Right now I’m finishing up my personal statement for a number of biomedical PhD programs. And, in my current state of overcaffeinated anxiety, I’d like to get some unbiased and potentially harsh opinions from academic dopers out there.
So the big problem is that I have a shitty GPA, 2.5 overall. Though my GPA is decent if you only consider biology classes (3.2), science classes (3.0-ish), or my last two years (3.0-ish). This is mostly because I started undergrad as a music performance major, burned out, and struggled for a few semesters before latching on to a biology major and undergraduate research. I can point at a few semesters where I pulled straight A’s with challenging classes. Even then, my last two years aren’t stellar – there are classes where I did poorly because I overloaded myself, or just neglected because they were too easy and therefore boring.
However, I’ve got great test scores. My general GRE score is 94th percentile, and my subject test score is 99th percentile.
Most importantly, I have lots of research experience, and recommendations to back that up. I’m expecting a glowing recommendation from my undergraduate research advisor (junior faculty at small liberal arts college). I’ve also been working as a research tech for the last two years and I should have a strong recommendation from my current PI (tenured faculty at major research university). And for the third recommendation I’m expecting a decent but possibly generic recommendation from a collaborator who I worked with for a while (hot-shot senior PI at top research university).
As a research tech these last two years I’ve been working independently on my own projects – I’m certainly not the lab’s dishwashing bitch. So far I’m co-author on a number of meeting abstracts, and I just gave a talk at the latest sub-field conference. With luck I’ll have a first-author paper in a few more months.
If you were on an admissions committee and looked at my application, what would you decide?
First decision would be to get a new job. But I would combine the high test scores with the research experience to make you a strong maybe. If the school has a problem with grad students not completing their program, you might have to justify your overloading. But if they have a shortage of capable research assistants (mainly what you pay grad school tuition for the privilege of doing), you would be a strong candidate.
If the Profs you did research for will write you a good recommendation, I say you’ll get in pretty easily. In general, Grad schools care more about your research ability then class taking ability, and your class taking ability in relevant courses more so then in other classes, so long as they can be pretty sure you won’t flunk out of your first year courses and drop out of the program.
When I was applying for physics PhD’s some of the programs didn’t even ask for my total GPA, just my math/science GPA (granted I still had to send in a transcript).
I think some schools do have a GPA bar such that none of their programs can accept a student with a low general GPA, but I don’t think thats so common that you won’t be able to find plenty of places for which it won’t be a factor.
I agree. Granted, I’m a chemist, but that’s closer than getting advice from a history Ph.D. Even better if you went to a school that is known for tough grades, or if the professor who directed your research activities is well known in his or her field. Graduate science programs want to be sure that you can handle research, and extensive research experience shows them that you can.
I was surprised to learn that chemistry admissions committees are often more interested in your verbal GRE score than your math or subject scores. This is because the scores for the chemistry GRE are all over the place and correlate little to graduate school performance. Everyone should get a perfect score on the 8th-grade level mathematics on the general GRE, so there is nothing to compare.
Yeah, I’d say you’re fine. You may not get into your top choices, but someone somewhere will allow you to be their unpaid slave for the next seven years.
For what it’s worth, I had a better GPA, similar GRE, similar work experience (although not research related - I had essentially zero actual research experience), and some decent but probably not overwhelming letters. I had also been out of school for six years. I applied to six schools. Three of them interviewed me, and two offered me a position.
I wouldn’t worry about the GPA too much. Just make sure your strong writing skills shine through in your personal statement.
If you can make contact with a potential grad advisor at the school(s) you are applying to, that will make your application stand out. This will require reading some scholarly articles (particularly commonly cited ones), googling some names, and reading professor profiles on university websites. If you email a prof and just say “Hello. I’m currently researching graduate programs in __ field, and your laboratory is at the top of my list. I am currently doing research on ___ at [insert university, with the name of your research professor], and would like to apply my skills studying [insert the grad advisor’s subject area]. Are there any positions for Ph.D students in your laboratory?” Short and sweet, down to the point. You do not want to submit your application blindly. You want to make sure that the university you’re applying to has a faculty member who studies what you’re interested in. Not only will having a potential advisor/research project in mind help you in writing your personal statement, but it will help the committee figure out how you’d fit into their program. You could have a perfect GPA and GRE scores, but if you want to study bear behavior and no one at the school studies that, you’re going to be screwed even if you do get accepted to the school.
You also want a potential grad advisor to know you have an interest in joining their team. This flatters them, but it also shows that you’re goal-oriented and have some idea of what you want to do. When the professor receives your application, you want them to think, “Oh, yes. I remember this guy. He emailed me back in November and I sent him a couple of reprints. Seems sharp.” You don’t want them to think, “I have no idea who this is. They could have at least sent me a courtesy email before submitting their application!”
Heh. I may be foolish and a bit crazy, but it’s not quite that bad. Nearly every science PhD comes with a decent stipend, usually paid with an NIH training grant. Occasionally someone will be accepted but not offered funding, but they won’t be admitted until they secure some sort of outside fellowship or find a faculty member who’s willing to spend their grant money.
Granted, I will be taking a significant pay cut to do basically the same job, except I’ll also have to deal with extra bullshit. But the alternative is to work as a tech for the rest of my life…
Yeah, I’ve ran into a few of those. I emailed in each case and most said that I wouldn’t be automatically disqualified. Apparently the UC system as a hard 3.0 cutoff though.
I’m going to one of my tied-for-top-choice programs! Out of nine applications, I got five interviews. My other tied-for-top-choice program interviewed me (and I was seriously impressed) but didn’t give me an offer. Shortly thereafter I got the offer from my program, which I accepted almost right away since my fiancee was accepted at one of her top choice programs in the same city. At that point I think I was going to get another offer, and there was still one more interview, but I was just relieved that everything worked out well that I accepted the offer.
So I’m going to a small but well funded and fairly prestigious program. They even seem to care about the well being and success of the grad students – not as many disgruntled grad students as far as I could tell. And the faculty has a pretty good ratio of reasonable human beings to power hungry assholes.
Next step: try to secure rotations on interesting topics with the sane® advisers.
Side note: I was expecting to be seriously broke, for the next few years, but actually two graduate stipends adds up to OK money. Plus the gov’t is taking care of my undergrad loans, and decent financial planning goes a long way to help (we bought a new car last year and it’ll be payed off before school starts.)
