My chances at a Biochemistry PhD program

[samman1994]

Hello everyone,

I recently graduated with a BS in Chemistry, but want to pursue my PhD in Biochemistry. My application as it stands:

GPA: 3.0 (my major GPA is 3.0 as well)

GRE: 303 (149Q/154V)

Research Experience: 3 years with one lab (no publications)

Letters of Rec: 3 

Few pointers:

1) I do plan to retake my GRE and hopefully obtain a higher Q score

2) I know my GPA isn't all that amazing, alongside my GRE as well, but my main strength is in my letters. To give a quick backstory: One of my letters of rec is from my PI, the other is from someone I decided to collaborate with, and they were so impressed with my performance and work ethic within the 2 months I was in their lab they told me they wanted to write me my rec letter. My 3rd one is from a professor who taught an upper division grad course that I took (it was a very heavy research based class). He was also so impressed with the work ethic and performance he told me he wanted to write me a rec letter. I have rec letters from a Synthetic Chemist, Biochemist, and a Physical Chemist, so across the spectrum. 

3) I have won a variety of awards at a variety of conferences I've presented my research at (I don't know if this goes into the application or not, but I feel it is important to mention). I say all this because I am not the best academic student, but from what I have been told, I am a great researcher. 

My concerns:

1) My GPA is not amazing, nor is my GRE, and letters can only take you so far. 

2) I am going from Chemistry to Biochemistry, so its not the biggest jump, but I do lack a large amount of bio background compared to my competition. 

3) I was sorta hoping I could apply to the theoretical great research schools (Caltech, Berkly, UCSD,UCSB, UCLA, etc.). 

Question:

So what do you think my chances are? I know chances are very slim to get into one of the top research schools I stated earlier, but what about other lesser known schools around the country? I am also looking at international schools too (Toronto has some good research schools, Japan has great Biochem programs, etc.). 

Thank you ahead of time for your answers!

[Eigen]

Do you want to do a biochemistry PhD (ie, one in a biochemistry/biomedical sciences/biology program), or a biochemistry PhD in a chemistry program?

The latter is something I think you're a lot better set for given your references and experience. 

I think by your GPA you might stand a better chance at some lower ranked schools with good PIs well known in your field. They're more likely to be interested in your experience and letters, and not be inundated with students with high GPAs and research experience. 

And honestly.... Prestige of the school only matters so much, and only if you have certain goals (say, TT faculty at an R1). My school was ranked somewhere south of 100, but I turned down top-15 schools to go there for s few specific PIs. It's not as recognizable of a school, but I'm finding it matters less now that I'm out of grad school. What I'm doing now matters more to people. 

[samman1994]

Thanks for the reply, 

I am looking at Biochemistry in a biomedical sciences field. My goal is to work in big pharma working on protein research (antibodies, structural work, computational work, anything goes for now). Out of curiosity, how did you find schools with good biochemistry programs? I don't have anyone to really ask, so this forum board is my only option. Do you just google schools in the country and look at the research programs they have available? With so many schools in the country, its a little overwhelming trying to look at all of them and find which one catches your interest. Did you also look out of the US or just in US? 

[Eigen]

You really should be picking schools based off of research. 

Read papers. Find ones you like. Look at where those authors are, check out the school. 

If you have an option, I think a biomedical sciences program limits your options more than a traditional biochem program. 

[samman1994]

I hadn't actually thought about going based off papers, that's a good idea, thank you! I'm curious, given my application, do you think I should still attempt to send applications to higher tier schools? Or should I save my money and time and go straight for lower tier schools with interesting research?

[Eigen]

I would wait and see where your research interests lead you. Fit matters immensely both in getting in, and being successful and happy once there. 

[samman1994]

I understand. Question on the side. So I know PhD programs in this field are basically up the PI, but how much power do they hold over the acceptance process? I.e. Lets say I find a lab I am a perfect fit for, it's exactly what I want, and I have the perfect background experience for it. If I can convince the PI the same (almost like a job interview, they see my research history and see I'm a perfect fit for the lab), and they want me in the lab, and have funding for me, is that a guarenteed in? Even if my GPA and GRE scores are below the minimum for the school itself? 

 

Edited August 14, 2017 by samman1994

[Eigen]

Not guaranteed, but highly increased likelihood. 

Most admission committees will forward applicants to faculty they feel like would be the best fit, and see if there's strong interest. 

