biotechie

I toured at UCSD last year, and I loved their campus and facilities. People seem pretty happy to be there. I didn't even apply to UCSF; I didn't like the vibe I got from their site. You would think someone waitlisted for the same program at UCSD would be telling you to go elsewhere, but I really think it is an awesome program. I'm happy with my choice, and I think you'll be happy with that one.

A month of research in a single lab doesn't really mean much in my opinion; it takes up to 3 months before you get used to the place and actually generate useful data. I would recommend having at least two full years of research experience before applying (more is better!), and if you want into those schools, everything about your application needs to look good. You need strong letters from research advisors, a strong statement of purpose, and a strong research statement. GPA may hurt you unless your GRE is very high. The more publications the better. It is okay to apply to schools that are so high ranking, but also pick a couple that you like that are mid-ranked... and like I said before, definitely look at IDP programs!

I applied to programs while nearly finished with my masters. They liked that I knew my way around a lab and that I knew a ton of lab protocols well enough to trouble-shoot them if done in different ways. I will require less training than an undergrad with no experience, or even one with experience (since I have 6 years of experience counting undergrad). Make sure that you can talk about your masters project, especially if you've yet to have publications. I was asked about why I didn't have recent publications, but was able to explain that there will be 4-6 papers dropping this fall with my name on them. The things that mattered for my applications seemed to be research experience, my passion for science (SoP), statement of research, and my letters of recommendation, all from research mentors. GPA is important, but mine is not stellar; UG was a 3.7, masters is a 3.6. I got quipped a little about that as well as my 70-80th percentile GRE scores at interviews, but they kept telling me that my grasp of science overshadowed that. They also liked me because I'm slightly interdisciplinary... undergrad in microbiology and masters in mammalian cell physiology. I have a large background of base information that should help me when I select a lab. I guess my take-home point is that all of it is important, but that you need to take your best assets and put them forward. If you have really strong research experience, make sure they know it. If not, make sure they know your interests and how determined you are to succeed. I keep saying this to people, but it is important to draw them in with your application. Show how excited you are for your field. They've got to read sometimes hundreds of applications. Make yours one that they remember. That being said, don't try to hide things that you think will mar your application... make sure you are as open as possible with them. If they ask you about something, be prepared to talk about it. Good luck!

It is a good thing I accepted another offer as I am waitlisted for the same program at UCSD. Otherwise, I'd have been telling you to hurry up with your decision and biased to tell you to go to UCLA. As far as UCSD goes, have you driven down the main streets just off of campus? There are so many biotech labs right there! I would imagine it is fairly easy to get a post-doc right there when you're done. Some of the professors even have their labs off campus. I visited last year during Experimental Biology conference. It was gorgeous. Prestige doesn't matter as much for me. What matters is that I'm working with a professor that has done some amazing research in the field, and one that publishes often. I want someone who is going to work with me more than work over me, and someone that I won't be afraid to talk to about problems I have with experiments. It should be someone that seems fairly well-funded and can make sure that you have the materials you need for the experiments. You need to take some time to look through those programs at your POIs again. How many of them are working with areas in or related to cancer that interest you? How many are taking grad students? Which place will you be happier at? Can you survive better at one place over the other cost-wise? Are the things you think you want to do really feasible at that university. In my opinion, you're probably going to have access to everything you need at those universities. If it were UCSD versus some unknown small program, I'd tell you to go to UCSD... but in this comparison to UCLA, I think both are great. Another thing to note: It is okay to not be near your girlfriend for your studies. This is a time when you really need to focus on getting your stuff together and surviving your intro classes. It might be good to not see her all the time. It sucks, but sometimes it will help you. San Diego to LA isn't that bad; you can see her on some weekends. I'm moving more than 16 hours away from my boyfriend to what I think is one of the top programs for my field: cancer and epigenetics. At least, there are POIs that I have been guaranteed a rotation with that are accepting students. Had I gone to UCSD, I would probably see him once per year at best. That's odd. I think my comments to you are biased toward UCSD. Haha.

Whoa! You're a brave one! Which department is going to be home during your PhD work?

St. Louis is pretty much the same as far as weather goes. This year, it can't decide if it wants to be Spring or go back to Winter. >.< It doesn't stay sub-zero in St. Louis for more than a couple of days, but there is usually a 2-week run of 10-15 degree F temps in late January.

