Profile evaluation- International student applying for biomedical science, pharmaceutical science and biochemistry.

[Soheila]

International student from Iran – graduated from reputed universities in Iran

 

BSc: Medical Radiation Science – Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

MSc: Medical Biotechnology – Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran

GPA: 3.9 for both my BSc and MSc

 GRE: will take in November 14^th 

TOEFL = 94

Research Experience: completely familiar with molecular biology techniques and work on my thesis project for 1 year at the lab.

-       Attended to many workshops

Publications: 1 in JTB as the first author (IF = 2.1), one chapter book of computational biology published in in Wiley (as a co-author), another manuscript under review in which I am the first author.

LOR: 5 professors from my Msc studies and 1 professor of my undergrad who knew me very well at the time and will support me a lot. (1 of my professors is working in NIH and one in drug design company at Washington DC.

I have chosen programs whose research focus are on molecular bioscience and biopharmaceuticals.

Current List:

Cornell (BBS)

Rice (Biochemistry)

Georgetown (Biochemistry and molecular biology)

George Washington (Biomedical science)

Maryland-college park (BBS)

Wisconsin-Madison (Pharmaceutical Science)

UCSF (BBS)

WashU (Biology and Biological Sciences)

University of Florida (Pharmaceutical Science)

Northwestern (Biotechnology, Systems & Synthetic Biology)

Please give me any comment if I need to look for less competitive programs to apply.

P.S. My brother is a lecturer at Cornell university as a faculty.

[Bioenchilada]

You only have one year of research experience?

[Soheila]

6 hours ago, Bioenchilada said:

You only have one year of research experience?

Do u mean working as a RA after my graduation or something? 

I just graduated at April 2016 and I have not worked in a specific research institute or lab cause there were no time slot between my Bsc and MSc. I  passed my practical courses through different lab rotations which means spending a whole semester in the lab, but for my MSc thesis I was completely focused on my research project for 1 year working in the lab.

[Bioenchilada]

17 minutes ago, Soheila said:

Do u mean working as a RA after my graduation or something? 

I just graduated at April 2016 and I have not worked in a specific research institute or lab cause there were no time slot between my Bsc and MSc. I  passed my practical courses through different lab rotations which means spending a whole semester in the lab, but for my MSc thesis I was completely focused on my research project for 1 year working in the lab.

Who would be writing your rec letters? How many rotations did you do? 

I just think that one year of research experience will make it very difficult to write a SOP that doesn't get too technical or redundant. Your numbers are good and publications certainly help. You also have a good school balance, so that's also good. 

[Soheila]

52 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:

Who would be writing your rec letters? How many rotations did you do? 

I just think that one year of research experience will make it very difficult to write a SOP that doesn't get too technical or redundant. Your numbers are good and publications certainly help. You also have a good school balance, so that's also good. 

In my country the number of lab rotations is not like US. We learn many techniques and do experiments in one practical lab course which includes many techniques.

for example, I learned these techniques and skills in cell culture, genetic engineering and biochemistry lab.

Genetic engineering Lab:

Molecular cloning in Fungi and bacterial system. (all steps from preparing competent cells, ligation, transformation, miniprep, midiprep), DNA extraction, RNA extraction, Cdna synthesis, Primer design, conventional PCR, Real-time PCR

Biochemistry Lab:

Western blotting, Protein purifications (by different types of chromatography systems).

Cell culture lab:

Common techniques of mammalian cell culture + DNA transfection

Recommendation letters from:

- my supervisor, my advisor, 2 professors that I passed some courses in their classes.

- One that is corresponding author of my published paper and book chapter.

- One from my undergrad school who is a known professor of radiation biology field.

[Bioenchilada]

On 10/8/2016 at 3:04 PM, Soheila said:

In my country the number of lab rotations is not like US. We learn many techniques and do experiments in one practical lab course which includes many techniques.

 

for example, I learned these techniques and skills in cell culture, genetic engineering and biochemistry lab.

 

Genetic engineering Lab:

 

Molecular cloning in Fungi and bacterial system. (all steps from preparing competent cells, ligation, transformation, miniprep, midiprep), DNA extraction, RNA extraction, Cdna synthesis, Primer design, conventional PCR, Real-time PCR

 

Biochemistry Lab:

 

Western blotting, Protein purifications (by different types of chromatography systems).

