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How to strengthen my application (STEM)?


shibainuko

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Hello all! I hate to ask this question but I can't shake the anxiety induced by the dreaded grad apps :) I hope you can sympathize, and help me out a bit! I'm a senior, and am planning on applying for Fall 2019.

Firstly, here is what my background looks like currently:

Computational Neuroscience Individual Major, B.S. from University of California, Santa Barbara.

- I made my own major within my college, which is fairly uncommon and requires a large amount of petitioning. It also requires me to have a faculty advisor and complete a thesis.

3.5 GPA (Low freshman and sophomore year GPA, then straight A's in my Junior year. Currently working on trying to get my GPA up to a 3.6 by the time I graduate, but I don't actually think that is feasible)

2 publications expected by the end of the year, both first author, one in Computational Neuroscience and one in psychology.

Senior thesis in Computational Neuroscience.

1.5 years of lab experience in a Computational Neuroscience lab

3 years of lab experience in a Psychology lab

6 months of lab experience in a Molecular Neurobio lab

One summer doing research at HHMI, in the field of machine learning/neuroscience.

LORs from the PIs from HHMI, the comp neuro lab, and the psychology lab. I'm assuming that they will all be moderately strong letters.

GRE: 167Q,165V, 4.5 Writing

 

Overall, I think my application is fairly strong. However, the labs that I'm interested in working in are in the following schools (arranged by magnitude of interest):

Princeton

Harvard

University College London, Gatsby Unit.

Columbia

MIT

NYU

 

I'd be applying for a Computational/Theoretical Neuroscience PhD (depending on the school). My main worry is that my GPA isn't high enough to reach the standards of these schools, so I'm looking for suggestions on how to strengthen my application to accommodate for this. 

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  • 1 month later...

You might want to repost this as a profile evaluation in the appropriate field sub-forum. I have no idea what that would be since I know nothing about Neuroscience but maybe Biology or Psychology or something like that.  Although I know nothing about Neuroscience PhD programs your profile seems highly impressive. 

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