2017 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results

[rojano]

Graduate Institution: University of Lorestan
Major(s): English Language and Literature
Minor(s): N/A
GPA in Major: 3.7 
Overall GPA: 3.7 
Position in Class: 4
Type of Student: Domestic Female
Academic IELTS Scores :
Reading: 7.5

Listening: 8.5

Writing: 7

Speaking: 7.5

Overall Band Score: 7.5

Research Experience: One published article out of M.A thesis, one article presented in an international conference in Iran, working on 2 articles at the moment

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: None

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: One presentation in a literary circle

Applying to Where:

University of Toronto

Hey guys, do I have any chance for PhD in Comparative Literature at University of Toronto?

[Franklinisajerk]

How much will it hurt me having a low <3.00 GPA at a community college where I've taken ~9 hours of courses, if my GPA at my home university (~120 hours) is over 3.8? I'm worried that when it comes to entering the GPAs/transcripts, top tier schools will see the low community college GPA and toss my application without caring that it was only reflective of a couple of classes. Or, will they make a weighted average of the two GPAs when considering my app?

[Bioenchilada]

12 minutes ago, Franklinisajerk said:

How much will it hurt me having a low <3.00 GPA at a community college where I've taken ~9 hours of courses, if my GPA at my home university (~120 hours) is over 3.8? I'm worried that when it comes to entering the GPAs/transcripts, top tier schools will see the low community college GPA and toss my application without caring that it was only reflective of a couple of classes. Or, will they make a weighted average of the two GPAs when considering my app?

I don't think they'll average both GPAs out but the amount of damage it can have on your app is dependent on the kinds of courses you took. Honestly, it'll range from minimal to moderate, if the courses you took were all relevant to your major and desired field of stuy. 

[Franklinisajerk]

2 hours ago, Bioenchilada said:

I don't think they'll average both GPAs out but the amount of damage it can have on your app is dependent on the kinds of courses you took. Honestly, it'll range from minimal to moderate, if the courses you took were all relevant to your major and desired field of stuy. 

None of them were relevant -- I'm planning on applying for neuroscience (my major as well) and the courses were government and spanish. I'm assuming thats better than if they were bio and chem classes, but obviously I still wish i hadn't done it. I'm just trying to figure out how hard i should be smacking my forehead X-(

Edited September 6, 2016 by Franklinisajerk

[Bioenchilada]

11 hours ago, Franklinisajerk said:

None of them were relevant -- I'm planning on applying for neuroscience (my major as well) and the courses were government and spanish. I'm assuming thats better than if they were bio and chem classes, but obviously I still wish i hadn't done it. I'm just trying to figure out how hard i should be smacking my forehead X-(

Haha I think you'll be fine. Which schools are you planning to apply to? 

[Franklinisajerk]

23 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:

Haha I think you'll be fine. Which schools are you planning to apply to? 

Stanford, UCSF, UCSD, MIT, Johns Hopkins, BCM, University of Washington and maybe one or two more. I know the first few are ultra-ultra-competitive, but I was feeling reasonably okay about my application until I realized that I forgot to take the final for an online community college course this summer... 

[LoveMysterious]

On 7/22/2016 at 2:22 PM, laxgoal100 said:

As far as I can tell the uGPA is the only thing lacking. How many post bacc classes contribute to that impressive 3.9? Great GRE score... you are also a little out of college and have good research experience. I would suggest throwing in some PhD programs, if that is what you want to do/end up. The uGPA may hold you back, but you never know...

Thanks for your feedback! Only 7 (semester long) classes. I did as much as I could while working full time. Right now I'm reaching out to schools that have 3.0 cut-offs to see if they'll factor in my post-bacc GPA. 

I would love to apply to PhD programs, and my mentors are pushing me to apply. I don't think they realize how competitive it is, though. I feel like other applicants will have applications just as strong as mine, but with a stellar uGPA. Sometimes I'm truly worried that I won't even get accepted into any masters program. 

