edawad said:
Hey all,
I've looked through the forums a bit and I have a pretty good idea about what the med school application is all about. Can anyone give a good summary of what it takes to get into a competitive grad school (specifically in bioengineering or bioinformatics but I'm sure biology/biomedical programs are similar)? Are GREs as important as MCATs? Is GPA as important as research experience? What are the interviews like? Is it as competitive as med admissions?
Thanks,
Ed
Ok, I can only speak from the perspective of a bioengineering PhD. Biology PhD admissions may be different. In fact, I'm pretty sure thay are, actually.
1) I don't think the GREs are as important as the MCATs are to med students. For one thing, they are a lot easier. For another, they often (except in the case of subject-specific GREs) don't test things that you would really learn from a college education, unlike the MCAT. None of the bioengineering programs I applied to required any kind of subject GRE either (mostly b/c bioengineering PhDs generally come from a variety of different backgrounds, ranging from pure biology to pure engineering to everything in between).
2) Research experience is weighted pretty heavily. I know that I was asked a lot of questions about my undergrad research in my interviews. You won't need to have a first -authored paper, necessarily, but most places will want to see that you have done some independent work. I think a lot of that is to be sure that you know what you are getting into.
3) GPA is weighted fairly heavily, but not as heavily as you will find in med school. However, expect questions about what classes you have taken. I found a lot of interviewers who had gone to my undergrad asked specific questions about specific classes they too had taken.
Whether its that PhDs tend to be less anal about admissions than pre-meds, or that med school really is impossible to get into, I'm not sure, but I think you can probably take the fact that people going into a PhD program aren't going psycho all 4 years about a B- as a good indication that grad school is going to be easier to get into than med school.
4)
THIS APPLIES TO BIOENGINEERING PhDs DEFINITELY - I CAN'T VOUCH FOR WHETHER THE SAME IS TRUE FOR OTHER PhD PROGRAMS. Your interviews will be paid for (meaning, they will fly you out to their school, cart you around, put you up in a hotel, pay for all of your meals, etc, on their dime). This being said, typically, in Bioengineering programs,
if you get an interview it typically means you are in that school. This is, of course, barring any unforseeable circumstance, like not finding a professor that you want to work with. Most schools are looking for a "fit" between adviser/advisee.
Remember, unlike for med school, you are doing a lot of good for a school by attending there - they get a lot of cheap labor out of you for 4+ years. This makes admissions VERY VERY DIFFERENT than those for med school.
If you have any other specific questions, feel free.
- Dodo.
