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kewz

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  • Application Season
    2015 Fall
  • Program
    BBS

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  1. BBS is the combined PhD program in Biological & Biomedical Sciences I'm looking forward to orientation week too, though I'll be heading to New Haven in June to start early and orientation isn't until late Aug. Heard that New Haven is wonderful in the summer!
  2. Can't believe there hasn't been a thread for Yale already. Unacceptable. Having said that though, I actually don't know what to say now that I've started one I'll be joining BBS and am feeling super excited already!
  3. Dayum that's a lot of $$!
  4. I've never heard of anyone commuting between NYC and Yale as a grad student -- not that it's undoable/insane or anything, just unheard of. I know a professor who does that between Boston and Yale on a weekly basis but not any student. Pretty sure Yale, like many other universities, has regulations on what percentage of a degree must be spent in residence. Also, driving from New Haven to NYC can be done for about 1.5hrs, depending on the traffic and/or whether you speed or not. When I visited Yale we had no problem walking back from the bar to our hotel at 11pm. But yes, New Haven certainly has a bad reputation when it comes to safety; but then again it's not as if every once in a while you hear a Yale student get murdered or anything. You just have to be extra careful, just like you should in any city in the U.S.. You might also want to consider the financial support each school gives. I don't know about your program but my program at Yale, for instance, gives awesome stipends (33k+/year). On the other hand I've heard that Zurich is a super expensive city.
  5. IMO everyone 'deserves' a school/program where he/she has a good research fit; no one 'deserves' or 'doesn't deserve' a school just because of its ranking. In other words I think the more pertinent questions you should ask yourself are: is this school a good research fit for me? Will I feel excited getting out of bed each day knowing I would be doing something that interests me, or will I be procrastinating and feeling miserable doing what disinterests me (even though the school is, say, Princeton, the school that currently ranks #1 in US News).
  6. I had really wonderful visits at Penn and UCSD. Loved the Reading Terminal Market in Philly and the sunshine and the beaches in La Jolla. I didn't like at all however applications that use ApplyWeb. It was so annoying that one can't jump in between pages directly. I also didn't quite like it when schools just send you a very impersonal, totally automated email from the application portal asking you to check your decision online. My applications went more smoothly than I expected. I think if I were asked to give any advice it would be to keep an open mind during the interview stage. I felt that I clicked with one interviewer at my very first interview that was super early in January, and I seriously thought that I would totally go there and was hoping that I didn't have to go for the rest of my interviews (tickets for which had been bought). But oh man I was wrong. During my second visit a faculty member gave an awesome talk and it made me rethink the approaches I would want to take for future research. Since then I found my research interests have evolved quite a bit compared to when I started the application season, even though I thought I was very sure about what I wanted to do back then. Long story short in the end I now find myself leaning towards going somewhere I thought I would least want to go. So I'd definitely recommend going for as many interviews/visits as one's time and energy can afford. You'd be amazed at what you might learn during those visits. Just my two cents.
  7. Is the school a member of the Council of Graduate Schools? Did your offer come with a copy of 'Resolution Regarding Graduate Scholars, Fellows, Trainees, and Assistants' that every member school of the CGS is obligated to attach to their offers? Apr 15 is the common deadline agreed upon by members of the CGS; but if the school you are talking about does not belong to the CGS, welp, technically I guess it could do whatever it wants :S
  8. Second that Cornell Weill seems to have tons of money, so does Sloan Kettering and/or Rockefeller. WUSTL also didn't seem to care (they don't even charge application fees ).
  9. If you're an international student I would advise against applying to too many public universities. Their funding mainly comes from the federal/state government which usually limits the support to US citizens or permanent residents. Private universities, on the other hand, oftentimes have other channels of funding in addition to NIH/NSF funding (private donations, university fellowships, etc). In fact, my advisor told me out right that 'if a department boasts huge amounts of training grants of any sort, you're out' (oh forgot to mention, I'm international too). It might also be a good idea to ask the department you're interested in before applying as to whether or how many international students they plan to accept, if the department has not indicated already on its website. UW Genome Sciences, for instance, states very explicitly on its website that due to funding limitation it only takes in 1 or 2 international folks every year. Some private universities I applied to, on the other hand, despite having indicated on their websites that they have limited funding for internationals, offered me admissions and in one case an additional fellowship.
