dendy

For the people who were informed by phone about their UCSD interview--were you called by admissions or a POI you have had contact with (or not had contact with)? Just curious.

When I type 'f' into my address bar, http://forum.thegradcafe.com pops up instead of facebook

Haha, this reminds me of a friend who was accepted to an EXPENSIVE post-bacc program at Cornell. I asked him if he could really afford it and the inevitable move across the country and wouldn't it be better to stay at respected State U where he hopes to attend med school anyway... "Who cares?? It's Cornell! It's worth it!"

I was planning business casual for my actual faculty interviews as well. I'm a girl so I was planning on slacks, boots or flats, and a sweater over a nice tshirt (or buttondown, if everyone else looks like they're dressing up).

I think it's late enough that you probably won't get an invite for that weekend. I suppose you can check the schools' websites and see if their interview weekends overlap with your trip.

Does anyone know the official interview dates for UCSD and Stanford? College Confidential has them listed as Feb 27-28, Feb 28-Mar 1 for UCSD and Feb 27-Mar 3 for Stanford, which, if true, is completely screwed up Top schools should really coordinate more. Luckily, by writing this I have jinxed myself and will not get an invite to either one.

Honestly this situation makes you sound flakey as hell. "A great opportunity to move?" Where to and what for? Unless it's because you've been accepted to a much better school, it sounds like you are not prioritizing your education.

I did the powerprep and princeton review tests. I also drilled the princeton review vocab list, which I thought was super useful for the actual test. I studied the princeton review strategies, and while I thought the tips for the verbal section were useful, if I were to do it again I would use another resource for reviewing math. I was reasonably satisfied with my scores: 164Q 166V 4.0AW (didn't practice writing at all).

If you're so concerned about not having a digital footprint... why don't you make one?? You could make a sham fb account with max privacy settings, so they can't see any pics or friends but they can see you have an account (unless you believe that universities have access to private profiles.... big rumor back in the day)

If you are applying to a neuroscience program, it is definitely fine. If you are applying to a more general bio program, it's probably still fine. Is this for something else?

Cool, thanks! They didn't reply to me at all but that might be because I told them I don't need airfare...

Do you mean sending your final transcripts AFTER you've been accepted and they already have your previous grades? I cannot say what month but as long as you don't outright fail any classes you should be fine; this isn't undergrad admissions.

Has anyone with a UCSF invite received confirmation for their interview time yet? I replied with my preferred weekend right away but they still haven't responded. I know it hasn't even been 24 hrs but UW replied within like 5 minutes and now I'm just being a paranoid weirdo. How am I ever going to survive invite season, lol...

Yes.

12:14

Yup

I thought they weren't going to send them out 'til the new year... Can't believe I was freaking out about not getting in anywhere; already got two interviews!

Oh, and I work in a glia lab. Nobody calls 'em neuroglia; that oughta save you a few characters. Actually you can just take the neuro- prefix off of most of those words. Your audience knows what you're talking about.

You seem to have a lot of unnecessary words. You say things like "we further investigated" when "we investigated" would suffice. Don't say "I dream that my career’s culmination would be to" when you could say "my [eventual/ultimate] goal is to" Just try to be more concise and straightforward in general, it's better style anyway.

It also depends on what kind of job you're trying to get. Retail or fast food? You don't owe them anything--definitely don't tell them but there's such a high turnover it's not a big deal anyway. An actual job that utilizes your degree (if you can even find one in this time frame--good jobs take a loooong time to find)? It depends on your field and where you're working but you should try not to burn any bridges.

It seems that they will attempt to call you a few times but will eventually email you if necessary. Still freaking out about not having cell service while I'm home for the holidays...

My first invite to UW neurobiology & behavior :-D

Just got a University of Washington invite!!! February 12-13 or February 13-14

It sounds like a special stage for highly qualified international applicants. I doubt they would bother with this for every single international applicant so they must be really, really interested in you. It sounds like they may fly you in for an interview if this goes well. Congrats!!

I've applied for 7 neuroscience programs. Harvard was the only school that explicitly said to expect an interview request before Jan 1st (otherwise you've been rejected). Frenetically refreshing my inbox...