Hello sajhaites,
My brother wants to pursue biotechnology education in the US.
He has just finished BSc Microbiology in Nepal. Third year's result yet to come, but that will be good hopefully.
Now, can you suggest how to proceed with his application and admissions? I have very little idea abt biotechnology. He says, one way is credit transfer. But where, which schools, scholarship chances, scope, additional informations? Please do help if you have some idea. :)

Mankato State University in Minnesotta has a good undergraduate concentration of biotechnology program.The school's tuition is cheap compared to others and your brother can get his B. Sc. credits transferred, mostly biochemistry and other biology courses which save him upto 2 yrs of time means he can graduate in 2 yrs.He will be able to save out of state tuition as well since the university allows you to pay in state tuition after a semester of study at the MSU.
There are other university programs as well, but most of them quite expensive. Mankato has a good number of deligent nepali students as well, faculty is noted and their graduate students get internship at Mayo clinic as well. It's a bargain, check the website at mankato.edu. Good luck.

Georgetown University offers good program for biotech though the tuition fee is expensive and I don't know if they offer scholarship. I think biotech industry is pretty good. One of my friends finished his graduate degree in biotech from georgetown and he had so many offers but took a job with Merrill Lynch. Your brother should go for it.

New user,
I should be able to get your brother a job when graduates with degree in Bio tech, if Iam still employed in that field. Stay in touch.

Newuserji,
Pursuing my further degree in biomedical sciences and having gone through very similar situation as your brother, I might be able to write you something.

Is his degree from TU? Three years BS degree might be a real problem as US has four years BS. Most US graduate schools do not recognize that degree for graduate school admission. He might have to join the BS program and be able to transfer the credits but might take another two years to finish depending on the major he decides to join (might have to take social sciences classes too).

Just to clarify, the term Biotechnology is very often used for commercial use than academic. One may not be able to find the Graduate program in Biotechnology often (although some undergrad programs use). Graduate schools generally use the term ?Biomedical Sciences?, which include Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Immunology, Microbiology and so on.

If he is willing to come to the US now, he has to be prepared to start another BS. Alternatively, trying to apply after MS would be another option. Personally, I prefer the first option as having additional two more year education in the US will help one to get into a really good graduate program with full support.
I hope it helps. Please let me know if I can be any more help. Good luck.
Himal

Oh! I have liked your postings and was really touched by your MRI thing. Keep it up.

Thanks for all the valued suggestions. Thanks bme2005, Himalkochori, Himalaya 178 and Himal NY for putting your thoughts.:)
I am sure they will be very helpful for my brother.

Yeh, it's a 3 years BSc from TU. He will have fine results by the end, though not amongst the top ranks. Wondering if a years job experience in a similar field (microbiology/biochemistry) in Nepal might be useful for the admission/(or) scholarship for MS. As HimalNY suggests, my preference is for a longer span of study in the US. But lets see how many options he can have. Any more comments? And or from more sajhaites pls...

Hey bro, Boston is the best place for a degree in Biotech. Boston is the education hub of world. I am currently studying BioTech in the University of Massachusetts. Most of the best universities are located in Boston therefore you'll have no problem finding a good univesity for your brother. With that BioTech degree you can find plenty of jobs since Boston is also biotech hub of world. There are so many prasied biotech companies located in Boston such as Biogen, genzym, Weyth, just to mention some. Boston is also a great place to live and work. Goodluck broda.

Michigan state university gave away full scholarship and living expense about 4500 to my friend who's pursing masters on that

Newuserji, I think u already have valuable suggestions. As a PhD student in Basic medical sciences, I may want to add some more details into it. If you visit websites of all most all research Univ. you will find two kind of programs offered by college of medicine- MD and PhD programs (in interdisciplinary gradate program in basic/biomedical sciences, now the new challenges in biomedical research has lead to chance the old dogma of awarding departmental PhD program in specific area like PhD in Pharmacology/pathology/microbiology/biochemistry/molecular biology.. now a biomedical researcher deemed to have knowledge from all of the areas of biomedical sciences ranging from Cellular and molecular biology to neuroscience to almost everything!!! So they are focusing on interdepartmental graduate program) and i think this would be the best option for your brother. They accept senior undergrad students directly into the PhD program (but are supposed to complete undergrad at the time of their matriculation into PhD program). They offer very generous stipend (around 20K/year) and full tuition and health and life insurance (at least in my Univ).

