elkheart

For folks moving to Davis: I live there now. Have been in town for ~4 years (undergrad & working). My rent history: $780 got me a BIG bedroom in a 4b/4ba, brand new complex, nice everything (yes, private bath). $850 got me a decent studio apartment. Building was kinda funky, but the place was good for solo living plus it was right downtown and 2 min from campus (1st and C). $1040 now gets me a nice big 1b in a nice complex, near downtown but not in it, with my cat. I'm only here because I can afford it. Message me or leave comments here is anyone has any Davis questions. It's a great little town!

Well comrades, it's over. Or maybe I should say it's just beginning... I've accepted an offer - Biological Physics, Structure, and Design at the University of Washington in Seattle !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They rejected me (without interview) two years ago - but I'm back, baby. Have. Never. Been. More. Excited. About. Anything. In. My. Life.

1. Congrats! 2. As others have advised in various forums, keep it short and sweet. Here is my minimum form letter: Dear [so-and-so], I am writing in response to my offer of admission to the [blah department / program] at [blah university]. I appreciate the committee’s interest in me, but I regret to inform you that I will not be accepting the offer of admission. I have found a better personal fit at another university. My thanks go out to the committee, my interviewers, and the current grad students for their time and consideration. Sincerely, [elkheart]

Phew - just declined a school for the first time. The initial tension I was feeling gave way to a pretty profound sense of relief as soon as I realized I had hit Send. Would recommend.

(Sorry in advance to those who are having a rough time with things this application cycle, but...) Getting accepted into several programs is obviously great, and having been accepted to all the programs I applied to is even better (pending), but this honestly feels like a low point for me. Knowing that the ball is now squarely back in my court is stressing me out more than waiting to hear back was! I enjoyed every single visit, and if I could accept every offer I would. I genuinely feel bad about having to pick just one. Also, to add to the stress, it seems hard to overstate how significant this choice it will actually be for my life. What is wrong with my brain? Does this make sense to anyone but me? I guess a part of me didn't believe I'd get this far...

With that avatar you should already know: it's hell, but wait it out.

First - congrats! Second - this is a very good question that I'm sure is going to be case-specific, but here are my two cents: Grad school is the time and place to learn what you need to learn to become a full-fledged, independent scientist. It is almost certainly not where you will do your best work (if you do peak in grad school that’s probably a bad thing). You are going in order to learn how to devise good research questions, how to follow a project through from beginning to end, and what it is like to be responsible for your own work. And of course at the end of it you should have x-number of publications demonstrating objectively that you can do this type of work. Does this mean the work you do as a grad student has to be the work you will do for the rest of your career? Not necessarily. As long as you learn all the skills you need to learn, and are successful in your demonstration, then there is wiggle room. But I would throw in an important modifier: if the work you commit to doing bores you then you’re going to be in real trouble. Every grad student horror story I have seen traces back to a profound misalignment between the suffering grad student and the lab/field they committed to. I’d love to hear what others think about this important question.

YES!! Got my first official offer today! Happens to be from the same school that rejected me two years ago.

Midway through the interview process - dying to hear back from schools! Might hear something as soon as today. With no official offers from anywhere there is still the creeping thought that I won't actually go to grad school. Come on, first offer. Cooooome ooooonnnnn

I doubt anyone on here knows the real answer to that. But I do know UW has been really on top of this whole process, meaning they sent out a lot of invites back in December. Not hearing from them may well mean you won't be getting an offer, but it is really hard to know what is happening behind the scenes. Hold out hope for at least being waitlisted, if you're the hopeful type

They certainly mean to say that suits are not needed (and would be overkill). Business casual is a spectrum - I'd aim for the casual end. Jeans can work if they are nice, meaning dark denim with no holes. But non-jeans would also work, and may be a safer choice. Chinos/khakis = good. Jeans = ok. Slacks = bad. A t-shirt would be too casual. Aim higher than that and you're set.

