Choosing Graduate Programs

I should start this with a disclaimer that my advice is based around my experience applying to specifically PhD programs in the biosciences. It might apply to PhD programs in generally STEM fields, but the best people to ask will be people on paths similar to the ones you want to take.

This is probably one of the more labor intensive aspects of deciding you want to go to graduate school. I think that a contributing factor to my admissions successes was in my program choice.

The first thing to decide is how many programs to apply to. I saw and heard numbers ranging between 3 and 20 programs, and I ended up applying to 12 programs, in part because I had heard discussion that the 2020-2021 cycle might be particularly competitive.

I looked at a significant number of programs, based on lots of advice and research. Particularly useful insight came from conversations with past biochemistry professors who were willing to give me 30 minutes of their time and advice on good programs that I should look at, postdocs and present and formergrad students in the lab I worked in, my research PI/advisor, and academic Twitter – I will confess that I did apply to at least one or two programs because I stumbled across an faculty member on Twitter and ended up looking at their lab websites. One of my former biochemistry professors gave me the advice that “people generally want to help.” I wish I had really understood and believed her advice earlier – it has very much proved true. Most all of the people who have been through some amount of graduate school that I have met so far have had boatloads of advice that they have been very very willing to share – just take the time to ask, and do so nicely and with consideration for their schedules.

Ultimately, after generating my initial lists of 20-30 potential programs, I narrowed it down by looking for at least 3-5 faculty I would be interested in working with, whose interests overlapped with mine – I broadly looked for researchers with interest in at least one of a. G protein signaling (including small GTPases), b. membrane protein structural biology, c. cryo-electron microscopy methodology, or d. researchers who integrate experimental and computational techniques.

A common piece of advice that I read pulls from college app advice – pick some target, reach, and fallback schools. To be frank, I think this advice does not translate well to graduate school applications. The first reason is that school rankings don’t necessarily translate to meaningful information, and admissions are somewhat less numerically predictable, so that gauging where you fall in the admissions pool is harder than for undergrad admissions. The second is that going into your applications with some programs that you regard as “fallback” schools is not a great approach. I had clear reasons for each of the programs I chose (usually related to faculty with common interests), and importantly, I made sure to choose only programs where, if it were the only one I got into, I would be excited about going there.

Having grown up in a small town in the midwest, I didn’t place strict regional constrictions on where I applied – I applied to programs all across the US, in pretty much every region. This might not be the case for you – if you care a lot about location etc. that’s totally fine – as more than one grad student reminded me during interviews, you should remember that you are still going to be living your life for five or so years, so if you go somewhere where you’ll be miserable, you won’t necessarily be setting yourself up to succeed.

Now I would love to be able to give you exactly a list of where to apply based on your interests – that’s something I would’ve loved when I was starting to think about this, or to tell you there’s someone you can ask who will magically tell you the answer. Unfortunately, there’s not – a simple but frustrating truth about this process (and probably something I’ll continue to learn) is that there are many decisions that you will have to make for yourself, that nobody can tell you the right answer for you because they are not you.