[Bioenchilada]

1 hour ago, Franklinisajerk said:

Stanford, UCSF, UCSD, MIT, Johns Hopkins, BCM, University of Washington and maybe one or two more. I know the first few are ultra-ultra-competitive, but I was feeling reasonably okay about my application until I realized that I forgot to take the final for an online community college course this summer... 

How many years of research experience do you have? 

[Franklinisajerk]

14 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:

How many years of research experience do you have? 

3 summers full time in various labs with about a year part-time between classes mixed in (1 co-author publication on its way). I also have ~2 years part time and 2 summers full time in my current lab (with a 2nd author publication in press). GRE scores above 90th percentile... I should also have letters from multiple lab mentors.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Franklinisajerk

[blc073]

@Franklinisajerk

You're going to be fine. Chill. 

[Bioenchilada]

13 minutes ago, Franklinisajerk said:

3 summers full time in various labs with about a year part-time between classes mixed in (1 co-author publication on its way). I also have ~2 years part time and 2 summers full time in my current lab (with a 2nd author publication in press). GRE scores above 90th percentile... I should also have letters from multiple lab mentors.

Seems like you're in really good shape! Make sure your SOP is great, and you'll be set  

[as1an1nja]

Undergrad Institution: Top 50 school, US
Major(s): BME
Minor(s): MATH
GPA in Major: > 3.5
Overall GPA: 3.5
Position in Class: Above average for academics, should be top for research 
Type of Student: Asian, US citizen

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 90
V: 60
W: 5
B: - NA - 


TOEFL Total:  - NA - 

Research Experience: Will not go into detail in what I did for NDA

1. Organic Chem Lab, 6 months, just doing basics, nothing significant to get published. Selected as one of two from the dept. 

2. BME lab, since Soph year (including 2 summers). 1 First author expected this semester along with PI (Professor + chair of graduate school in dept), Associate Professor in Statistics from another college. (Discovered two findings, planning for submission on >5 impact factor journal) (Word from PI: will be the 6th undergrad to obtain 1st author in the last 15 years). Provided figures and data for 2 successful NIH grant (one of the grant was rejected 6 times, accepted after I contributed) (total funding in the $ X00,000.00 range). 

Discoveries will amend course material in undergrad BME course and grad BME course. Will be included from next year that PI is teaching.

Presentations, all 1st author: Research Internship at my college (selected as the only one from the program to present to Associate Dean of Engineering Education and program coordinators), BMES national conference as the only undergrad from the department, also fully funded (upcoming, October) (abstract accepted after submission under general session (there is undergrad session)). Weekly meetings in the PI's office, skype meeting with the Stat prof. Collaborates data directly with Grad students. 

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Reseach stuff (research scholarships), academic stuff (deans list, scholarships), nothing significant

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 

Started an undergrad journal in the university, guided under dean of engineering. Weekly meetings with the Dean

Grader in in-major course (usually given to Grad students for TA (for money support from dept.), only undergrad in the pool of TAs and graders, rest are grad students )

Microbiology lab assistant (1 semester)

Math tutor (1sem)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Average credits per semester: 19.5-ish (>19, required advisors approval)

Projects:

1. used epidemic model to predict spread of ebola virus in Africa (2014)

2. found skin's transient porosity values under ultrasound (2015)

Special Bonus Points: ?

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: ?

Applying to Where:

Stanford

Bunch of UC schools

Princeton

CMU

Wisconsin

Florida

 

Let me know my chances and recommendations to which schools I should apply, Thank you and good luck to you all

 

 

[Bioenchilada]

22 hours ago, as1an1nja said:

Undergrad Institution: Top 50 school, US
Major(s): BME
Minor(s): MATH
GPA in Major: > 3.5
Overall GPA: 3.5
Position in Class: Above average for academics, should be top for research 
Type of Student: Asian, US citizen

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 90
V: 60
W: 5
B: - NA - 


TOEFL Total:  - NA - 

Research Experience: Will not go into detail in what I did for NDA

1. Organic Chem Lab, 6 months, just doing basics, nothing significant to get published. Selected as one of two from the dept. 