That's the data I was waiting for, ilovelab. For the lazy: UC Davis 7.2% international UCLA 12.6% international UCB 12.9% international All data are from 2014, and all are for enrolled undergraduates (the only category that could matter here, as these schools fund almost all of their PhD students) Me thinks Ted Binsky doth protest too much...

Hey wickie - small world. I literally just did the exact same thing two minutes ago. The only difference is I emailed a program coordinator rather than a prof. I was hesitant. But I decided to do it because I figured we're all adults here. They know I'm applying to other schools, and they know scheduling is tight. Like you I told them that a switch would be nice, but I would still attend the day I was scheduled for if they were unable to make it happen easily. The ball is in their court. Could they get upset? Maybe. But I doubt it. I wouldn’t. Either they can easily accommodate or they can’t. Doesn’t seem like a problem to me. NINJA EDIT WHILE I'M WRITING THIS: The second school just replied. "There is still space available that second weekend. I have reset your interview date in the application. Please log back in and select the new date and you should be set." Booyah.

Thank you! Mine was updated as well - I would not have noticed without your post

A story for those without invites who are starting to worry: [Apologies in advance for length] I graduated with a BS in biochemistry in 2012. I was lucky enough to be able to conduct research in three different labs as an undergrad, each in slightly different fields, so by the time grad school application season rolled around I (thought) had a pretty good sense of what my research interests were. I didn’t get any publications from my undergrad work, but I figured I was still a competitive candidate regardless. I ended up applying to a handful of programs. None Ivy League, but top ones for what I was interested in. I didn’t get a single interview. Didn’t get a chance to meet with anyone. Didn’t get any phone calls. No Skype. What I did end up getting were a couple of emails around March telling me what by then I already knew – I had been rejected from every single program I applied to. They didn’t even want to talk to me. I was crushed. Meanwhile I had been wasting away here on the Gradcafe, seeing people with stats much better than mine (and much worse than mine!) receive invites and acceptances to the very same programs I had applied to. This made my personal defeat that much harder to deal with. Was I really so much worse than all these other people? Sure, some seemed to have rockstar profiles that I knew I couldn’t compete with, but most didn’t. Most just seemed like normal, smart, qualified applicants. Like I assumed I was. Did this mean I was a failure? An idiot? It probably sounds trite, but getting rejected from every program I applied to ended up being the best thing that has ever happened to me (professionally, at least). Even before March rolled around I was freaking out. My life trajectory seemed ruined. I had no backup plan – I hadn’t even given a moment’s thought to one, to be honest. But when things starting looking inescapably dire I began pestering professors I knew, telling them point-blank that I was going to need one or two years of fulltime research employment starting, well, immediately. The majority said little more than, “Good luck with that.” But as luck would have it, some did know of open positions, either in their own labs or just down the hall. I got hired by the same university I graduated from after less than a month of job searching. I ended up turning down two other positions. I found myself with a salary higher than the grad students in the lab, and it quickly fell on me to train them. And the new post docs. I probably learned more in my first year of fulltime lab work than I did in my entire undergrad education. After a year at that position I was picked up by a well-known global biotech company that had connections to my university. My new position came with a 50% raise and a chance to work on topics much closer to my core research interest. It has now been about two years since my blazing defeat. I am reapplying to many of the same grad programs that rejected me in 2012. Only this time I am a much stronger candidate. I know the field, and I know how to articulate my knowledge. I know how labs really work, both in industry and academia. And I have a throng of senior scientists and professors who offered to write me letters. I had to turn most of them down. This time around I was invited to a private interview for a program I hadn’t even applied to yet. I was offered a position by a POI on the spot. “I have a spot for you if you want it,” he said, “but you should wait, apply to other schools, and hear all your offers before you accept it.” The take away: I. Rejection is not the end of the world. It does not necessarily mean that you’re a failure, or an idiot. It most likely means you just weren’t ready, which is fine. Stay focused. II. If you’re worried about not getting in, start your job hunt right now. Get creative about how you seek out and apply to jobs. Accept only meaningful work. It will propel you. tl;dr – Got rejected two years ago. Been working in research labs ever since. Everything turned out better than expected J