HI, I am planning to apply to a grad school in NYC for the fall 2018 year for a PhD in Biomedical Sciences/Engineering. I am using the August month to study for the GRE, I’m pretty confident that I will do above average in the Math and let’s say average in the other two. I know that I can get at least two very strong letters of recommendations and I have 3+ years of research/lab technician under my belt as well as participating in a startup and working in ortho medical devices (one year).
My problem is that as an undergrad I did not perform as well as I would have liked and as a result my GPA is around a 2.7 (in Biomedical engineering). I do have a few C-‘s, D’s and F’s. The main reason was situational as I had to work full time and attend school full time. I don’t have any publications relating to my research yet but I am included in some papers that will be published after my submissions for grad school and I did one poster presentation in a conference. My main goal is to get into a fully funded PhD program with the usual (monthly stipends for living costs) and It has to be in the city (nyc area).
My top choices are: (1) Mt. Saini for Biomedical Sciences, (2) MSKCC for Biomedical sciences, (3) Weill Cornell for biophysics, (4) and City College (CUNY) for Biomedical engineering. Columbia might be a stretch since and would only be allowed to apply for Masters ( I can do masters to PhD but I’m not sure about funding ).
What do you guys think about my chances of accepted to these places (please be as honest and critical as possible), and do you have recommendation for any other schools in the area?
GRE and GPA are the two most important things, a 2.7 isn’t going to fly at Columbia or Cornell. Maybe consider schools outside of New York if you really want to go.
Well, I disagree that GRE is one of the two most important things - it’s actually one of the least important things in your package.
But GPA is very important, and a 2.7 won’t be competitive at any PhD program, even ones where you have connections. You’d be a hard sell for your letter writers. Working full-time isn’t necessarily a good reason to use on an application - not that it’s not valid, but the question will be whether you can handle the rather intense workload of graduate school.
Your best bet is likely to take some time after college to work and then take some classes as a non-degree student. Prove that you can succeed in some graduate-level classes. There may be some MS programs that you can get into, too, and show that you can really do well at that level. But I think a PhD program would be unlikely unless you have some really strong connections.
For PhD programs in biomedical sciences, the most important consideration is past research accomplishments; second is GPA, and a distant third is GRE. Your GRE scores have to be not bad enough to raise concerns; beyond that having stellar GRE scores is not going to help much. Your GPA should be >~3.5; if it is ~3.0-3.5 you can compensate for that with very strong research experience and glowing letters. Competitive biomedical PhD programs will not consider anyone who lacks previous research experience.
You are not going to be competitive for any of your target biomedical or biophysics PhD programs with such a low GPA unless you have truly outstanding research accomplishments, as evidenced by multiple first-author publications and not just very strong but truly “this-person-walks-on-water” or “in-my-two-decades-running-a-lab-I-have-never-had-such-a-promising-student” type of letters. I don’t know about the BME program, but I am very familiar with biomedical programs housed in medical schools.
If you want to pursue a PhD at a competitive biomedical program, I agree that working as a tech in academia and taking a few graduate courses (one at a time, as an employee benefit, is typically permissible if the courses are relevant to your research) would be effective in rehabbing your record. If you can get a couple of publications, a couple of A’s, and a couple of glowing letters attesting to your exceptional aptitude for research, you could be competitive for your target programs.