Asking for Bio PhD application advices

[meat-killer]

I am a 1st-year master student now in the neuroscience program, which means I will need to prepare for Ph.D. application this year. In our graduate school, there is a Ph.D. transition program. Basically, if you could get permission from you mentor with financial support, you could become a Ph.D. candidate after you finish MS study(maybe with some extra documents work but it is not that important) It is a good option for me since the current lab has a dynamic atmosphere and research interest suits me perfectly. I will try to communicate with my mentor soon about this idea,

However, if I couldn't get the chance to continue study in current school. I need to start to prepare my future application now. My UG GPA is about 3.2 (core GPA 3.4) and my current MS GPA might be around 3.5-3.6 at the end of my MS(I am supposing). I got 3 papers, one is the 2nd author. I am supposing to get a first author paper in my MS program.

That is all I have, I am wondering if you guys could give me some advice if I am going to apply a Ph.D. in future, in ranking, what school should be my primary goals? Like TOP10-20 or TOP 20-35.

[biochemgirl67]

Um, your question is kind of a moot point.  But we'll get there.

First, you say nothing of fit.  As a master's student you should be more mature, generally speaking, than your undergrad co-applicants and understand that you need to find programs with faculty that fit your interests.  There should be several in any program you apply to just in case you can't rotate with some of your top choices.

That being said, I can try to answer your question.  You're international, I'm guessing, and that can limit you in the US.  If you are indeed an international student, you will need to apply outside the "Top 30" because both your GPAs  are low for that demographic.  I can't tell if your research in your master's program makes up for that. You can apply to a couple reach schools with the high ranking but honestly I would focus on less famous/brand name schools and find maybe state universities with R1 status.  So many people make the mistake of applying too high... You have to be a strong applicant to apply to top schools feasibly... Otherwise you run the risk of having no options in a year's time.  Which, in my opinion (if it's worth anything), could easily happen given the application profile you've shared if you focus on top 10-30.

[zoruha]

On 3/19/2016 at 11:37 PM, meat-killer said:

I am a 1st-year master student now in the neuroscience program, which means I will need to prepare for Ph.D. application this year. In our graduate school, there is a Ph.D. transition program. Basically, if you could get permission from you mentor with financial support, you could become a Ph.D. candidate after you finish MS study(maybe with some extra documents work but it is not that important) It is a good option for me since the current lab has a dynamic atmosphere and research interest suits me perfectly. I will try to communicate with my mentor soon about this idea,

However, if I couldn't get the chance to continue study in current school. I need to start to prepare my future application now. My UG GPA is about 3.2 (core GPA 3.4) and my current MS GPA might be around 3.5-3.6 at the end of my MS(I am supposing). I got 3 papers, one is the 2nd author. I am supposing to get a first author paper in my MS program.

That is all I have, I am wondering if you guys could give me some advice if I am going to apply a Ph.D. in future, in ranking, what school should be my primary goals? Like TOP10-20 or TOP 20-35.

This is for all international applicants: It is true that it is kinda hard for international students to get into top schools compared to domestics but it is worth to try. If you have enough research experience, they actually do not care much about your GRE  score or GPA. I got offer from Columbia, NYU, UIUC, Umass-Amherst and Stony Brook but even no interview from Penn State or Rutgers for ex. What I mean is it is really unpredictable for internationals. If you look at the profiles of the domestic students, there is consistency among the schools from which they got offer. However, this is not the case for most of the internationals (saying this from my and my international friends' experiences). Do not lose your hope and apply at least 10 schools or more if you can-include your top choices and back ups as well!

[biochemgirl67]

3 hours ago, zoruha said:

This is for all international applicants: It is true that it is kinda hard for international students to get into top schools compared to domestics but it is worth to try. If you have enough research experience, they actually do not care much about your GRE  score or GPA. I got offer from Columbia, NYU, UIUC, Umass-Amherst and Stony Brook but even no interview from Penn State or Rutgers for ex. What I mean is it is really unpredictable for internationals. If you look at the profiles of the domestic students, there is consistency among the schools from which they got offer. However, this is not the case for most of the internationals (saying this from my and my international friends' experiences). Do not lose your hope and apply at least 10 schools or more if you can-include your top choices and back ups as well!

So here's the thing.  Many schools have the policy to go through domestic applications and decide who to invite before they even touch the international applicants. Unfortunately this means that international applicants generally have higher GPAs and there is less wiggle room on the GREs.  Just look at the applicant profiles on here.  At this point, @meat-killer should know whether or not they are going to get that first author paper.  Which, in the U.S., is a common requirement for many master's programs.  I just think that although they could include a couple dream schools, this particular applicant could better focus on less competitive programs.

[stygldbby]

Another thing to consider is that public schools often have less spots/funding for international students (If OP is one??) than private universities. Weill Cornell was one school that was pretty explicit in stating that nationality plays a very small role in admission decisions due to having a large amount of non-federal funding for graduate students. This probably varies from school to school, but it does appear to be a general trend I've noticed. You can always look to see if a program you're interested in publishes its percentage of incoming international students. You'll notice those numbers tend to be larger at private schools (for the most part) than public ones, but overall still pretty small percentages. 

That said, these top 10-20 schools are highly competitive for all applicants and even more so for internationals, private or not, so diversifying your target programs would most likely be a smart move regardless. With your research experience/publication track, I wouldn't completely rule out top programs, if you can find a few with good research fits, but I wouldn't put all my grad school dreams on them.