2. BME lab, since Soph year (including 2 summers). 1 First author expected this semester along with PI (Professor + chair of graduate school in dept), Associate Professor in Statistics from another college. (Discovered two findings, planning for submission on >5 impact factor journal) (Word from PI: will be the 6th undergrad to obtain 1st author in the last 15 years). Provided figures and data for 2 successful NIH grant (one of the grant was rejected 6 times, accepted after I contributed) (total funding in the $ X00,000.00 range). 

Discoveries will amend course material in undergrad BME course and grad BME course. Will be included from next year that PI is teaching.

Presentations, all 1st author: Research Internship at my college (selected as the only one from the program to present to Associate Dean of Engineering Education and program coordinators), BMES national conference as the only undergrad from the department, also fully funded (upcoming, October) (abstract accepted after submission under general session (there is undergrad session)). Weekly meetings in the PI's office, skype meeting with the Stat prof. Collaborates data directly with Grad students. 

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Reseach stuff (research scholarships), academic stuff (deans list, scholarships), nothing significant

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 

Started an undergrad journal in the university, guided under dean of engineering. Weekly meetings with the Dean

Grader in in-major course (usually given to Grad students for TA (for money support from dept.), only undergrad in the pool of TAs and graders, rest are grad students )

Microbiology lab assistant (1 semester)

Math tutor (1sem)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help:

Average credits per semester: 19.5-ish (>19, required advisors approval)

Projects:

1. used epidemic model to predict spread of ebola virus in Africa (2014)

2. found skin's transient porosity values under ultrasound (2015)

Special Bonus Points: ?

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: ?

Applying to Where:

Stanford

Bunch of UC schools

Princeton

CMU

Wisconsin

Florida

 

Let me know my chances and recommendations to which schools I should apply, Thank you and good luck to you all

 

 

You seem to have pretty good chances given your amazing credentials. As long as your rec letters are great, and mainly come from PIs, and your SOP is good, you should get plenty of interviews  

Are you focusing mainly on California schools? Also, are you going applying to BME PhD programs? 

Edited September 8, 2016 by Bioenchilada

[as1an1nja]

3 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:

You seem to have pretty good chances given your amazing credentials. As long as your rec letters are great, and mainly come from PIs, and your SOP is good, you should get plenty of interviews  

Are you focusing mainly on California schools? 

I prefer to go to Cali because of the weather, but I prefer to have a great advisor than a great reputed school. Since I want to become a Prof in the future, I want to have a strong guidance who can make me a better researcher. Those kind of advisors tend to be in good schools, but I do not have a bias towards non-elite college, which is why I would like to know what kind of schools I should apply to

Im interested in Bioinformatics, will be dissecting potential advisor's paper later this month. Let me know what programs I should be looking at, 

Thank you!

[Bioenchilada]

13 minutes ago, as1an1nja said:

I prefer to go to Cali because of the weather, but I prefer to have a great advisor than a great reputed school. Since I want to become a Prof in the future, I want to have a strong guidance who can make me a better researcher. Those kind of advisors tend to be in good schools, but I do not have a bias towards non-elite college, which is why I would like to know what kind of schools I should apply to

Im interested in Bioinformatics, will be dissecting potential advisor's paper later this month. Let me know what programs I should be looking at, 

Thank you!

You are right in the sense that the best science tends to happen at elite institutions. And, if you're going down the academia path, where you get your training--along with who trains you-- is rather relevant. I don't know much about Bioinformatics programs, but maybe MIT, Harvard and JHU are really good for that (?). Though, maybe you should look into schools with really good funding as well and check the research going on. 

Edited September 8, 2016 by Bioenchilada

[as1an1nja]

1 hour ago, Bioenchilada said:

You are right in the sense that the best science tends to happen at elite institutions. And, if you're going down the academia path, where you get your training--along with who trains you-- is rather relevant. I don't know much about Bioinformatics programs, but maybe MIT, Harvard and JHU are really good for that (?). Though, maybe you should look into schools with really good funding as well and check the research going on. 