  10. As long as you are in and do good work, nobody cares if you were waitlisted or not.
  11. In similar shoes but with different opinion on such scenario. My first interview, which was super early, had the best research fit for me, and I felt I really clicked with one of my interviewers and could totally see myself working in his lab. And I got in 3 days after the interview, so I was pretty much sold after my first interview. I had 4 more interviews to go at that time, went to another recently, and am leaving for yet another the day after tomorrow. I try not to carry any preconceptions into future interviews (the notion that 'oh the first program is totes the best for me; nowhere else could beat that') and I think these interview weekends are invaluable opportunities to gain new perspectives and establish (potential) connections/networks. Already during my last interview I could feel my research interests evolving and getting more refined as I listened to faculty members' presentations at the second school I interviewed with. I don't believe there is a 'perfect' program -- every program, no matter how good the fit is, certainly has its flaws -- and I'd like to be able to make a final decision after weighing all options while being as informed as possible. Even though I know there are a few places I almost certainly would not attend even if I got in, I consider it useful to be able to talk to people whose work I find interesting. Who knows, maybe after graduate school I'd want to do a postdoc with him or her. My undergrad advisor told me that people who interviewed with her come back a few years later for job interviews all the time. It'd be good to make a positive impression now which might work in my favor in the future. And all this aside I find myself just really having a great time talking to faculty members and current grad students to find out more about their work. I agree though that missing lots of classes is annoying. I actually have a professor who insists in dropping a letter grade with more than 3 absences. With my remaining interviews I'd miss 4 so I know for sure the best grade I could possibly get for that class is a B. But oh well it's an artsy elective I have to take as GenEd so that I could graduate so who gives a damn
  12. I kinda customized them. For instance, I've been reading some recent interesting developments in cancer genomics on Twitter lately, and some of them triggered quite some controversy and have even been in the popular media. So I brought them up with faculties who work on cancer genomics and asked about their opinions. Another guy I met discovered one of the important genes putting people at higher risk at T2D, so I asked about the approach he used that allowed him to make that discovery (I was genuinely curious). Yet another guy I met was on several committees running the graduate program, so I asked one or two of my unanswered questions about their program. Of course I still had a list of generic questions prepared beforehand just in case the conversation hits a dead end in spite of all efforts (what's your advising style; how many people do you have and/or plan to have in your lab; do you have more of a wet lab or dry lab; etc).
  13. It might be that only 1/3 of the people get in but someone has to be part of that 1/3, no? It might as well be you. I don't know about evolution/ecology -- I'm in computational genetics/genomics/biology -- but my interviews so far have been very laxing. Just dress up nicely; be happy and genuine; talk to people, make pleasant conversations; listen to faculty talk about their research, be inquisitive and ask questions without interrupting them; talk about your own work clearly and enthusiastically; and most importantly, leave a positive impression. It's really more like holding conversations than any business interview I'd imagine. Most of the time the conversation just flows naturally, instead of the sort of Q&A-style you might expect in a business interview. I've never been through any formal business/job interview, except for two part-time on-campus job interviews, and I consider myself a huge introvert; even so I felt I nailed all my interviews so far. So I'm sure you'd be fine
  14. I planned to apply to 16 and had all my recommenders submit letters to 16 schools (oops, sorry!) 1-2 months in advance. But I ended up being the one procrastinating and started seriously working on my parts of the apps on Thanksgiving (all due Dec 1-ish). Needless to say I didn't have the time, or energy, to finish all of them. So I downsized my plan to 12, but decided to throw out UCLA, Chicago, UMich, and PSU as I was going through their faculty research in detail one last time due to poor research fit. TL;DR: Applied to 8. In retrospect, 16 was insane and I'm glad I didn't apply to that many. (I did have my GRE sent to ~20 schools tho. ETS I'm staring at you in anger :/)
  15. I simply went ahead with assuming I'm rejected by Harvard and Columbia the moment I saw folks get interview invitations from programs that I applied to at these two schools on Results Search. Not pleased at their not saying a word though -- at least UW had the decency of sending rejections soon after sending out interviews. I have no interest whatsoever in being on the waitlist (read: rebound) list at any school. Either take me or reject me.
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