A department can go against minimum scores for the school, but it requires a lot of political capital- they have to not just want you, but want you enough to fight for you. 

That said, school minimums are usually pretty low. As long as you stay above a 3.0, you should be OK there- and I don't know any schools that set GRE minimums offhand.

[samman1994]

I've been looking at some schools across the country based off papers I've read that I found interesting (so far looking at University of Minnesota, University of Pittsburg, UC Irvine, and UCSD), and so far they all have certain parameters for MA programs, but havn't really been able to find info on PhD. The general concensus is, above a 3.0 (so I guess I pass technically there), and GRE scores usually above the 160s (I fail hard there). Anyways, it appears with my application, my best bet would be to get the PI interested in me before applying to the school. Like message them directly, show them my interest and try and convince them that I'd be a great fit for their lab (and in the meantime I'd ask if they had any room/funding for me to even join). 

[Eigen]

Are the GRE scores you're seeing cutoffs, or typical scores?

They're very different things for what you're asking. 

Minimums are things below which the graduate school will not admit a student without an exemption- typical scores are just what the average student usually has.

[samman1994]

Its a mix, some schools say requirement, but I think the majority were just a typical score. Although, the way I look at it, a typical score might as well be a cut off (sure I can send my application, but the school won't take it very seriously if I'm below everyone else)

[Eigen]

That's not really how typical scores work. Rarely are they taken as an important criteria in a case like yours (great letters, good research experience) unless they're below a hard cutoff set by the school.

[TakeruK]

48 minutes ago, samman1994 said:

Its a mix, some schools say requirement, but I think the majority were just a typical score. Although, the way I look at it, a typical score might as well be a cut off (sure I can send my application, but the school won't take it very seriously if I'm below everyone else)

In addition to what Eigen said, a typical score might be an average, which by definition, means that about half of the people actually accepted score below this typical score.

Even at the top schools, an accepted student is not necessarily one that is above-average in every aspect of their application. Your profile is evaluated as a whole, not in each part individually. You may be surprised at the large range in things like experience, GPA, GRE, letters within an admitted class of students.

Within the department, it is easy to weigh some aspects above others, and in STEM fields, experience is often weighed much more highly than GRE scores. As Eigen also said, the part where applications can get stuck are when there are requirements from beyond the department (e.g. the grad school) that the applicant does not meet. Depending on the school, this may require a special appeal from the department, which costs time, effort and "political capital" (i.e. one can only make so many of these appeals). As long as you don't fall below these minimums, I would still apply if there's a great fit. And even if you do fall below, it's worth a discussion with the profs there before skipping that school, unless you have other reasons to not be interested anyways.

[samman1994]

Thanks guys! I was initially concerned my scores would prevent me from applying to a lot of places, but as I'm searching, I'm realizing my research interests are primarily whats stopping me from applying. The only benefit I've seen so far from bigger schools (aside from brand name when you get out), is that they just have more research options than smaller lower tier schools (my criteria is I need to have at least 1 PI who's researcher I'm really interested in, and 2 others who I'd be ok joining if the initially didn't work out). With this new hope and info in mind, I'll probably end up applying to most of the higher tier schools then, and hope my letters and research experience is enough to compensate the lower GPA and GRE. 

One final question: I've seen that a lot of deadlines for PhD programs are in December. If I send my application earlier, does it mean it will be seen earlier? I've seen in multiple forums people stating some schools have a certain limit of applicants they accept, and it literally just comes to first come first serve. I.e. If they have accepted everyone they can, they won't look at the rest of the applicants, which means the earlier you apply, the better the advantage you'll have at getting in. I should have everything ready to send by probably somewhere near the end of September, early October. Should I send my applications as soon as I have everything ready? I haven't seen anything regarding a time to start applying, only a deadline to stop applying, so I assume it's not only okay, but recommended to send mine a month or 2 earlier?  

[Neuro15]

53 minutes ago, samman1994 said:

One final question: I've seen that a lot of deadlines for PhD programs are in December. If I send my application earlier, does it mean it will be seen earlier? I've seen in multiple forums people stating some schools have a certain limit of applicants they accept, and it literally just comes to first come first serve. I.e. If they have accepted everyone they can, they won't look at the rest of the applicants, which means the earlier you apply, the better the advantage you'll have at getting in. I should have everything ready to send by probably somewhere near the end of September, early October. Should I send my applications as soon as I have everything ready? I haven't seen anything regarding a time to start applying, only a deadline to stop applying, so I assume it's not only okay, but recommended to send mine a month or 2 earlier?  