MIT, Harvard, are JHU are top elite colleges. Should I assume that I have a shot and be inclined to apply to those programs?

[Bioenchilada]

35 minutes ago, as1an1nja said:

MIT, Harvard, are JHU are top elite colleges. Should I assume that I have a shot and be inclined to apply to those programs?

I mean, they're no better than Stanford for your field haha

I encourage you to apply; however, don't do so if you're only doing it for the reputation. Fit is critical when it comes to PhD admissions, so a person with a "perfect" profile will still be rejected if they don't fit with the program. 

[Born-to-pipette]

Hi all! Would really appreciate some feedback on my chances of admission to the schools on my list, along with any suggestions for back-up schools that would be a good fit for cancer / cancer immunology interests

 

Undergrad Institution: small liberal arts school, relatively unknown
Major(s): Bio, molecular emphasis
Minor(s): psychology
GPA in Major: 4.0
Overall GPA: 3.99
Position in Class: top
Type of Student: Domestic asian female

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 164 (88%)
V: 166 (97%)
W: 5 (93%)
B: 99%/99%/90% on each bio subsection respectively


Research Experience: 

Undergrad:

Lab 1 - targeted drug discovery for cancer - evaluated panel of novel compounds in various biological assays - 2.5 years

Lab 2 - genetic engineering - cancer immunology (CAR stuff) - 1 year

Post-grad

Tech for 1 year+ at well regarded (but not Ivy-level) cancer hospital. will be 2 years by the time I start grad school. cancer immunology. been hopped around various projects -- nothing has really come to fruition thus far, but learned a bunch of skills.

No publications but 9 presentations thus far. both poster & oral. one poster at AACR annual meeting.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: 

University undergrad research grant (part of the inaugural group of students selected)

Beta Beta Beta research grant

Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges

Research scholar award (undergrad)

Dean's list

AACR member

Honors college

President's scholarship

awards for 6 of 9 poster/oral presentations

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 
Peer assisted learning leader (hosted sessions where groups of 4 through 30+ showed up to learn/review class material) - one semester

Tutor - one semester

Lab TA - 2 years

Shadowed an oncologist for a few months

volunteered at hospital for 1.5 years (not sure if pertinent enough to include in application)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: taught children's sunday school for 5.5 years - 100% a daily test of resilience/perseverance

Special Bonus Points: none that I can think of

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

REACH

Sloan Kettering

Harvard or Yale?

Johns Hopkins: biochem/cellular/mol bio, cellular medicine, and/or immunology programs

UCSF?

Stanford biomed program (cancer or immunology home area)

Rockefeller?

HOPEFULLY COMPETITIVE FOR

UWashington Immunology and/or mol/cell bio

Scripps (San Diego)

UCLA

UPenn CAMB or Immunology

UCSD biomed program

BACK-UP ?? (any feedback on how to gauge this classification would be great!)

Oregon Health & Sciences University

Northwestern biomed (Driskill)

Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai or Albert Einstein SOM?

[Bioenchilada]

3 hours ago, Born-to-pipette said:

Hi all! Would really appreciate some feedback on my chances of admission to the schools on my list, along with any suggestions for back-up schools that would be a good fit for cancer / cancer immunology interests

 

Undergrad Institution: small liberal arts school, relatively unknown
Major(s): Bio, molecular emphasis
Minor(s): psychology
GPA in Major: 4.0
Overall GPA: 3.99
Position in Class: top
Type of Student: Domestic asian female

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 164 (88%)
V: 166 (97%)
W: 5 (93%)
B: 99%/99%/90% on each bio subsection respectively


Research Experience: 

Undergrad:

Lab 1 - targeted drug discovery for cancer - evaluated panel of novel compounds in various biological assays - 2.5 years

Lab 2 - genetic engineering - cancer immunology (CAR stuff) - 1 year

Post-grad

Tech for 1 year+ at well regarded (but not Ivy-level) cancer hospital. will be 2 years by the time I start grad school. cancer immunology. been hopped around various projects -- nothing has really come to fruition thus far, but learned a bunch of skills.

