concerned about my application for 2018

[kshrestha]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning on applying to a Biochem program for fall 2018, but I am very much concerned about if my situation will even put me in the game or if I have a chance at admission and interviews. 

So I have been working in a small government chemistry lab for almost 1 year, with possibly 1 publication in the near future. I was hoping taking two years and getting some experience in the field would help my application, but I am not sure if working in a chem lab is any helpful since I want to be in a bio lab. Will this be disadvantageous towards my application? This is one of my main concerns, which is the reason I am looking for positions in a bio related lab.

 I also interned as a research assistant during my undergrad at a clinical research institute and was also a lab assistant for my undergrad Bio department. I graduated from a liberal arts school and had a cumulative GPA of 3.63 and science GPA of 3.68, obviously not much different. I'm planning to take my GRE at the end of this month, but  I'm terrified that if I don't get around the 80% percentile, then I won't have any chances with everything else in my application. 

I would love to go to UC Davis, but I also have many other schools in mind like:

- Temple Uni- Uni of Colorado- Bolder 

-UC San Fran

- UC Santa Barbara

- Indiana 

- Wakeforest Uni

- Rockefeller

- NYU

- Uni of Florida 

- Darthmouth

Does anyone have any advice for this daunting process? Feel free to share any experiences or impressions about schools and programs. Thank you!! 

[hopefulgradstudent999]

With the stats that you've listed and a possible publication I think you will be competitive at most of the schools you've listed. I was accepted to some of those schools with worse stats than you. 

[kshrestha]

I'm mainly worried about my GRE scores. What percentile do you think is a good range for all program?

 

[hopefulgradstudent999]

I mean some of the programs you have listed like UCSF are probably going to require elite scores at or above 80% I would guess. Some of the others you could probably get away with scores in the 55-65% range but obviously the better your scores the more competitive you will be. That being said, I would not put too much stock into GRE scores. From what I have experienced and what others have said the GRE is typically used as more of a minimum. Your letters of rec, publications if you have any, and research experience is really what will be heavily evaluated. Please take all of this with a grain of salt, I was just accepted recently but did go through the process twice. 

[aquamarine]

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 9:15 PM, kshrestha said:

Hi everyone,

I'm planning on applying to a Biochem program for fall 2018, but I am very much concerned about if my situation will even put me in the game or if I have a chance at admission and interviews. 

So I have been working in a small government chemistry lab for almost 1 year, with possibly 1 publication in the near future. I was hoping taking two years and getting some experience in the field would help my application, but I am not sure if working in a chem lab is any helpful since I want to be in a bio lab. Will this be disadvantageous towards my application? This is one of my main concerns, which is the reason I am looking for positions in a bio related lab.

 I also interned as a research assistant during my undergrad at a clinical research institute and was also a lab assistant for my undergrad Bio department. I graduated from a liberal arts school and had a cumulative GPA of 3.63 and science GPA of 3.68, obviously not much different. I'm planning to take my GRE at the end of this month, but  I'm terrified that if I don't get around the 80% percentile, then I won't have any chances with everything else in my application. 

I would love to go to UC Davis, but I also have many other schools in mind like:

- Temple Uni- Uni of Colorado- Bolder 

-UC San Fran

- UC Santa Barbara

- Indiana 

- Wakeforest Uni

- Rockefeller

- NYU

- Uni of Florida 

- Darthmouth

Does anyone have any advice for this daunting process? Feel free to share any experiences or impressions about schools and programs. Thank you!! 

I got into Indiana University's medical school Ph.D. program with a 3.47 GPA and a 70th percentile quant score. I also had a friend with similar statistics get into NYU's program. I don't know if that eases your mind or not, but IUSM at least seemed to not care very much about my GRE; no one even mentioned it in my interviews.

[kshrestha]

So, I just took my GRE this past weekend, got above 70th percentile for Quant but around 60th percentile for Verbal. Will this score and my shortage of experience in a biology lab be a disadvantage? I'm mainly concerned because schools seem to put a lot of emphasis on evaluating students on their prior research experience. 

Thank you for your responses!