Richard Gilder-American Museum of Natural History program

[Vee2111]

I'm very interested in applying to the Richard Gilder Ph.D. in Comparative Bio program through the American Museum of Natural History. I'm a recent grad from a top tier school with two majors and two minors, all in the hard sciences. I had pretty good GPA, about an A- average but just about an A average for my major GPA. 3.5 years of research experience. A presentation at a big conference and a publication pending (I'm like 4th author but it's still cool). I literally just took the GRE today and got a 153V and 160Q. I'm usually a super good test taker, like I got in the 99th percentile the one time I took the ACT in high school. I know my GRE scores aren't bad, but I was hoping to do better, especially on the Verbal.

Does anyone know what a competitive score for the RGGS program is? If I could get my score up to 160 and 160, do you think that would make a big difference?

Any information on getting into this program would be super helpful! So if you know literally anything, let me know!

Thanks in advance!

[breadwinner]

HI! I have info for you! 

So I applied, got accepted, and ended up rejecting the offer despite really loving the visit. 

I had a 167V and a 160Q (I think the Q score matters more and they were apparently fine with mine, but I'm honestly not sure about the "cut off" for the V).

Your GPA definitely sounds sufficient and having a presentation and a pending publication is great and definitely at the level they expect.

Unlike a lot of other EEB programs (are you in EEB?), I think that the interview is quite important for this school and narrows the applicant pool a lot. If you visit, you will have a big formal interview with like 4 scientists and the dean and you are supposed to prepare a verbal summary of yourself and your interests beforehand. The questions they ask are not terribly difficult but they can ask them in somewhat aggressive tones, so don't be intimidated. 

As with other programs, make sure to contact a scientist in advance.

Ok, so the bad news is that some of their scientists have a bad reputation in the community despite being recognized as taxonomic (or whatever) experts. There was a big Cladistics twitter scandal last year that, according to some other professors, resulted in giving a bad name to students of some of the implicated scientists. When I visited other schools, everyone told me "oh that list of schools you're applying to sounds great, except for AMNH, don't go there to work with Dr. X". Another professor told me going their would be "career suicide".

That said, there are still very well-respected people there so whether you should apply/accept depends on who you want to work with. The other benefits include working in a cool af museum, being in a 4 year program, and having a lot of equipment and collaborator resources. Oh and you don't have to TA basically.