styeung

I just recently took my GRE's and scored 136 on Verbal, 159 on Quantitative, and 3.5 on AW. I have a cumulative GPA of 2.9/4.0. I am applying to Ph.D in Neurobiology/Neuroscience. I have conducted research for 3 years in Public Health, Neurobiology and Behavior, Physical Chemistry, Neurology, and Radiology. I am submitting 4 papers for publication for Neurobiology as 2nd and 3rd author. I am also a Clinical Researcher conducting Phase 3 and 4 studies. I have been working all throughout my undergraduate career while attending school. I am graduating with a BA in Public Health Policy, Minors in Biomedical Engineering and Management.

Some of the schools I am applying to consist of:
Yale
Northwestern
UC Irvine
Emory
UCLA
Columbia
NYU
U Penn
Boston
Brow
U Washington
U Wisconsin Madison
U Chicago
U Alabama Birmingham
U Florida
Cornell
Brown

andrew1007

You may want consider taking the GREs again- the sticky on the forum says the GRE isn't the most important aspect, but it has the potential to keep you out of programs. For science majors you usually want to do pretty well on the quantitative and get at least average on the verbal (unless you're a non-native speaker).

Also, you should be factoring in your major GPA as well as your overall.

andrew1007

Here's the percentile/old scale chart: http://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/concord...nformation.pdf

Keep in mind the verbal and quantitative have their own scaling chart.

Your verbal puts you at a very low percentile... your quantitative isn't too bad, but I think you should really work on the verbal part!

juillet

"Am submitting"? How close are those papers to submission? Will they at least be under review before you apply? There are a lot of people planning to submit papers - once they finish writing them, or editing, or…They have to be at least under review so you can put them on your CV as "under review." If you are going to put "in preparation," you need to have a solid draft that you wouldn't feel uncomfortable sending to reviewers.

How are you a clinical researcher if you don't have a BA yet? Do you mean you are a clinical research assistant?

You have a decent quant score but your verbal score is in the 4th percentile. Even if you are a non-native English speaker, that score will raise serious questions about your ability to keep up with graduate-level reading in graduate school. You also have a low GPA for a PhD program. Are your biology/neuroscience grades higher?

You are aiming for some very competitive schools. I think you should also apply to some MS programs as a backup plan. You may be able to find some funded MS programs in neurobiology or neuroscience that can open the door into a PhD program. You also may be interested in an MS in biomedical engineering at a place that has a few good neuroscience labs that would allow you to do research in them.

xraymancs

@juillet's advice is very good. I spent 3 years as Associate Dean for Graduate Admissions at Illinois Tech and with your GPA and GRE scores you would not be admitted to our Ph.D. programs. For the schools you are listing you would need to have close to a 4.0 GPA and verbal GREs in the 50%ile to be seriously considered.

If you can get into a M.S. program and show that you can get strong grades in your chosen field, you will have a chance to get into a Ph.D. program (not necessarily one of those on your list though).

styeung

Thanks for all the advice, my papers are currently in draft. My official title is Sr.clinical research coordinator. I was recruited by the CEO. And I also currently work at Allergan as a clinical project associate intern. The only bio related classes are from my biomedical engineering courses for my minor over all Gpa of 2.5