[smlgirl]

Hey I'm a Pharm Chem major at UC Davis, have a 3.14 (which i've strained to bring up from a 2.3 for the past three years), am doing biochem related research, and will probably do pretty well on the gre.  What are some options for such a low gpa (which might move up to 3.25)?  I have reach schools like nyu, sussex, UC Davis haha, wake forest, and columbia, but what are the green lights?

I have the reach schools, now I need the backups!!

[Doc Oc]

Well, my first suggestion is to scratch Davis off the list.  I think it's becoming somewhat more common for people to do their undergrad and grad work at the same institution, but back when I was applying I was told it was frowned upon because it was considered a form of academic inbreeding.  Educationally, you want to find diverse opportunities for yourself and expand your line of thinking.  If you go to Davis, odds are you will try to work with the same prof you work for now or someone else whose research you already know.  So I encourage you to look at a different school.

In general you want to move up in stature when possible.  So I don't advise that you go to an easier/lower ranked program than Davis.  I ended moving down a tier for my graduate work, but my undergrad GPA was so bad that even my very good GRE score couldn't negate it.  Yours isn't that bad, so make SURE you kill the GRE and you should have an excellent shot at getting into a good program.  Just FYI, one of my undergrads got into a very good UC for grad studies and the way they pursued him made it seem like they were almost desperate to get enough grad students for their program.  So you may be in a better position than you know.

Just as a personal bit of advice, it sounds like you're willing to move out of CA and that's not a bad choice.  Your grad student salary won't change too much (low to mid $20K per year), but what you get for the money is VERY different.  I ran up a significant amount of debt trying to live in CA on that much money, but now I live in a different state where students are actually able to build up their savings even on a grad student salary.  The educational system in CA is one of the best in the nation, but if you're looking into lower tier programs, take a look at some out of state.  No point suffering through the miserable financial crisis CA is in if you're not going to get a top-rate education.

If you like, you can PM me for more detailed information.