Jump to content
Urch Forums

lwc628

Members
  • Posts

    2
  • Joined

Converted

  • Occupation
    Student

Converted

  • My Tests
    Yes

lwc628's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

1

Reputation

  1. Hello guys. Here's my brief stats ------------------------- B.S in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology from UCLA GPA: 3.87, Magna Cum Laude GRE: 720 in Verbal, 770 in Math, 4 in Writing Leadership, Work, & Teaching Experience: Worked as a Physics & math tutor for two years in the school tutoring program. Worked as a supervisor in the physics department for 1 year. Worked as a TA for a math course during summer Volunteer Experience: 1 year of hospital volunteer experience Research Experience: 1 year of Ecology research experience, one publication, 2nd author 1 year of Bioengineering research experience --------------------------- Applied to: PhD programs in Bioinformatics at UCLA, UCSD, UCSF, UCBerkeley, Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Columbia, and Stanford Rejected: all except for Harvard and UCSD (still waiting. But I gave up my hope) -------------------------- My Story: I think the biggest reason I got rejected by all these schools was that I did not have extensive experience related to bioinformatics. Throughout my college, I was confused as to what to do with my life. For a while, I was a pre-med, but during my last year, I realized my love for teaching that I wanted to become a professor. Meanwhile, I took a computer scinece course during my junior year just for the heck of it, and it was extremely fun. I wanted to switch my major to CS, but I felt it was too late. So I decided that I should go to grad school and study bioinformatics. This way I could still use what I learend (molecular biology) and combine it with my newfound passion(computer science). So I applied, only to find that I am not qualified yet. It was kind of stupid on my part to apply to PhD programs without extensive experience. But what's done is done. I paid for my lack of focus and learned my lesson. And I am ready to move on. Advice Needed! I need an advice. As I mentioned above, the biggest reason I think for my rejection is due to the lack of experience in computer science. But I am kind of lost and not sure what to go about gaining such experience. 1) Should I apply for master programs in computer science? is that possible without BS in CS? 2) Should I volunteer in bioinformatics lab? 3) Should I work in a company where I could gain this experience (what kind of companies or jobs? Most of computer related jobs require an applicant to be a C.S Major) 4) Take some courses in community college? 5) Forget about my graduate school plan,study MCAT, and apply to medical schools? (which I am seriously considering) I am seriously lost and need help. What would you do if you were in my shoes?
  2. **sorry for the typo. I too"k" GRE yesterday Hey guys, This is my first post here ever, though I've been a active reader of this forum. Reading this forum really helped me during my prep, especially when i got stuck on problems on verbal. Anyway, I took GRE yesterday, and lucky me, i got 1490. I got 720 on Verbal and 770 on Quant. I was originally going to take it on August 30th, but i was so busy with school and wasn't able to prep for it. I postponed it to Sept. 30th, and i studied mad for a month. How I studied: My primary focus was on memorizing words. I realized that 22 problems out of 30 are antonyms, analogies, and sentence comprehension.So i thought, if i could get all of those right (ideally), i could still score above 600. So I basically memorized 200 words a day. No joke. I used specific memorization techniques that I learned from various sources and systematized. And I think that really, i mean REALLY, helped me improve my score on those three sections. It also helped me with RC. I also want to mention that another factor that helped me improve my score rapidly was that i had a block of time to study. I was done with school by September 10th, so i had about 20 days to really focus on GRE. I think that really helped me put my entire focus on GRE and memorizing words. Anyways, best of luck to all of you guys. Thanks
×
×
  • Create New...