No publications but 9 presentations thus far. both poster & oral. one poster at AACR annual meeting.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: 

University undergrad research grant (part of the inaugural group of students selected)

Beta Beta Beta research grant

Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges

Research scholar award (undergrad)

Dean's list

AACR member

Honors college

President's scholarship

awards for 6 of 9 poster/oral presentations

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 
Peer assisted learning leader (hosted sessions where groups of 4 through 30+ showed up to learn/review class material) - one semester

Tutor - one semester

Lab TA - 2 years

Shadowed an oncologist for a few months

volunteered at hospital for 1.5 years (not sure if pertinent enough to include in application)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: taught children's sunday school for 5.5 years - 100% a daily test of resilience/perseverance

Special Bonus Points: none that I can think of

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

REACH

Sloan Kettering

Harvard or Yale?

Johns Hopkins: biochem/cellular/mol bio, cellular medicine, and/or immunology programs

UCSF?

Stanford biomed program (cancer or immunology home area)

Rockefeller?

HOPEFULLY COMPETITIVE FOR

UWashington Immunology and/or mol/cell bio

Scripps (San Diego)

UCLA

UPenn CAMB or Immunology

UCSD biomed program

BACK-UP ?? (any feedback on how to gauge this classification would be great!)

Oregon Health & Sciences University

Northwestern biomed (Driskill)

Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai or Albert Einstein SOM?

I think you have a very strong application for any school you apply to, especially if you decide to apply to cancer biology programs. As long as your LORs are great and and you write a convincing SOP explaining why you fit into X or Y program, you' should get plenty of interviews. My only concern is that you seem to have too many schools in your radar, the ideal range in my opinion is from 7-8. Make sure that you're not applying only for name recognition, which is easy to do. If you can't prove to the admissions committee that you're actually a good fit for a school and not just riding on a reputation, you'll get rejected. Avoid writing a generic school-specific paragraph at all cost.

Also, the way you ranked the schools in your list, especially if talking about cancer biology or cancer immunology, is rather funky. I'd say that any top 10 program is a "reach", regardless of your credentials haha 

Edited September 12, 2016 by Bioenchilada

[Born-to-pipette]

15 hours ago, Bioenchilada said:

I think you have a very strong application for any school you apply to, especially if you decide to apply to cancer biology programs. As long as your LORs are great and and you write a convincing SOP explaining why you fit into X or Y program, you' should get plenty of interviews. My only concern is that you seem to have too many schools in your radar, the ideal range in my opinion is from 7-8. Make sure that you're not applying only for name recognition, which is easy to do. If you can't prove to the admissions committee that you're actually a good fit for a school and not just riding on a reputation, you'll get rejected. Avoid writing a generic school-specific paragraph at all cost.

Also, the way you ranked the schools in your list, especially if talking about cancer biology or cancer immunology, is rather funky. I'd say that any top 10 program is a "reach", regardless of your credentials haha 

Thank you for the feedback! I agree 100% that my list needs to be reduced. And, yes, I absolutely struggled with figuring out how to categorize schools - and I think I may have overthought the whole process. Essentially, for sanity's sake, I wanted to include - other than the crazy reach schools - programs that I would be competitive for, along with back-up schools that I would also be happy to attend. Totally understand that the end-product of my ranking turned out kinda funky. Any advice for how to better gauge / rank schools? Would it be better to just split the schools into 5 reach and 3 back-ups, as opposed to attempting a 3-tiered thing? Definitely still trying to figure out a good way to comfortably call a particular institution a back-up school. 

Thanks for bringing up the point about fit! Thus far, I hope to make a strong case in terms of faculty I'm interested in working with, but I've seen suggestions in this forum to keep the POI section to just a few sentences. I've found, however, that most schools have generic information about the programs themselves. They indicate a value for mentorship, accessibility of PI's, good student publications, etc. -- all of which seem a little handwavey and surface-level to include in a SOP. Any recommendations for getting to know the schools/programs better, especially prior to an interview visit? What did you personally highlight in your applications?

