, 5.0 W on the GRE; 3 years lab research at university; 2 summers research in industry at a genetics incubator; 4 different field research trips; won the major research award at her university; 3 first-author posters; one middle-author paper in review for a major publication. She has received first-round invites for 5 top-tier schools so far; waiting to hear from Stanford and Rockefeller in January.

She was able to put together a solid package indicating she knows what research is and exactly why she wants to do it for the rest of her life, even though she does not yet know exactly what she wants to research. She knows enough to know there's a lot she doesn't know and won't be able to learn until she's actually in grad school. 

I think it's okay not to know exactly what you want to research when you apply, if you put your application together directly.

 

FYI MOST programs in the biological/biomedical sciences have rotations, not just the umbrella and interdisciplinary programs.

Please make sure that these universities have several professors that you would be willing to work with; just because you're interested in what they're doing doesn't mean they're taking students, have money to take a student, or that you will get along with them.

[ms_green_genes]

44 minutes ago, biotechie said:

FYI MOST programs in the biological/biomedical sciences have rotations, not just the umbrella and interdisciplinary programs.

Please make sure that these universities have several professors that you would be willing to work with; just because you're interested in what they're doing doesn't mean they're taking students, have money to take a student, or that you will get along with them.

She contacted several different professors at each school before submitting her applications. They were all interested in working with her and wanted to meet with her if she was offered an interview. Now she just needs to meet them in person to see how well she meshes with them. I guess she'll find out at the interview if they actually have funding and want to take on another student and if their personalities are a good fit. Or after rotations and meeting people during her first year, she could end up in some other lab altogether.

[biotechie]

30 minutes ago, ms_green_genes said:

She contacted several different professors at each school before submitting her applications. They were all interested in working with her and wanted to meet with her if she was offered an interview. Now she just needs to meet them in person to see how well she meshes with them. I guess she'll find out at the interview if they actually have funding and want to take on another student and if their personalities are a good fit. Or after rotations and meeting people during her first year, she could end up in some other lab altogether.

I would say she will find out their true personality when she does rotations (if she rotates in their labs). A 20 minute interview won't be a true measure of personality. I didn't end up with any of the professors I interviewed with.

[biochemgirl67]

Broad interests at this point are okay.  Really, they are.  HOWEVER, you do need to be working towards narrowing your interests.  You cannot honestly be broadly and equally interested in ALL of molecular biology because it's simply too much.  Instead of working on where you want to go, you need to be working on the what you want to do.  And the way to do this is to get on PubMed and start reading papers.  The statement of probably being happy with any project actually can come across as poorly thought out and actually immature in a way.  It means you haven't put enough time or effort to delve sufficiently deep into a given topic to determine whether or not you actually have long-term, late night, and persistent interest in it.

For example, I have decided I am interested in molecular signaling in the context of the both the immune system and the host:pathogen interface/grievous diseases such as cancer.  Now, this is actually really really broad if you think about it.  Am I interested in transcriptional networks interfaced with signaling pathways?  Yes!  Could I study intercellular interactions that change cell behavior on a molecular level?  Yes!  Would I be interested in the way that pathogens perturb the host/immune systems through signaling?  YES!  I underline that interest with my graduate-level classes and diverse research experiences.  My direction will probably change, but my foundation (based on the literature, coursework, and research) allows me to highlight my developing interests and prove that I've given it some thought.  My advice would be to do the same thing; take a highly specialized class, read a bunch of papers, and FORGET ABOUT CHOOSING GRAD PROGRAMS FOR NOW.  You have plenty of time.  You'll make better choices if you really can know what you want before you start choosing.  I would hold off on making that list until at least the end of spring semester.

Edited December 24, 2015 by biochemgirl67

[Eigen]

There's a difference between having broad interests and not being able to pick specific interests. 

When I was coming from undergrad, I applied to programs that properly spanned 3 disciplines- from chemical physics, to molecular biology with chemistry in between. 

But at each school, in each program, I had a particular interest and saw how I fit into several labs in that program, what I would like to do and what I could offer. 

Having too specific of an interest can be a bad thing- it means you're not flexible during or after grad school. You might have the only PI that you really wanted to work with die of a sudden heart attack your first semester- could you happily switch to another lab? 

You might be working on the TT, and find that grant funding in your niche area is drying up- are you going to be OK with and able to switch to a topic with more available funding?

Even outside of that, rarely will you be able to do work for the rest of your career (in STEM) that you start in your graduate program. You start with graduate work on topic A, but the world already has someone doing that work- your advisor. But you take those skills you learn, and do a postdoc on topic B or C- which also have people doing that work. Then you take the skills you learn, and the topics you were exposed to with A, B and C an write proposals D, E and F that combine various aspects of those work with your particular skill set. And then you become the person working in that new niche you collected. 

