Dramatically increase my PhD chances in 2 years?

Graduate School
1

<p>So I was a lazy undergrad, and i didn’t push myself, get to know the faculty and get quality research experience as an undergrad, so in effect my record wasn’t amazing. But I did have some interesting experiences and came up with the following:</p>

<p>School: SUNY (State University of NY)
GPA: 3.21
Major: Biomedical Engineering
Research: 2 years in National Laboratory, 1 Conference Presentation, No Publication
Extracurriculars: founded 1 club, President of Fraternity, founded a small IT Startup company</p>

<p>I had bad research experience in my previous lab. I was immature, and after a failed experiment of 7 months, my PI blamed me when it was the tissue samples I performed experiments on (they were old). My PI sidelined me from major experiments and I lost the motivation to do work, so I got lazy and in the end amounted to nothing and lastly, he tricked me into firing me by saying we would work on the manuscript together via email correspondence (but never emailed back)…so no LOR.</p>

<p>But somehow, I ended up getting into Cornell’s MEng program even without a LOR from research professor because MEng is a non-research degree. Since coming to Ithaca, I’ve found a research group who I will be working for the next year for, got a graduate TA position, and become more focused in school.</p>

<p>My question is, if I dramatically improve my research performance at Cornell this upcoming year, get great LORs from the PI and collaborators, and achieve a high GPA, will this dramatically increase my PhD chances for the following cycle (Dec 2012)? By this time I should have 1 year of solid research experience in a great school and industry experience for 3 months.</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

2

<p>I will have to say yes, but you will need to keep that GPA up. When it comes to PhD, though, the biggest factor going into an AdCom’s decision to admit you will be your experience relative to your field of interest (i.e. Research), why you want to do research (personal statement), and letters of recommendation. Many people have gotten into respectable PhD programs with less than stellar GPAs because of their overwhelming amount of research experience and people who can attest to it. Doing a Masters will help you a lot, I believe.</p>

<p>Also factor in GRE scores. Since you’re into engineering, I would focus on getting in the 700’s with quant, if not a perfect score depending on how high you want to aim for prospective graduate schools like MIT. I wouldn’t completely blow off the verbal portion but I don’t think a 600 or even a 550 score will bar you from any major universities.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>