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[acetylcholine]

I am an undergraduate majoring in biology.  I have a fairly good GPA and am anticipating a fairly solid 3.5-3.7 by the time I send transcripts to graduate schools, judging from my current performance in my classes and the pattern of performance I have in biology classes, which tends to be As.

I have a long list of graduate programs that I've built up which have at least four labs that I want to work in.  I will start the application process for grad school in about a year; I figured that now is a good time to start looking at graduate schools.

This list is approximately 35 schools long.

I've even tried to narrow it down by whether they offer health insurance (most of them do), and it's still long.

Help?

[systeme_d_]

Talk to your current professors.  If you ask, they'll probably tell you whose labs you don't want to work in.

[acetylcholine]

This is logistically a little cumbersome, as 35 times about 7 professors per university is 245 professors.

I've read a fairly large amount of material about selecting a graduate school, and most of my questions are answered, but still, it's tough narrowing these schools down.

For instance:

1) What is within the bounds of an acceptable stipend in order to be able to feed my face, since costs of living differ so much by location?  What sorts of extras should I be looking for, if any?  (I already mentioned health insurance, since I go off my folks' health insurance the moment I turn 22.)

2) There are plenty of lists of job offerings to people at various institutions.  Are these lists very good, and what is a minimum acceptable percentage for this?  What criteria would possibly cause a lower percentage of job offerings to be overlooked, such as, perhaps, Big Name People or Really Good Stipend or Well-Known ?

3) What kind of undergraduate research experience do different categories of school - top tier, middle tier - expect?  Just a few semesters of lab work or do I also need papers?

[scampster]

This is logistically a little cumbersome, as 35 times about 7 professors per university is 245 professors.

If you think this, you need to work on narrowing down what type of research you want to do. Unless the schools you are applying to have some sort of formal lab rotation. I'm not in your field, but I imagine it is hard to write an effective statement of purpose when you have superbroad interests. Someone can correct me on that though.

1) What is within the bounds of an acceptable stipend in order to be able to feed my face, since costs of living differ so much by location?  What sorts of extras should I be looking for, if any?  (I already mentioned health insurance, since I go off my folks' health insurance the moment I turn 22.)

Stipends often vary based on the cost of living. Most people I know in the sciences were making more than their counterparts in the humanities, so whatever the stipend is, it is probably enough to get by on.

2) There are plenty of lists of job offerings to people at various institutions.  Are these lists very good, and what is a minimum acceptable percentage for this?  What criteria would possibly cause a lower percentage of job offerings to be overlooked, such as, perhaps, Big Name People or Really Good Stipend or Well-Known ?

I don't think I understand this question. Minimum acceptable percentage for lists of job offerings?

3) What kind of undergraduate research experience do different categories of school - top tier, middle tier - expect?  Just a few semesters of lab work or do I also need papers?

I'm in the sciences, but not your field, so I will defer to people who know better. In my field, undergrads typically don't get papers published.

[acetylcholine]

This is logistically a little cumbersome, as 35 times about 7 professors per university is 245 professors.

If you think this, you need to work on narrowing down what type of research you want to do. Unless the schools you are applying to have some sort of formal lab rotation. I'm not in your field, but I imagine it is hard to write an effective statement of purpose when you have superbroad interests. Someone can correct me on that though.

I know what I want to research, but the issue is that there are multiple ways of getting at it.

What I'm ultimately interested in is the neurogenetics of cognition, particularly those surrounding intelligence (which is about half environment, half genetic, or at least that's what I've found from the research).  The thing is, research that has a good amount to do with what I'm interested in is fairly broad and not very well categorized and not necessarily even nominally about cognition or intelligence, because cognition and intelligence are so interrelated and dependent on the state of essentially the entire brain and frankly there's a good deal we don't know about it on a biological level.  (This is the best way I can put it; it's not really completely evocative of what I think and know about it.)  Aspects of study in genetics surrounding intelligence and its related functions are nascent right now, and the quest to figure more out about it is not very old and somewhat undeveloped so far.  There's really no neat division of subcategories of research in this area, either.

Having talked to several of the luminaries in the field, I have concluded that the best way to get at this is to study in a lab that studies some aspect of brain development or gene expression in, say, the frontal, parietal, or temporal lobes (since the occipital lobe is devoted to vision) or a more whole-brain extent of expression, or really a lot of other things related to it.

I don't want to be too broad in my focus, but I also don't want to be too narrow here.

[locutus]

35 is a good number to start with if you are applying this coming fall.

In addition to talking to profs and graduate students at your institution about the various programs you are considering I think you need to talk to folks about how your are defining your research interests. It sounds like you have a good idea of what you want to study. However your description may need some work. By that I mean you are probably a relative novice when it comes to the research literature. That's totally normal for someone at your stage. That also means that you may not know how to describe your interests as they relate to the research that is out there.