I really worry a lot about some new graduate students I meet when we run them through orientation- they are so intensely focused on a project that one faculty member is working on, and that's all they can see themselves doing for the rest of their career. And that's a really bad place to be- they won't be able to differentiate themselves significantly enough from that advisor to convince hiring committees that they're an independent and individual scientist. 

On the initial topic of safety schools- I like to say safety schools and reach schools don't really exist in graduate applications. You apply to places you think you would fit really well. If that's a top 5 program, go for it. If that's a bottom 50 program, go for it. The importance is the fit you have with your advisor, and the potential for YOU to do excellent research during your PhD. If you break ground and publish several nature papers, no one will care where you did your PhD- they will just care that you're the person that publishes really good work. 

Is publishing really good work easier when you are at a top school? Sure. But it's not easier when you're at a top school, but have a crappy relationship with your advisor and no real mentoring. Publishing top research is all about you having the environment and facilities you need to publish top research. 

[vnatch]

Thanks for all the input. Since posting this, I decided to just try and look at some programs/articles online to see what I would find. I quickly realized that I was very wrong with the "i'm interested in everything" mentality. I've been reading tons of papers, and I seem to be most interested in the ones concerning the molecular genetics and cell biology of development. I will obviously continue reading and honing my interests, but do you think this level of specificity is enough for me to write my applications? I've been noticing that, within the field of "development", I can easily pinpoint which areas I DON'T like, but its harder for me to get really excited about one specific issue (I usually find a variety of articles interesting). For example, after my research I can definitively say that I am NOT interested in: plant development, microbiology, Chromatin/maintenance of DNA, and development of the nervous system. However, the things I was most interested in seem to be diverse (e.g. stem cell differentiation, signal transduction, circadian rhythms, protein regulation and expression, etc.). I suppose my difficulty now is in writing an SOP that can tie all of these things in together. My goal for the SOP is to be able to say "My general interest is in post-fertilization development, and specifically my interests are over a range of different research areas". Ideally, I want to be broad enough to raise my chances of any lab accepting me, but specific enough so that I sound like I've done my research and would be a good fit for the school.

[biochemgirl67]

Look into patterning and limb development to give you a solid intro to what you say you're interested in.  Adcoms really understand that you are developing interests rather than stating project goals.  In addition, I would suggest applying to umbrella programs rather than a specific department to give yourself some leeway.  Maybe sign up for a developmental biology class at the senior/grad level for next semester to be able to say that you like whatever it is at a deep level.  You could also take a course in molecular genetics at the grad level to get a crash course in techniques used in the field.  I did, and it really helped me understand the application of molecular genetics to other fields.  In addition, the SOP is as much about how your experiences fit your goals as what you want to do.  Don't worry about writing that SOP now.  You'll write it at the end of next summer after you've had hopefully a summer research experience plus a semester of research and course experience to bolster your goals.

[aberrant]

On 12/25/2015 at 1:34 PM, vnatch said:

However, the things I was most interested in seem to be diverse (e.g. stem cell differentiation, signal transduction, circadian rhythms, protein regulation and expression, etc.). I suppose my difficulty now is in writing an SOP that can tie all of these things in together. My goal for the SOP is to be able to say "My general interest is in post-fertilization development, and specifically my interests are over a range of different research areas". Ideally, I want to be broad enough to raise my chances of any lab accepting me, but specific enough so that I sound like I've done my research and would be a good fit for the school.

This list is a good start for you to narrow down what you are interested in. Just because you stated that, for example, you are applying this program because you are interested in protein regulation and expression", it doesn't mean that you cannot change your field of research -- you can still go through lab rotations to learn about various researches and labs, and make the "final" decision. There is no absolute commitment there when you write your SOP, but it is necessary to show the adcom that you know what you want to study and why you want to study. That being said, I doubt that you can tied those 4 (or more, since you end the list with "etc.") things together, because they are very different. Stem cell differentiation, for example, will limit yourself being a "good fit" to many programs, because there are more programs using stem cell and differentiate to a specific cell type for other studies, than the differentiate itself; protein regulation and expression -- what system and mechanism are you interested in? Eurkaryotes vs. prokaryotes? Some are more interesting than the other, and some are less known than the other -- you'll have to be slightly specific than that. However, ultimately, you just need to know what and why you are interested in a specific field (or subfield).

Lastly, do not make it general just so that you think it will boost your chance to be accepted. It can only make your application profile worse.

[onceinalifetime]

As some have said before, your energy should not even be focused on graduate school right now. What you should be focused on is maintaining your high GPA, figuring out what subfield (or two) you might want to get into, and studying for the GRE. You have wayyy more than enough research exp. Put that aside and focus on what I mentioned above. Since youre entering senior year, youll be taking a lot of bio electives that can help you realize specific interests a lot.

[onceinalifetime]

On 12/22/2015 at 4:32 PM, vnatch said:

 I just started undertaking my own project in my lab, and my professor says it may be good enough for publication if it works--so I may or may not have a publication under my belt by the time I'm applying to grad schools.

what is your own project working on?