Since your brother is in Nepal and is not perusing 4 years BS, I have serious doubt that they would accept him into the PhD program. So he has got two options as someone (Himal?) has already suggested- complete 4 years BS from Nepal or India (which I did) and join Masters program in Biology/biomedical science related program in here (which I did in my case) and then join PhD program or transfer here in junior year and get good grade (need at least GPA of 3.0 and good GRE score) and then directly apply into PhD program. My personal experience is that as F-1 student, it?s relatively difficult to inter into college of medicine (during my first visit to my graduate program director, she blatantly said to me that they generally do not accept non-USA student into the college of medicine until and unless u have excellent recommendation and grades and standardized test scores I guess I had all of them and I think my MS from here helped me to earn good recommendation in particular and I was accepted without an interview by the admission committee!!). The second option looks better to me. I think this is the program to go for if anyone is willing to peruse graduate program in biomedical/biotechnology related fields( I don?t think that MS is better option if u really want to see your future in biomedical research!!). You may want to go through the following web link from my Univ-http://southmed.usouthal.edu/com/bmsphd/index.htm

Nut

Thank you so much nutji.
I don't think he has any prospect of completing 4 years BS in Nepal or India in the current circumstances, as he has already finished a 3 years course. PhD won't be realistic for him for the time being so he has to fulfil the basic requirement by transferring to the US graduate programme for the fourth year. I wonder if that will be for 2 years or just a single year though.

ANyways, really valuable suggestions from you all. I am sure my brother will find all these informations very helpful. Thanks to Nepaliballer and Hushpuppy as well.

Newuserji,
I agree with the detailed information provided by Nutji. Would like to add/clarify few things though.
To get BS degree in the US, one has to finish at least 45 to 50 credits from that particular school even if you have several transfer credits. They would also like you to take different Humanities courses, which are not included in our TU course work. Although humanities courses could be boring to take, it could give you plenty of time to focus on major courses and to do research work. I spent 3 years for BS here after 2-years BS in Nepal and did summer research in different schools during that time, which helped me a lot to get into the graduate school.

I am surprised to know Nutji?s comment regarding admission into PhD program in a medical center for non-US people. I did not have that feeling during my graduate application. Actually I am doing my graduate work in a medical center with several non-US students.
Nutji, please do not take this personally. It could be true in some schools though. Glad to know you are doing biomedical sciences. Good luck to your research. Just curious, which area you are working on?
Himal

Himal NY, good to hear from you and thanks a lot for good wishes. Oh yea, that was my personal experience and i don't know if i am the only person to have such experiecne!! I think i have started a thread "How many PhDs in sajha", you may want to visit that thread and may want to write about u and ur research.
Good Luck to you too for ur graduate studies!

Nut

Hello newuser,
Here are some facts that I think are true. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. Biotechnology program is not offered by many schools. Only top universities in the us offer this program. Which is why it might be hard to get in this program.

2. 3 years BSc from Nepal is not counted as a 4 years bachelors program in the US. So your brother might have to re-take Bachelors program in the US.

3. The maximum number of credit transfers will be equivalent to two years of study which means even if all the credits from nepal are transferred, your brother will still have to study two more years to finish bachelors.

4. Since your brother would already have taken major classes (the classes related to the field) from Nepal, it might not get transferred. Most universities require you to take the major classes from the same university or at least the senior level classes (3rd and 4th year classes) which would mean that all senior level classes that your brother might have taken from Nepal would be a waste. That would mean your brother may have to study for three more years before he gets a bachelors degree

5. Libreal Arts colleges require students to take general studies classes (like history, economics, geography etc..) which would mean that virtually most of the things your brother studied from nepal would be a total waste.

The transfer rules differ by university to university and so some university may transfer more hours than others. So you should look for a university which allow the most transfers.

Also some universities may enroll the student in Masters Program upon completing some deficiency courses. If that's the case then you should go for that instead of enrolling to a bachelor's program. I don't know if they allow funding for students who are admitted under certain conditions (like having deficiencies). These schools may also require GRE and since biotechnology is a pretty good program, they might require a GRE quantitative score of 750 and a verbal score of 550 or close.

Under these circumstances it might be best to finish Masters in Nepal and then come here unless someone here at Sajha knows about some school which have different rules and contradict what I mentioned before.

Good luck!