@Clockworkopera7 You have a solid GPA, clear ideas of what discipline you want to become an expert in, and a good range of research experiences. If you also have the backing of your professors and research advisors, there’s no reason why you can’t get into the best programs. Each program looks for students who ‘fit’ their program though, so admissions aren’t all based on scores - for example, if you want to study wearable devices and they don’t have any faculty who work on that, they probably aren’t going to admit you. You should be looking for programs that have multiple professors working on things you’re interested in. That being said, there’s nothing in your post that suggests that you wouldn’t be a plausible applicant for top 10 schools if that something you’re aiming for.
The #1 most important thing to do is to talk to your professors/research advisors/other people who have gone through a PhD and benefited from it. They can give you advice and food for thought on what you can get out of a PhD, a little “who’s who” in your discipline of interest, what you can do to tailor your application to different programs, maybe help read through your Statement of Purpose / Personal Statement.
Meanwhile, since you know you want to focus on neuro/electrical with some relevance to women’s health, you need to find professors who have that same bent. In my field (chemistry) the professional organization (ACS) publishes a guidebook on navigating graduate school and how to pick a professor, which are great resources to find out what different professors are working on. For your field, IEEE has the biomedical engineering group (https://www.embs.org/), and their website looks like a good starting place to explore who the experts in the field are. Also, if you’ve done research, you might already know of labs who do cool stuff from papers you’ve read or conferences or seminars you’ve gone to, or just by reputation.
If you don’t already… go to seminars and lectures in your department - professors from different schools are invited to present their most recent work, so you can find out about their research and also a bit about their personality.
It’s ok to pick a school with location in mind (5-7 years is a long time to live somewhere). And if you have a feel of where you want to live, or schools you’re intrigued by, just page through their faculty lists and see if any professors interest you. Then go to their webpage, look through their research descriptions and publication lists to get a better idea.
If the programs you’re interested in require the subject GRE, look into that right away since they can be hard to schedule depending on where you live. If it’s just the normal GRE, make sure you find time to prep for that.
There is no need to hide your minority status/sexuality if it flows naturally in your application - but don’t just mention it for the sake of mentioning it. Diversity in STEM is a true priority for any school that’s worth going to. It is important for underrepresented groups to demonstrate that anyone can belong, succeed, and make contributions in STEM. Mention if you’re involved in Women or LGBTQ+ in Science initiatives which demonstrate leadership or desire to teach/mentor/perform outreach. It’s something you can mention in a brief paragraph at the end of your statement of purpose, and important to write about if you’re applying for fellowships. The rest of these documents should be about your research background and interests. Unless your research i also inspired by your opera singing, definitely don’t mention it. I’ve seen many statements of purpose from successful applicants containing questionable things… so while it didn’t hurt their application, some definitely left interesting first impressions…
