biotechstudent

Thanks for the feedback! I am taking time off of lab and just focusing on my quals. I meet with my therapist every week and I am taking medication which has helped a lot. As for getting a new advisor, I'm just worried that I'll end up taking 7+ years to complete my PhD. That might be okay if you want to stay in academia, but I have no intention of staying. I don't even plan to do a post-doc. I think I will set up a meeting with the program direct and see what he says.

I am a second year graduate student in Molecular Biology going through quals at the moment. Our program requires us to write an R01 and defend it. Our proposed topic cannot be on our thesis or related to anything our lab does. This whole process has been so frustrating for me, mainly because my advisor couldn't care less about the whole process because she is in the Pharmacology program, which doesn't have to go through this..their quals take 6 weeks and our quals take 4 months! We are encouraged to discuss our proposed topics with our advisor and committee members. However, when we write our R01 we can't have any help. While writing our 2 page topic proposal, I asked my advisor to go over it to make sure the experiments were logical and not too ambitious. Anyways she refused and said she didn't really know anything about the topic. After I received my critiques she refused to discuss them with me. The other committee members have said they are too busy to meet with me to talk about my plans for the R01. This whole process has been so stressful for me and I think I am at the lowest point in my life. I had a breakdown and went to the program director who contacted the dean. The dean was furious that the faculty have not been any help. The dean discussed everything with my therapist and they decided I should take a break from lab to concentrate on my quals. It has been 2 months so far and I have been really struggling with depression and anxiety. I am now beginning to wonder if this is the right path for me and I am considering quitting my PhD and leaving with a masters if I pass my quals. I have no interest in pursuing an academic career, however, I want to go into a career related to tech transfer. I feel like having a PhD will help with career opportunities as many people have told me tech transfer/ consulting/ patent law etc. only hires PhDs. I know this is super long but I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what I should do. I live in NYC and I love it and I have made many friends in the grad school. However, I am doing long distance with my bf of 5 years and this is really taking a toll on our relationship. We are both committed to making this work and it has been 2 years of long distance. This whole process of grad school is seriously making me wonder if this is the right choice for me since I have been so stressed and it really has been taking a toll on my mental and physical health. Any advice would be very helpful!

@the_grateful_duck, I applied to both programs. I will be starting at Weill Cornell's BCMB program this fall and I have options of working in Weill Cornell, Sloan, and Rockefeller labs. I would recommend applying to both programs so you can explore your options later!

Officially going to Weill Cornell BCMB next year!

I received an email from Greg Payne the director and from two faculty members I interviewed with.

Congratulations!!!

If you choose to go to a program because you connected well with one faculty member, keep in mind that the faculty member may not be accepting students, the faculty member may run low on funding before you finish your rotations, or there are multiple students competing for one or two spots in his/her lab.

I really like the program and I think I am leaning towards attending, but I am going to think things through first before I make a decision. I don't want to make a decision right away.

Almost a month! The Interview weekend was Feb 13-15. I heard back late last night. The first acceptances were sent out last week. Maybe ASU has paperwork to fill out or the dean has to sign off on some things.

Got into Weill Cornell...ha stressed for nothing.

A lot of people look at US news graduate school rankings. However, I find the National Research Council's data to be much more helpful. http://www.nap.edu/rdp/ I think you have to sign up, but I was able to download their data in an excel file for free. You can look at individual programs and find out what their stats are, i.e. average publications per faculty, how many times cited, how long it takes for students to graduate, etc. They also don't have a set in stone ranking. Look at their pdf manual and it will explain the statistics, but basically they generate 90% confidence intervals. Ex. If a program ranks .05R (or .05S) =2 and .95R (or .95S)=8, then you can be 90% confident that the program is ranked between #2 and #8. It's very hard to rank the quality of programs, so this can at least help you pick programs that you're interested in. Also, US news ranks some schools higher compared to others, but you can't look at individual programs. Some schools that are lower ranked have certain programs that are a lot better than the higher ranked programs.

