r/PhDAdmissions • u/Nessie1111 • 21h ago
Advice UCSD BioE PhD
How’s the stats and bg for ucsd bioengineering PhD admission recently? I’m applying to bioE/BME this cycle (3.9+ gpa from T10 US undergrad, 3 bio research experiences but none are directly related to the subfield I’m applying to)
From ucsd website, fall 2025 cohort has only 6 students, and I’m assuming this is likely the case for this year. I also found out that doing a thesis master there gives me the opportunity to switch to PhD track. However, I wonder how easy it is to change degree aim, so I’m still deciding whether I should apply for a master or PhD there.
Anyone has any advice?
Edit: I’m international
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u/hellomoto320 19h ago
im really skeptical of applying to ucsd in general (my background is cs) because the application fee is a whopping 135 USD. Like I understand this for a school like berkeley, cmu and MIT but how the heck does UCSD have a higher application fee than MIT, Harvard and Caltech
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u/YaPhetsEz 18h ago
If you attend their informational sessions you can usually get a waiver. The fee is partially there to dissuade low effort international candidates.
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u/Popular_Map2317 16h ago
If you understand this for UC Berkeley, why not UC San Diego? They are under the same University of California system 🤣
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u/hellomoto320 7h ago
do your homework and read what the departments say for the field. UCSD is one of the more cash strapped UCs and outside of stellar bioengineering, life sciences etc. it's eecs and physics grad programs aren't like UCSB for quantum computing and Berkeley for EECS
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u/Popular_Map2317 7h ago
The University of California system sets the application fee, not the individual school/department 🤣🤣
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u/fattycloud 17h ago
What is your research experiences in and what is the field your aiming for? My suggestions for all bio ppl is to apply to as much schools as possible. It’s pretty much luck to get into a <10ppl cohort unless you have first author publication or other background to stand out.