[Effloresce]

19 hours ago, Born-to-pipette said:

Hi all! Would really appreciate some feedback on my chances of admission to the schools on my list, along with any suggestions for back-up schools that would be a good fit for cancer / cancer immunology interests

 

Undergrad Institution: small liberal arts school, relatively unknown
Major(s): Bio, molecular emphasis
Minor(s): psychology
GPA in Major: 4.0
Overall GPA: 3.99
Position in Class: top
Type of Student: Domestic asian female

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 164 (88%)
V: 166 (97%)
W: 5 (93%)
B: 99%/99%/90% on each bio subsection respectively


Research Experience: 

Undergrad:

Lab 1 - targeted drug discovery for cancer - evaluated panel of novel compounds in various biological assays - 2.5 years

Lab 2 - genetic engineering - cancer immunology (CAR stuff) - 1 year

Post-grad

Tech for 1 year+ at well regarded (but not Ivy-level) cancer hospital. will be 2 years by the time I start grad school. cancer immunology. been hopped around various projects -- nothing has really come to fruition thus far, but learned a bunch of skills.

No publications but 9 presentations thus far. both poster & oral. one poster at AACR annual meeting.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: 

University undergrad research grant (part of the inaugural group of students selected)

Beta Beta Beta research grant

Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges

Research scholar award (undergrad)

Dean's list

AACR member

Honors college

President's scholarship

awards for 6 of 9 poster/oral presentations

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 
Peer assisted learning leader (hosted sessions where groups of 4 through 30+ showed up to learn/review class material) - one semester

Tutor - one semester

Lab TA - 2 years

Shadowed an oncologist for a few months

volunteered at hospital for 1.5 years (not sure if pertinent enough to include in application)

Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: taught children's sunday school for 5.5 years - 100% a daily test of resilience/perseverance

Special Bonus Points: none that I can think of

Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter:

Applying to Where:

REACH

Sloan Kettering

Harvard or Yale?

Johns Hopkins: biochem/cellular/mol bio, cellular medicine, and/or immunology programs

UCSF?

Stanford biomed program (cancer or immunology home area)

Rockefeller?

HOPEFULLY COMPETITIVE FOR

UWashington Immunology and/or mol/cell bio

Scripps (San Diego)

UCLA

UPenn CAMB or Immunology

UCSD biomed program

BACK-UP ?? (any feedback on how to gauge this classification would be great!)

Oregon Health & Sciences University

Northwestern biomed (Driskill)

Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai or Albert Einstein SOM?

i'd say add Vanderbilt to your list, but i'm biased.

[Bioenchilada]

32 minutes ago, Born-to-pipette said:

Thank you for the feedback! I agree 100% that my list needs to be reduced. And, yes, I absolutely struggled with figuring out how to categorize schools - and I think I may have overthought the whole process. Essentially, for sanity's sake, I wanted to include - other than the crazy reach schools - programs that I would be competitive for, along with back-up schools that I would also be happy to attend. Totally understand that the end-product of my ranking turned out kinda funky. Any advice for how to better gauge / rank schools? Would it be better to just split the schools into 5 reach and 3 back-ups, as opposed to attempting a 3-tiered thing? Definitely still trying to figure out a good way to comfortably call a particular institution a back-up school. 

Thanks for bringing up the point about fit! Thus far, I hope to make a strong case in terms of faculty I'm interested in working with, but I've seen suggestions in this forum to keep the POI section to just a few sentences. I've found, however, that most schools have generic information about the programs themselves. They indicate a value for mentorship, accessibility of PI's, good student publications, etc. -- all of which seem a little handwavey and surface-level to include in a SOP. Any recommendations for getting to know the schools/programs better, especially prior to an interview visit? What did you personally highlight in your applications?