Thanks Yes, I do feel a little better. I liked the program and it's closer to home with a reasonable cost of living. I will probably accept if I don't hear from anyone else. -Also, thanks guys for helping me out while I was in my mini crisis. This whole applications process have been emotionally exhausting.

Yeah, I was figuring rejection because they had already sent out emails and it doesn't seem like it would take very long to email out acceptance. In addition, the interview weekend was 3 weeks ago so its possible they waited to send everything out at once. I just wish the lady I emailed would just tell me my application status.

I emailed the program assistant yesterday and she said "the admissions committee is reviewing all applicants and anticipating to deliver formal letters to all those accepted into the program." If I didn't receive an email by now, I'm pretty sure that means rejection. I am tempted to call and ask, but I don't want to be too pushy about it. I'm just upset because the chair of admissions told me "I would have to do something like spit in someone's face to not get accepted." I obviously didn't do that!! I'm really wondering what I did wrong.

I am from the east coast and I feel that it might be difficult to adjust moving so far away from family and friends (mainly the huge difference in time zones). I know I applied to a lot of west coast schools but a lot of schools in the west coast have very good programs and I did not even consider distance while I was applying (I know, foolish right?). Also, the program offers $30k a year. Housing costs $1200/year and the grad students recommended having a car. I am aware that the cost of living in LA is very high, but I figured the grad school would subsidize this high cost like the NY schools I applied to. For example, Weill Cornell offers subsidized housing at 750/month + utilities costs with a stipend of 34k a year. Housing is next door to the research institutions, so you would only have to walk to work. I wonder how far the stipend stretches at UCLA...Duke offers approximately the same stipend, only their cost of living is so much cheaper. There are a lot of great faculty at UCLA, I'm just wondering if spending 5+ years there would be difficult.

Rejected from Duke CMB and wait listed at Columbia. I was accepted to UCLA ACCESS with nomination for a fellowship. However, I am a little hesitant to committing to this program if it is the only program I am able to get into. I saw that some acceptance offers for Weill Cornell BCMB have been sent out, and I haven't received one. I really liked this school! Feeling super bummed because my interview with the chair of admissions went really well and she told me she was sure I would get an acceptance. However, one of my interviews did not go as well as I thought, now that I'm thinking about it, and I feel this has ruined my chance of acceptance. Feeling super stressed and bummed. Wondering if I should consider working for a few years and then reapplying

Is anyone going to Weill-Cornell next week? Are you guys wearing suits since its at a medical institute? I have heard for certain institutions it's standard to wear a suit. I've been wearing dress pants and a nice shirt to my interviews, so I don't want to stand out if everyone is wearing a suit at Weill-Cornell.

From postal mail? I haven't been checking my mail lately lol

I am!! I'm actually sitting at the airport right now! I just hope once this interview is finished, I won't be as nervous about the other ones. I've never been to NYC, so I'm pretty excited about that part

Congrats biotechie! I go to UF and the faculty in IDP are great! Plus..it's been hitting 80 degrees here all week, everyone's been laying out and swimming

Interview at UNC Chapel Hill BBSP for Feb 14-16

Thanks guys! I actually ended up sending in my scores because almost all the programs I applied to strongly recommend it. Overall I got a 720. I have two interviews so far so I guess they didn't care about the other sections as much.

Interview at Duke CMB! Interview dates are Feb 1-2 and Feb 15-16

I know UCSF Tetrad has already sent out interview invites. Does anyone know if they send out everything at once or do they send out a few rounds of invites?

So I wasn't planning on sending my scores, but I had already requested them to be sent before my scores were posted. The send out date for the scores was 12/21 on the website so I figured I could just cancel if I didn't want them to see my scores. It turns out they sent out my scores on 12/8, before I got to see my scores! I don't know if Columbia received them before making their decisions, which is making me really paranoid about the other schools now!