 

Cell culture lab:

 

Common techniques of mammalian cell culture + DNA transfection

 

Recommendation letters from:

 

- my supervisor, my advisor, 2 professors that I passed some courses in their classes.

 

- One that is corresponding author of my published paper and book chapter.

 

- One from my undergrad school who is a known professor of radiation biology field.

 

Wait, how many will you have? Anything more than 3 is not really good in my opinion. More letters don't compensate for potential deficiencies. 

I guess having letters from the professors in charge of these practical courses would be equivalent to asking anyone other professor for one. 

PS. Do not write what you learned in these courses in your SOP, it's not the right place to list all the techniques you've learned

[Bioenchilada]

I think you have a good balance of schools. But, if you're choosing schools simply because they're highly ranked, it'll affect the quality of your SOP. Choose schools where you feel you'll belong based on the research being done, the environment, program structure, etc. Of course program strength (i.e ranking), shouldn't be ignored, but it should also not be the main factor that leads you to apply. 

I am not an international student, so I don't know how admissions works for that applicant pool. However, I do think that one year of research is typically not enough to write an excellent SOP, especially if only at one lab. I might be wrong though. 

I know international students at top schools, but I'm not familiar with their credentials. 

PS. I was admitted to Cornell's BBS program, so I could give you some insight as to how the program and interview process is structured. 

[cmykrgb]

I am an applicant this cycle as well. I was an international student before I got my green card. I think no one had made this point yet but I would say you should retake the toefl and at least make it over 100 points. A lot of top school use 100 as a cut off for international students.

[Soheila]

15 hours ago, cmykrgb said:

I am an applicant this cycle as well. I was an international student before I got my green card. I think no one had made this point yet but I would say you should retake the toefl and at least make it over 100 points. A lot of top school use 100 as a cut off for international students.

I can retake my TOEFL but the problem is that deadlines are approaching and I have to take my GRE at 14th November and I dont have time for another TOEFL exam before December. Do you think I can take it after deadline and then submit my score?

[Soheila]

On 10/9/2016 at 0:35 AM, Bioenchilada said:

I think you have a good balance of schools. But, if you're choosing schools simply because they're highly ranked, it'll affect the quality of your SOP. Choose schools where you feel you'll belong based on the research being done, the environment, program structure, etc. Of course program strength (i.e ranking), shouldn't be ignored, but it should also not be the main factor that leads you to apply. 

I am not an international student, so I don't know how admissions works for that applicant pool. However, I do think that one year of research is typically not enough to write an excellent SOP, especially if only at one lab. I might be wrong though. 

I know international students at top schools, but I'm not familiar with their credentials. 

PS. I was admitted to Cornell's BBS program, so I could give you some insight as to how the program and interview process is structured. 

Thank u so much.

About Cornll's BBS program, since 3 years ago I have been studding papers published by Professor Delisa whose research is on optimization of  recombinant protein productions on bacterial cell wall and this in fact is my research interest. He is joint faculty of biomedical engineering and BBS. At first I wanted to apply for biomedical engineering so that I can choose to work with professors on protein engineering and biopharmaceuticals research, then I checked faculty profiles and found out that many of them are joint faculties. The reason for my application to Cornell is that professor Delisa, Putnam and many others at this department are pioneers of therapeutic recombinant pros and antibodies. In addition, this field is somehow biological engineering and there are few bioscience graduate programs whose faculties are joint in this field. The only other schools are UT Austin and Dartmouth. (I may be wrong though; if u have any comment about this, I'd be happy to hear). 

Is it important to know anything in detail when u wanna choose a research area for interview? Are we expected to know all experiments or understanding background information suffice?

[Bioenchilada]

3 hours ago, Soheila said:

Thank u so much.

About Cornll's BBS program, since 3 years ago I have been studding papers published by Professor Delisa whose research is on optimization of  recombinant protein productions on bacterial cell wall and this in fact is my research interest. He is joint faculty of biomedical engineering and BBS. At first I wanted to apply for biomedical engineering so that I can choose to work with professors on protein engineering and biopharmaceuticals research, then I checked faculty profiles and found out that many of them are joint faculties. The reason for my application to Cornell is that professor Delisa, Putnam and many others at this department are pioneers of therapeutic recombinant pros and antibodies. In addition, this field is somehow biological engineering and there are few bioscience graduate programs whose faculties are joint in this field. The only other schools are UT Austin and Dartmouth. (I may be wrong though; if u have any comment about this, I'd be happy to hear). 