I looked up the structure of their program specifically, minority resources and devotion to diversity, amount of professors in my field of interest, surroundings, etc. My case is not the norm since I had personal or professional ties to half of the schools I applied to, so I had plenty of things to talk about given my experience with the school and/or the research being conducted. I got rejected by most of the schools I didn't have some form of tie to since I either applied for the reputation and then found out the school was a horrible fit when I went to interview , or just because it was an amazing school and the application fee was waived lol

[Bioenchilada]

38 minutes ago, Born-to-pipette said:

Thank you for the feedback! I agree 100% that my list needs to be reduced. And, yes, I absolutely struggled with figuring out how to categorize schools - and I think I may have overthought the whole process. Essentially, for sanity's sake, I wanted to include - other than the crazy reach schools - programs that I would be competitive for, along with back-up schools that I would also be happy to attend. Totally understand that the end-product of my ranking turned out kinda funky. Any advice for how to better gauge / rank schools? Would it be better to just split the schools into 5 reach and 3 back-ups, as opposed to attempting a 3-tiered thing? Definitely still trying to figure out a good way to comfortably call a particular institution a back-up school. 

Thanks for bringing up the point about fit! Thus far, I hope to make a strong case in terms of faculty I'm interested in working with, but I've seen suggestions in this forum to keep the POI section to just a few sentences. I've found, however, that most schools have generic information about the programs themselves. They indicate a value for mentorship, accessibility of PI's, good student publications, etc. -- all of which seem a little handwavey and surface-level to include in a SOP. Any recommendations for getting to know the schools/programs better, especially prior to an interview visit? What did you personally highlight in your applications?

Also, grad admissions are very different from undegrad, so it's difficult to separate them ito tiers. I know plenty of people that got into reach schools but got rejected by "safeties" because of fit, essentially. However, if you're going to try to rank schools, use funding sources (NIH/NSF) as a parameter since competitive schools tend to have more resources. You can also take a lot at the NRC/PhD.org rankings for your desired subfield and maybe even US News, if enough data is available in your subfield, to pain a somewhat clearer picture; however, take these as a grain of salt. This is where you look more  at strength of departments and divisions and ignore previous conceptions of competitiveness. For schools that have medical campuses tied to grad programs and hospitals nearby, look at how good these hospitals are in your specialty and how much funding they have (also something you can mention in your SOP).

[cmykrgb]

Undergrad Institution: Cornell
Major(s): Biological Sciences (Neurobio and behavior)
Minor(s): linguistics (not really relevant)
GPA in Major: not calculated but I calculated as 3.27/4.3
Overall GPA: 3.21/4.3
Position in Class: average? slightly below?
Type of Student: (Domestic/International, male/female, minority?) Asian male, US permanent resident currently going through naturalization process... very likely to become citizen during the application process

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 168 (95)
V: 158 (80)
W: 3.5 (42)
B: not taken


Research Experience: 2 years total in undergrad: 1 year in animal behavior (1 publication as second author), 1 year in molecular bio (no paper)

currently working as associate researcher in orthopaedics at Icahn school of medicine at mount sinai- will have at least 2 years of expereience by fall 2017 (3 conference abstracts, 2 are first author. Two journal papers in preparation, 1 of which is first author)

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: made dean's list my last semester


Special Bonus Points: I think my recommendations are going to be the strongest point of the application. Two of which are my past and current PI and one is a professor who taught me in a small class.

Applying to Where:

Neuroscience PhD Program at the following institutions

Cornell

UCSF

WashU

Icahn

BostonU

USC

Vanderbilt

Yale

Duke

Princeton

UCSD

Columbia

Pennstate

I just want to know if my stats are good enough to have any shot at these schools, please help.. 

Thank you guys

[Bioenchilada]

I think your GRE is good and you have plenty of research experience, so you should be able to write a good SOP.  

Your GPA is kind of on the lower side for these schools, the rest of your package might compensate for it. Does the small class professor actually know you well? 

Also, your list is pretty long. I'd recommend taking like 5 schools out. How did you come up with that list?