No, unless the program has rolling admissions (I'm really not aware of any bio PhD programs that do) there's no real admissions benefit to submitting early. The only real benefit is that you have time to correct your app and ensure everything is submitted and received by the program before the deadline. 

I can can only speak for my program (so that's my caveat, but I think many programs are similar), but the adcom here meets two weeks after the deadline and they start going through all the apps. The order that the apps were submitted in does not play into an interview decision nor influences the order that they are reviewed in. 

Most programs do have a set number of slots to fill each year, and the amount of acceptances they give out is a calculated "risk" based on historical data on how many they think will accept. Unless it's rolling I wouldn't worry about the timing. Just make sure you're complete by the deadline. 

Edited August 16, 2017 by Neuro15

[Jeebs]

On 8/15/2017 at 6:29 PM, samman1994 said:

my criteria is I need to have at least 1 PI who's researcher I'm really interested in, and 2 others who I'd be ok joining if the initially didn't work out). With this new hope and info in mind, I'll probably end up applying to most of the higher tier schools then, and hope my letters and research experience is enough to compensate the lower GPA and GRE. 

 

2

A couple of comments here.. First I'll mimic what others have said about scores, it does not matter much as long as you get beyond the initial filter (usually 3.0ish). I had a lower GPA (3.2-3.3ish) than most of my cohort, but I had much more experience (3 years in academic research) which held a lot of weight through the application process. Once you get interviews don't be surprised to have to have to justify the lower GPA and just be honest when that comes up - they really don't care about your GPA otherwise you wouldn't get an interview.

 

Anyway, I went from a chemistry BS into a molecular bio phd (although the lab I settled into is much more biochem/chem bio than molecular), but I would be careful about picking places with only 1-2 PIs who you are truly interested in. I did that and (luckily) I ended up with the only PI in the department I was interested in, but it could have been quite bad for me. Not only will you have rotations to do in multiple labs, you have to take into consideration the department as a whole. Being the only lab in my department focusing on my field of interest makes collaborations more difficult and you can find yourself on an island at times. 

 

The school I settled on was not the highest in the "rankings" (~50s), but I'm working with a PI who is well-known in the field I find interesting, so it worked out. However, if he was not accepting students or if I was not a good fit into the lab I would have likely had to leave the program because no other PIs were interesting to me.

[samman1994]

1 hour ago, Jeebs said:

A couple of comments here.. First I'll mimic what others have said about scores, it does not matter much as long as you get beyond the initial filter (usually 3.0ish). I had a lower GPA (3.2-3.3ish) than most of my cohort, but I had much more experience (3 years in academic research) which held a lot of weight through the application process. Once you get interviews don't be surprised to have to have to justify the lower GPA and just be honest when that comes up - they really don't care about your GPA otherwise you wouldn't get an interview.

 

Anyway, I went from a chemistry BS into a molecular bio phd (although the lab I settled into is much more biochem/chem bio than molecular), but I would be careful about picking places with only 1-2 PIs who you are truly interested in. I did that and (luckily) I ended up with the only PI in the department I was interested in, but it could have been quite bad for me. Not only will you have rotations to do in multiple labs, you have to take into consideration the department as a whole. Being the only lab in my department focusing on my field of interest makes collaborations more difficult and you can find yourself on an island at times. 

 

The school I settled on was not the highest in the "rankings" (~50s), but I'm working with a PI who is well-known in the field I find interesting, so it worked out. However, if he was not accepting students or if I was not a good fit into the lab I would have likely had to leave the program because no other PIs were interesting to me.

Thank you for your advice! Unfortunately, I am going into specifically protein chemistry (structure, dynamics, binding) using exclusively NMR (I don't care for optics, crystal, or Cryo), meaning I usually exclude RNA and DNA nmr research. That narrows down my list severely, to the point I usually at most will have 3 professors who are even working on that.  Because the field is relatively smaller however, collaborations are actually quite common amongst other protein NMR researchers across the country, so I don't think that'll be too bad. Honestly for my GPA, it really came down to my first 2 years, which is seen via my transcript. I came straight from high school, and carried that same mentality, and took me 2 years to basically realize college is a whole other beast. I've narrowed my list down to the point, most universities I don't think really would be considered top 10 except for John Hopkins and Brown University. I have Scripps Institute, State College of New York, Uni of Conneticut, Uni of Arizona, Uni of North Carolina Chappel Hill. So not bad schools, but I don't think they rank suuuper high. 

