biotinman

After I have been approved by the department/program how much of a formality is the Office of Graduate Study's dean signing off the final approval?

All this talk of people comitting... Is there any benefit to making the decision before the deadline?

Can I piggy-back this thread to ask if anyone has an idea how many new PhD students the Bioinf and Sys Bio program at UCSD accepts? Also their interview weekend is for that program only or the whole bioengineering department? Thanks

I had my first acceptance offer, but I haven't heard back from any other schools. A friend asked me if I would be sending emails to try and get more information in the context that I will have to be making a decision about the offer I have. Any advice on whether this is reasonable and tact for such an approach? --thanks

Undergrad Institution: North Carolina state school Major(s): Cellular Biology Minor(s): Biotechnology GPA in Undergrad: 3.54 in major courses 3.8 GPA in Grad School: 4.0 ( only on transcript as in progress) Position in Class: graduate cum laude so I think thats top 10% Type of Student: Male and white GRE Scores: Q: 164 - 90% V: 168 - 98% W: 4.0 - 49% Research Experience: 1 year in a biotechnology development project and one semester in a systems biology transcriptomics lab. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: none Pertinent Activities or Jobs: I had a graduate assistant position where I developed learning modules and TA'd graduate and undergraduate genomics/biotechnology lab Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: I have interdisciplinary curriculum across cell bio, biochem, programming, and a little bit of computational biology Special Bonus Points: For most of the places I applied to I have some fairly specific questions with broad themes that I think mesh well with their faculty. Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Only bad stuff - really bad grades including F's until I caught the research bug, and I have 4.0 since then. I have taken 18-20+ credits in all senior level classes though and had 4.0 while doing research. I doubt anyone looked in that much detail however. Applying to Where: Harvard (Systems Biology), WashU (DBBS), UT-Austin (CMB), Michigan State Uni (BioMolecular Sciences Gateway), Duke (computational bio and bioinformatics), MIT (bioengineering), ASU (BioDesign), UCSD (systems biology and bioinformatics), Montana State University (biological engineering), and maybe a couple others like Caltech and U-toronto