Check your PM.

[high_energy_photons]

It sounds like you have interests that cross fields.  If you are really interested in genetics, cognition, and intelligence together, your list of schools might get much smaller.  Not all schools with good genetics departments also have experts in cognition and intelligence.  There have been some good suggestions about talking to the faculty at your current institution.  I would also suggest finding research as close as you can to your interest.  This may mean a ton of reading, particularly if your interests are very specific and rare.  It means even more reading if your interests are too broad (you really need to narrow it down, if so).  See who has published in that area.  Where do they work?  Who do they collaborate with?  This can give you an idea of what institutions are strong in your interest area.

DO NOT search for a graduate school based on health benefits, stipend, or other nonsense.  Look at who is doing the research you want to do.  Of course, double check the benefits (any program without funding in neurobiology is unlikely to be worth it), but don't make it your primary priority.  You can easily check cost of living differences.  For example, a 20k stipend might be great at low cost areas, while it might lead to struggles in places like New York or California.

[curiouscortex]

Don't be afraid to narrow down the schools based on where they are located.  If you hate [insert city or part of the country], then you're likely going to hate living there for several years during grad school.  When I was first starting to think about grad schools, I sat down with a map of the US and started crossing out states that I had no interest in living in.

Because your research interests aren't well defined, I think programs that allow you to do rotations before picking an adviser would be a good fit for you.  I definitely agree with the others who have suggested narrowing your focus too.

Now might be a good time to start thinking about the selectivity of the programs as well.  Common advice is to apply to a couple highly ranked programs and a few middle selectivity programs.  Maybe dividing the list up a little that way could help you pick the schools that are most interesting to you (ok, I have 10 really selective programs on my list, if I had to pick just three of those, it would be... )

[acetylcholine]

35 is a good number to start with if you are applying this coming fall.

In addition to talking to profs and graduate students at your institution about the various programs you are considering I think you need to talk to folks about how your are defining your research interests. It sounds like you have a good idea of what you want to study. However your description may need some work. By that I mean you are probably a relative novice when it comes to the research literature. That's totally normal for someone at your stage. That also means that you may not know how to describe your interests as they relate to the research that is out there.

Check your PM.

Relatively, yeah, I'm a novice - I've probably read a lot of it for an undergrad, but nowhere near the amount that a grad student would have.

It sounds like you have interests that cross fields.  If you are really interested in genetics, cognition, and intelligence together, your list of schools might get much smaller.  Not all schools with good genetics departments also have experts in cognition and intelligence.  There have been some good suggestions about talking to the faculty at your current institution.  I would also suggest finding research as close as you can to your interest.  This may mean a ton of reading, particularly if your interests are very specific and rare.  It means even more reading if your interests are too broad (you really need to narrow it down, if so).  See who has published in that area.  Where do they work?  Who do they collaborate with?  This can give you an idea of what institutions are strong in your interest area.

DO NOT search for a graduate school based on health benefits, stipend, or other nonsense.  Look at who is doing the research you want to do.  Of course, double check the benefits (any program without funding in neurobiology is unlikely to be worth it), but don't make it your primary priority.  You can easily check cost of living differences.  For example, a 20k stipend might be great at low cost areas, while it might lead to struggles in places like New York or California.

The funny thing about intelligence is that it's dependent, as far as I can tell, on a lot of little things, and frankly, from what I can tell, there's plenty of little quirks about the nervous system - BDNF, CHRM2, IGF2R (those are three genes that have been implicated) that could possibly contribute to the greater picture of genetics, cognition, and intelligence.  I have a pretty good idea of the more overarching aspects of it, but I have no idea how the research is subdivided.

Okay, I have some new information to go on.

(Part of the issue about health benefits is that, unfortunately, I won't be able to afford health insurance any other way.  So, quite frankly, if a program doesn't give its students health insurance while they're students, I have to cross it off my list.  The research matters, ultimately - if the program is really good, I'll see what I can do to beg my parents to help me.  But otherwise, I may have to make a concession on that.  At least most graduate programs provide health insurance for their students as part of the stipend package so they can be healthy while they're doing their research.)

[scampster]

(Part of the issue about health benefits is that, unfortunately, I won't be able to afford health insurance any other way.  So, quite frankly, if a program doesn't give its students health insurance while they're students, I have to cross it off my list.  The research matters, ultimately - if the program is really good, I'll see what I can do to beg my parents to help me.  But otherwise, I may have to make a concession on that.  At least most graduate programs provide health insurance for their students as part of the stipend package so they can be healthy while they're doing their research.)

But again, most programs offer these things (and I would say the really good programs are even more likely to have nice packages for grad students), so it really isn't something to bother worrying about at the moment, compared to research programs, location, etc. Honestly, I think trying to find out the details of student health insurance is easiest done once you are accepted and you get a chance to talk to current students to see if they are generally happy with the plan.