[Eigen]

I'm surprised you don't have Vanderbilt or Iowa State on your list, given interests- they both have pretty strong work involving protein NMR. 

One thing I'd keep in mind as you're looking for PIs (given your specific interests) is that all of the people you'd be interested in working with aren't likely to be in the same department. You'll find them spread through Chemistry, BMB/CMB, Physics and Biomedical Sciences programs, as well as potentially in biomedical engineering/chemical engineering programs. 

You might consider looking at places that didn't have enough PIs for you in a given department, and look at related programs. Some places will include affiliated faculty on the website, some do a worse job of that. 

[samman1994]

25 minutes ago, Eigen said:

I'm surprised you don't have Vanderbilt or Iowa State on your list, given interests- they both have pretty strong work involving protein NMR. 

One thing I'd keep in mind as you're looking for PIs (given your specific interests) is that all of the people you'd be interested in working with aren't likely to be in the same department. You'll find them spread through Chemistry, BMB/CMB, Physics and Biomedical Sciences programs, as well as potentially in biomedical engineering/chemical engineering programs. 

You might consider looking at places that didn't have enough PIs for you in a given department, and look at related programs. Some places will include affiliated faculty on the website, some do a worse job of that. 

I actually found very little in Vanderbilt for protein NMR. Most of it was either crystal, Cryo, or theoretical. I have not looked up Iowa state yet actually, thank you for the reccomendation!

Believe me, each school takes me over an hour because of that. Some schools have it beautifully categorized what methods they use, what they focus on (e.g. protein structure, protein dynamics, nmr, etc.), other schools (looking at you Harvard) just have entire lists of faculty by name and 1) Don't show their research on that page, you have to go to the persons individual page to see research interests 2) Don't have an option to organize/categorize by research. Meaning I have to go look at multiple different schools, click on sometimes over 50 faculty ranging from everything to bio-organic synthesis, to crystallographers, to people working in vivo on rats. On average, it appears most departments have a structural biology and biophysics section (usually under school of medicine), and that's where the protein NMR people will be. Vanderbilt has that as well, and there are almost no NMR people in both their signal transduction section, or their structural bio/biophysics section. Sometimes, you have to check out the NMR facility page itself, and then it'll show people who do research with the NMR, but aren't even shown on the faculty page for the school.

The whole system is absolute garbage and a pain in the ass. Some faculty literally have one sentence on their research interest with no lab page (that can be accessed via their school faculty page), others have one sentence research interest with a lab page that has 404ed. Others even worse have a lag page, but never updated their research section on there, and it just says "will be added soon". Some faculty are in multiple departments, some aren't in any departments. Some are in incorrect departments (just because you do collaboration with a structural biologist, does not mean your core faculty member is a structural biologist). Some of their research interests are not updated, so you'll see a protein NMR lab on their faculty/lab page, but their publications from the past 5 years indicate all they do is computational/theoretical work. Some have faculty up that have long retired or moved from the location. It's also difficult to even find out which schools do NMR research and which don't, many places that have NMR centers, only have one faculty that does protein research (I'm looking at you columbia). I've been basically trying to go based off of schools with NMR centers form this site http://www.spincore.com/nmrinfo/facilities_s.html. It's primarily what's made the search bearable compared to randomly looking up every major university from every state. I've actually made another post that i will update soon once I have a more thorough compiled list, where I want to basically state every school that has good protein NMR research. 

[samman1994]

1 hour ago, Eigen said:

I'm surprised you don't have Vanderbilt or Iowa State on your list, given interests- they both have pretty strong work involving protein NMR. 

One thing I'd keep in mind as you're looking for PIs (given your specific interests) is that all of the people you'd be interested in working with aren't likely to be in the same department. You'll find them spread through Chemistry, BMB/CMB, Physics and Biomedical Sciences programs, as well as potentially in biomedical engineering/chemical engineering programs. 

You might consider looking at places that didn't have enough PIs for you in a given department, and look at related programs. Some places will include affiliated faculty on the website, some do a worse job of that. 

Just looked up Iowa State, it's a good add thank you! Interesting thing is, looking at my list, the bigger schools (ivy leagues, big name biochem schools e.g. berkley, and most of the UC schools) don't really focus on protein NMR even though it is a huge field (albeit an expensive one). Even big schools that do have good NMR facilities, usually only have one person do protein NMR (e.g. Columbia has Palmer, Vanderbilt has Chuck Sanders, Rensellar has Chunyu Wang, etc.). Anyways thanks again!

