Biochemistry Graduate School

bingbang
Sun, 02 Oct 2011 06:17:29 +0000

Hello,

I am planning on applying to biochemistry graduate programs this coming cycle and I was wondering whether or not you guys think my list of schools is good or bad based on my statistics and experience. I know it will be difficult to convey all my experience, but I will try to give a brief summary. My biggest worry is that my GPA is very average and I don’t know if these schools will be within my range. I live in the NW so I am applying to most schools in WA and OR, but I am also applying to a few others around the country as well. Any advice on removing/adding schools would be great (based on my stats).

GPA: **3.42/4.00/B

GRE: I took the GRE last week and the preliminary results were:
Verbal: 520-620
Quant: 750-800
I probably got at least a 4 on the AWA as this is my strongest section.

**LOR’s: **
One LOR from a postdoc who I worked with for 2 yrs in an immunology lab.
One LOR from a graduate student (PI of the lab is going to write the letter though) who I worked with for 1 year in a biochemistry lab.
Two LORs from two biochemistry professors who I was a student and TA for (upper level biochemistry)
-I am guessing the LOR’s will be excellent (is it okay to give 4?).
-I don’t know how big of a help it is but I really enjoyed being a TA. Teaching other undergraduates my age about biochemistry was certainly one of the best experiences I’ve had so far.

Research Experience:
Immunology Lab for 1.5 years: Basically a student assistant to the postdoc. Did a lot of basic biochemistry experiments for the first few months but took a lot more responsibility the last few months. Worked with him on a daily basis so he should be able to convey my potential as a graduate student pretty well. Didn’t really have my own research project or anything like that.

Biochemistry lab for 1 year: Similar to the above experience except that I worked with a proteins/mitochondria and different drugs instead of DNA. Learned a whole different area of biochemistry experiments and techniques. Went to a lot of their lab meetings and learned a lot about what it means to be a graduate student beyond being in the lab. Again, like the previous research experience, no successful independent research project, although I had a few short term projects that I worked on.

School science team: There is an annual international summer competition where students from students in universities all over the world develop, design and conduct a research project over the summer months. I used a lot of knowledge that I had gained from my previous two lab experiences and used them for this competition. Our project was actually very interesting and our team will be presenting in the regional competition next week. We expect to make it to the international grand finals at MIT in November. This was probably the most rewarding research experience since it was basically planned by undergraduates with the help of graduate student advisers.

So what concerns me the most is I don’t have a research experience where I can really say, “I worked on XXX issue for 2 years…”. I can probably discuss the research that I did over the past summer but it was only for 3 months so the scope of the project is very limited.

Anyway here are the schools I would like to apply to (no particular order):
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
University of Wisconsin - Madison
University of Washington - Seattle
Oregon State University
OHSU - BMB
OHSU - EB
Baylor
Cornell
Johns Hopkins University

I’m kind of strapped on cash so I am trying to choose wisely. Are there some programs on this list that I should consider dropping? Any programs worth considering? Do I have too many reach schools?