I'm a 4th year Biology major with a focus on neuroscience. I live inthe US have decent grades, excellent lab experience and amsecond-author on a published paper (and appear on a few other papers asa minor contributor). I've always planned on going to Graduate Schooland assumed I would be doing it in the States as well. I was told along time ago that the US was the best place for Graduate Schoolbecause there was more funding. The notion (right or wrong) stuck and I never considered Europe.

Recently, however, I've begun to think about grad school overseasbecause a good friend of mine is looking into it. He's been told thatthe funding is about the same but the networking is drastically betterand it puts you in a better position for a great post-doc and academiccareer later, as compared to going to one of the many grad schools inthe US. Furthermore, my friend says you don't need to apply to theUniversity itself so much as apply to the individual professors at theuniversity which is where my extensive lab experience would reallyshine (and I can downplay my mediocre grades).

So, does anyone have some advice, tips or know the process of applyingto European graduate schools? Is it a good idea? Are there alternatetests (instead of or in addition to the GRE) that I need to take? Will I have the same opportunities, or better, than here in the States?

It probably depends entirely on the university that you apply to, and the country. Do your homework first and find out which are the best universities/departments for your subject. I'm doing Physics, so I'm not sure which are the top unis for Biology.

How do you feel about studying in a country where the language is not English? Having said that, in some countries such as Sweden, the Netherlands, and maybe some others the teaching at postgrad level is sometimes in English, due to the number of international students.

I think in the first instance you contact a potential supervisor in a department that interests you.