[Eigen]

I think they way you're going about this takes a lot longer. Look up papers, find people doing protein crystallography, then see where they work. 

Kinda surprised you're not finding what you want at Vandy, it has a fantastic biomolecular NMR center.

From a cursory look:

Sanders does protein NMR. https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/biochemistry/person/charles-r-sanders

Fesik's lab does NMR and crystallography.

Reiter's lab does NMR of ribonucleoproteins.

Chazin does NMR on replicative proteins.

Damo does structural analysis of metalloproteins. 

I think you'll have a harder time finding s group that does only NMR, most good structural groups will make use of more than one technique. 

As you talk about your interests, you seem very focused on a technique rather than a field of study- protein NMR is a tool, but finding a lab that specializes in it is less likely, and going to be more niche as time progresses and more people use it as a tool. You say protein NMR is a huge field, but I would say it's a common tool but a small field of exclusive study. I think that also may be why you're finding a lot of people who used to do it and aren't publishing exclusively on it anymore. 

[samman1994]

2 hours ago, Eigen said:

I think they way you're going about this takes a lot longer. Look up papers, find people doing protein crystallography, then see where they work. 

Kinda surprised you're not finding what you want at Vandy, it has a fantastic biomolecular NMR center.

From a cursory look:

Sanders does protein NMR. https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/biochemistry/person/charles-r-sanders

Fesik's lab does NMR and crystallography.

Reiter's lab does NMR of ribonucleoproteins.

Chazin does NMR on replicative proteins.

Damo does structural analysis of metalloproteins. 

I think you'll have a harder time finding s group that does only NMR, most good structural groups will make use of more than one technique. 

As you talk about your interests, you seem very focused on a technique rather than a field of study- protein NMR is a tool, but finding a lab that specializes in it is less likely, and going to be more niche as time progresses and more people use it as a tool. You say protein NMR is a huge field, but I would say it's a common tool but a small field of exclusive study. I think that also may be why you're finding a lot of people who used to do it and aren't publishing exclusively on it anymore. 

Out of curiosity, how did you find Feski, Reiter, and Chazin? I looked here https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/mpb/people/biophysicsstructural-biology at different instructors, and I couldn't find them at all. But looking at their web page, your right, they do protein nmr, but you can't find them on their structural biophysics, signal transduction, metabolics, etc. 

And in regards to my interests, I am interested in protein folding, dynamics, and structure. There are a variety of way to address this issue (Cryo, xray, fluor, NMR, optics, computational, etc.). Some labs do different types of biophysical techniques, but the biophysical technique I choose to focus on is NMR. I have a lot of experience analyzing a variety of NMR techniques as well as even having a hand in developing some. I am not opposed to trying other types of biophysical techniques, in fact a lab that would do say Cryo, xray, and NMR would be great (more experience)! However, most labs at the most either do 2 biophysical techniques, or collaborate with another lab for the rest. I've also looked at papers as well, but often times papers that have structural information are usually a collaboration with an actual structural biologist. So I just go to where the NMR experiments were run (as said on the paper), and look from there. It's a relatively big field globally speaking. From my search of international schools (since that was also part of my plan), NMR is huge, especially in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, and Canada. I find it, along with Cryo techniques, as the future in the study of proteins and disease . Solid-State is expanding to become one of the primary technique for studying membranes, the amount of dynamics information you obtain is great, and better probes and pulse sequences are coming out allowing even smaller concentrations/volumes than before.

Edited August 23, 2017 by samman1994

[Eigen]

I googled Vanderbilt protein NMR. Since I knew there were some good people there in different departments, that let me find them quickly. Those are just the first page of results, I'd bet there are more. 

[samman1994]

2 hours ago, Eigen said:

I googled Vanderbilt protein NMR. Since I knew there were some good people there in different departments, that let me find them quickly. Those are just the first page of results, I'd bet there are more. 

Damn, now I have to go back through all my schools and try that. I usually just type the school name and structural biology and biophysics department and just go from there. Thnkas again!

[Eigen]

Yeah, this kinda goes back to our discussion about standalone programs, but a lot of people that do the work you're interested in won't be in (or necessarily affiliated with) a structural biology/biophysics/biochemistry program. Some may be, some may be in biology, chemistry, biomedical engineering, biomedical sciences, etc.