Is anyone a current grad student at Columbia, Yale or UPenn? What was your undergrad GPA, GRE and research experience. My son is a current undergrad senior and will be applying to graduate schools in the fall to Phd programs in Biochemistry or Molecular Biology. He is a Chemistry major/Biology minor and has a 3.8 GPA, 2 summers of biochemistry research internships and will have 2 years (4 semesters) of biochemistry research at his current college and will take GRE in August.
@meadow33 your son’s profile sounds very similar to my D’s profile. I don’t think she will be applying to UPenn but she will
to the other two. I don’t have anything to add about the experience although I do have a son who is at UChicago in their immunology program. He was close to a 4.0 gpa and I don’t know his GRE scores but was above or within the range for most of the places he applied.
It is scary knowing so few are accepted into the programs and it’s so different from applying as an undergrad. I’m going to be following this thread in order to pass on tips to my D.
I did not apply to any of those schools for graduate school, so I cannot use myself as an example, but it seems to me that he would probably be qualified for many graduate programs. In the grad school application process, grades/GRE scores will keep you out, but they won’t get you into a program. The most important part of applications to grad school in the life sciences is research experience, which your son seems to have - so that is great! Letters of recommendation are also important. He should get one from his research internship mentor, one from his biochem research mentor at his college, and one from a professor. (Typically schools want 3 letters.) He should also focus on putting together a well crafted personal statement and a well crafted research statement, which many schools ask for on applications.
I would, however, like to encourage you to encourage your son to think outside of the Ivy League. There are many excellent, top-notch Biochem/MolBio schools outside of the Ivy League. Research fit is extremely important when applying to graduate school. He really should be selecting schools based on the research the professors there are doing and not just based on the Ivy League name. Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Berkeley, and Wisconsin are just a few non-Ivy League, excellent schools he should consider looking into.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I am just finishing up my first year of grad school (PhD) in the life sciences.
^mademoiselle2308 gives great advice!
Knowing the stats of accepted students is actually not all that helpful. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but especially at top programs you may find applicants on both sides of the coin - rejected and accepted - that had stats similar to your son’s. That’s because highly competitive top PhD programs have more qualified applicants than they can accept each year; they may have 100 applicants for just 5 slots, for example. It’s going to be a lot about fit with the department and about research interests, and interviews if his programs do them. And it’s going to vary year by year - one year he may get into a program because there’s a dip in applications, whereas if he applied the following year he wouldn’t because there are so many competitive applicants. Or one year he might get denied simply because the two professors doing research in his area both have plans to leave the university soon and aren’t taking any more students.
It’s such an individualistic process. A 3.8 GPA and 2 years of research experience, plus two summer REUs, is plenty to qualify him for admission - he’s pretty competitive! But there aren’t any guarantees. Still, if he applies to a range of programs that fit his interests well (I’d say 7-10 PhD programs is probably a good sweet spot), then his chances are pretty good of finding a good place to study.
Yes, agree, he is considering schools other than ivy league. He is also considering Ohio State University, University of Michigan, Northwestern and Albert Einstein. His internships have been with cancer research and he would like to attend a school near Columbus, Ohio or NYC if possible.
Those are all great schools too! If he is interested in continuing cancer research and is interested in NYC, he should definitely look into Memorial Sloan Kettering. Also, although it is out of his preferred geographic area, if he is interested in cancer research, he should seriously consider the MD Anderson Cancer Center/UT Health Science Center at Houston’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
I am currently a Ph.D student at UPenn. My undergrad GPA was a 3.94, GRE 159Q,155V. 3 years of research experience (3 semesters in pharmacology, 3 semesters in cell biology, 1 summer at UPenn working in an immunology lab, 1 summer at Harvard Medical School working in a neuro lab). Numbers are really not super important for Ph.D admissions, it’s really all about research fit and experience. You can have perfect scores and a really high GPA and not get in anywhere because you don’t fit. It’s really important to look for faculty of interest and eloquently explain your interest in science and desire to pursue a Ph.D in your statement of purpose, which is also probably more important than your numbers.
(Side note: I also got into the University of Michigan. Also, all of the programs I applied to where either Molecular and Cell Biology umbrella programs, or Cancer Biology programs).