Neuroscience: Chances and Opportunies

LAC_operon
Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:19:31 +0000

You are impressively polite in your post.

Yes - you need research experience. How do you know you want to be in the lab every day for 6ish years (for a PhD program)? Try hard for an NIH or tech job. You haven’t destroyed your chances - your major GPA and test scores look good (but you can’t get a 880 on the bio GRE… it’s out of 800. You’re overall GPA maybe a little low numerically, but U of Chicago is known for hard grading right?) which are two things that can keep people out of grad school- but without research experience, I don’t see you getting into a “good” grad school (How good is good to you? (Are you aiming for a top 10 or top 30? or 50?) Which CA schools are you interested in? UCSF, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, CalTech, etc. etc. will all require research experience to get in) One of the most important parts of your app will be your LORs (letters of rec) - and the ones that really count are the one’s written by PIs (especially PIs that are well known within their field or know the interviewers at the school that you want to get into). A good LOR from a good PI is a huge advantage to getting in (it’s all about who you know/connections in the really good schools. Can be frustrating - especially if you come from a great but small liberal arts college-, but it’s true). You also want LORs from your undergrad profs that speak highly of you - how well did you get to know them?

I wouldn’t recommend applying until you have research experience that you can talk about in your SOP and interviews.

Good luck!!