Is it important to know anything in detail when u wanna choose a research area for interview? Are we expected to know all experiments or understanding background information suffice?

You don't have to know details, generally. Interviews are more about you.

[cmykrgb]

8 hours ago, Soheila said:

I can retake my TOEFL but the problem is that deadlines are approaching and I have to take my GRE at 14th November and I dont have time for another TOEFL exam before December. Do you think I can take it after deadline and then submit my score?

I think that will depend on the schools. I am not sure what most school do. Focus on the GRE first, find out what each school's policy on submitting scores after deadlines. In some case you probably need to email the admission office for answers. 

[Soheila]

On 10/12/2016 at 5:42 PM, cmykrgb said:

I think that will depend on the schools. I am not sure what most school do. Focus on the GRE first, find out what each school's policy on submitting scores after deadlines. In some case you probably need to email the admission office for answers. 

Do you think If I apply one year later and get better scores in my TOEFL and GRE, the chance of my admission will be increased? I also want to start working in a research institute in 2 months.

[cmykrgb]

8 hours ago, Soheila said:

Do you think If I apply one year later and get better scores in my TOEFL and GRE, the chance of my admission will be increased? I also want to start working in a research institute in 2 months.

I am not exactly comfortable making suggestions for you. As I said I am an applicant this cycle as well, so I have no experience in the whole process yet. I do know a international students with great stats(3.9 gpa from ivy league, 2 years experience in undergrad) still ended up being accepted in top programs (also rejections from tops as well). I don't think it will hurt if you apply this year, if you are willing to spend the time and money. For me, I am taking 2 years off for research experience to compensate my low gpa. In my opinion one year just to improve gre and toefl can only do so much for you without research experience. How much longer are you planning on staying that research institute? If you decide to wait, it would be much nicer to be working for the whole time until your acceptance than just a few months.

[Soheila]

On 10/12/2016 at 3:29 PM, Bioenchilada said:

You don't have to know details, generally. Interviews are more about you.

Do you think If I apply one year later and get better scores in my TOEFL and GRE, the chance of my admission will be increased? I also want to start working in a research institute in 2 months.

I will start working at this cancer research institute from this November to the time that I will be accepted and leave the country.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Soheila

[Soheila]

1 hour ago, cmykrgb said:

I am not exactly comfortable making suggestions for you. As I said I am an applicant this cycle as well, so I have no experience in the whole process yet. I do know a international students with great stats(3.9 gpa from ivy league, 2 years experience in undergrad) still ended up being accepted in top programs (also rejections from tops as well). I don't think it will hurt if you apply this year, if you are willing to spend the time and money. For me, I am taking 2 years off for research experience to compensate my low gpa. In my opinion one year just to improve gre and toefl can only do so much for you without research experience. How much longer are you planning on staying that research institute? If you decide to wait, it would be much nicer to be working for the whole time until your acceptance than just a few months.

I will start working at this cancer research institute from this November to the time that I will be accepted and leave the country.

[cmykrgb]

10 minutes ago, Soheila said:

I will start working at this cancer research institute from this November to the time that I will be accepted and leave the country.

right, so if you are hoping that this experience to give a little extra boost to your application, applying this cycle is not gonna help because app's are due before you get anything significant out of it.

I went back to look at your profile again, sorry that I only glanced it quickly the first time. I am a very optimistic person, and I think having a master and having several publications already makes you competitive for application this cycle as well. I did mention toefl being low, but on second thought if you do well on verbal gre that can be overlooked as well. Of course higher is still better, so do make sure what the cut off at schools you are applying to is.

My conclusion is, it's really up to what you want out of this cancer institute. If you are only getting a job to be busy throughout this year's app cycle, then definitely apply this year. Saves you a year as well, which imo is always good. If you are hoping for a boost in your chance I will stay another year and applying next cycle so you can get more experience and improve test score.