prospectivegrad1

Okay--same thing happened to me earlier today as well!

Has anyone gotten a response email from NSERC after emailing them to accept the award? @Jibster @jakeopolis

Okay same! Good to know I'm not the only one

Also got PGSD3! Has anyone officially accepted the award yet by emailing NSERC? If yes, should we expect a response email from them? I emailed them on Tuesday but no response yet!

Probably just a little bit. I don't like talking about prestige but I believe the ranking of prestige is: Stanford > UCSF > Berkeley. Again, I would go where ever you are happiest but, all else equal, Stanford will give you a slight lead in terms of marketability. Will this slight lead make the difference between landing an industry job and not? I don't know because I'm not in industry but it could.

Okay, if you are equally as happy at all 3 schools, then I think Stanford will give you an advantage in terms of marketability.

Which school has more PIs you are interested in rotating with?

If you're very certain that all 3 schools are a great scientific fit for you, then I would personally recommend Baltimore. I think the experience of moving out is invaluable, which eliminates SF. I think your interactions with other graduate students and how you fit in the cohort is important, so if the community at UPenn is not the right fit for you, I would eliminate UPenn. Baltimore is probably not as dangerous as people think it is; I also interviewed at Hopkins and all the students over there were very happy and seemed to not think that safety is a huge concern.

Both are really good schools. I would let the science guide your decision, and by the looks of it, UCSF seems to have more PIs you are interested in so I would go with UCSF.

Once you get an interview invite, you've defeated 70% of the battle, and I think interviews fill in the remaining 30%. Your interview experience is highly dependent on your interviewer. I think the few people who don't get accepted post-interview are the ones who got unlucky and got interviewers who would continuously grill them. I think interviewers are looking for 3 things from you: knowledge of your own research project (based on your ability to answer the questions they ask you about your research), ability to communicate your research project, and enthusiasm/ability to ask good questions about their research. I've attended 5 interviews so far, and I think all my interviewers try their best to gauge these 3 variables.

Has anyone heard back from Stanford Biosciences (Developmental Biology)? I just heard that this program does not take a lot of students each year...

Would a grant ever cover my tuition?

Cool! Thanks for the speedy response.

Hey all, Hope everybody's application cycle is going well so far! I wanted to step aside from the interview frenzy and bring up some questions about external funding in the US/funding in general in the US. I'm Canadian so I'm not particularly knowledgeable about how this stuff works. i) As far as I know, my stipend will be paid by my PI; my tuition is paid by the department. True? ii) If I secure external funding some time during graduate studies (from NIH or other funding agencies), will this money go towards covering the stipend paid by my PI? Will it go towards covering my tuition? Will it increase my stipend, if it's a big grant?

Phew~

Stanford Biosciences sent out their invites already?

Thanks guys! I will draft a nice email and send it out today :)

Hi all, In what situations would it be appropriate to ask for an extra lodging night? In my case, a recruitment weekend ends at 6PM on Tuesday but going on a return flight after 6PM would mean that I arrive at home past midnight, which I ideally do not want because I have another interview the day after. Would it be appropriate to ask to stay in the hotel for an extra night, just so I can catch a flight early in the morning the next day?

Does anybody have any thoughts on using powerpoint slides, hard-copy figures etc. to explain their research?

I can't answer your overarching question of whether you are a strong applicant or not, but I can pitch in my opinion on the impact of GREs. For sciences, the admissions committee is mainly looking for good quantitative and analytic writing scores and judge less on your verbal score. So in your scenario, it depends on which section of the GRE you scored low on. Moreover, the admissions committee typically will look at your master's GPA more strongly than your undergrad GPA; so even though your undergrad GPA is quite low, it is very possible that your master's GPA will compensate for it. Even if your quantitative and analytic writing scores are not terrific, I truly believe that the two most important aspects of an application are your LORs and SOP. The admissions committee is looking for students who are competent (based on your LORs) and motivated/enthusiastic/a-good-fit (based on your SOP). If you have letter writers who know you well and are enthusiastic about you, then their letters should mitigate the negative effects of your GREs and carry you into grad school. Don't let numbers (GPA, GREs) affect your confidence level -- your LORs and SOP mean much more.

I would like to know more about this. Does UC Berkeley MCB bias towards students attending the first recruitment weekend? What other schools might do this? Thoughts?

This is great advice -- thank you!

Hey all, I know people have been getting interviews recently--and possibly accepting these interview invites--but would it be appropriate to decline interviews at this time? The thing is, I have interviews at 4 schools, and all the interviews are one week after the other. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about all these schools, and so I'm tempted to decline 2 of them so I wouldn't be so tired from traveling and would have more time to recover and perform well on the interviews at schools I am enthusiastic about. But it seems a little too early to do this, and I am worried about declining too many interviews, screwing up the interviews I want, and being left empty-handed with no grad schools to attend. Any advice on when to decline interviews? I am definitely expecting more interview invites.

Hey all, Would it be appropriate to write that you are a first generation student when the application requests a statement about how you contribute to the diversity at the school? Is this something that counts as "underrepresented"? Michael

Hey all, Some schools ask what other schools and programs you are applying for in the application form (although this question is not required). Does anyone know what they use this information for? Would it look "bad" if I listed 9 other schools? Thanks!