I was starting to wonder how your interviews had gone. I sent you a message a while back. I'm glad you made your choice. Doesn't it feel awesome?

Definitely go straight for your PhD. I am completing my masters right now in Cellular Physiology, but the only reasons I stayed here for a masters is because I was switching fields from microbiology to mammalian cell biology. Otherwise, I would have gone straight for the PhD. These guys are right. Unless you're not ready or think you want to go into a slightly different field, go straight through to a PhD Program.

WUSTL is a fantastic school and St. Louis has lots of fun things to do! There is City Museum, The Fox Theatre, The Muny, Forest Park, The Zoo (which is FREE), and tons of things around that I probably don't even know about. There are tons of bars, restaurants, and little shopping areas. If you have time to go out of the city, Southern Missouri and Southern Illinois have some beautiful areas to explore. Southern Illinois is at the edge of where the glaciers ended, so it isn't flat. Lots of beautiful hills. It is gorgeous in the Spring and Fall. If you have a car, you're going to have lots of things to do. Even if you don't have a car, there will still be lots of things. As long as you stay well hydrated, the humidity is okay. If you're planning on biking/walking to school, you might want a change of clothes if you're a sweaty person.

Being from around the area, I can tell you St. Louis isn't that hot. In the summer, there will be a couple weeks it gets to around 100 degrees, but most of the rest of the time, the highs are mid-80's for the summer. The winter is pretty mild, but there will be a couple of really cold weeks, sometimes with snow or ice. It is much cooler here than Texas, where I am headed. BME might not be as highly ranked, but their biomedical sciences program is one of the highest ranked in the country. You might end up working with professors form that department. I know that their DBBS programs are fairly rigorous. I don't know much about the other programs.

Not as long as you can show that you learned something beneficial and can handle yourself in the laboratory. Being in the lab and learning how to do protocols is important. Having that experience before you get into grad school is essential in my opinion. Now, if your research was in Geology and you were working with rocks, that might not help you so much in neuroscience. But if you did research in Microbiology where you ran western blots and you're getting into a cell bio and neuro lab, that's going to help you a ton. Just make sure you can talk about and answer questions on those projects that you did, and have an idea of what your interests are. I think you'd be fine as long as you can properly express it and show that you get it.

University of Washington only accepted around 3-5 students for Immunology, this year... and had over 100 applicants. Be careful, there. Since you're interested in Micro/CMB and Immunology, you might consider an interdisciplinary (IDP) program. They sortof let you follow your interests more broadly at the beginning while you're rotating, and then let you specialize as you get into your research. You still have the option to take classes that interest you in all of that school's IDP fields. There are lots of these, but the ones I interviewed at and have experience with are Baylor College of Medicine Interdepartmental Program in CMB and University of Florida IDP in Biomedical Sciences. UF seems to take lots of international students. Baylor takes 15 or so per year for this program, and UF takes upwards of 30 students... or more.

Your grades/scores are better than mine, and I've been accepted to Baylor College of Medicine and another school. I was also waitlisted at UCSD, but they called me for an interview recently (which I turned down). Ion_Exchanger is right. Research fit mattered more. I have 6 years of research experience, and that mattered more than my other things. My school is fairly unknown in the biochem/cell bio circles, but I have some cool and strong research under my belt. It showed them that I can do science, regardless of how well I do on a test or in uninteresting classes like neurophysiology ( ). I applied to 6 programs. Three I was in love with, and three that I liked. I got interviews at 4 of them, but turned down two. If you find research that you really like at a few programs you think you have a chance at, you may not need to apply to 20 programs. Do lots of research. Also make sure your Letters of Rec, Personal Statement, and Research Statements are as strong as you can make them. Use your personal statement to show how passionate you are. Draw the admissions people in. Make yourself unforgettable. Your letters should help re-emphasise that and should match up with your research statement. Side note: I know Baylor doesn't accept many students into the Neuroscience program. Lots of them end up in the CMB program, too!

Research experience would win out, here in my opinion. You can take lots of courses, but there are lots of things you can only learn in the lab. My experience (6 years of it) is what got me into grad school.

Any of you that were waitlisted prior to interviews for UCSD Biomedical Sciences should check the status page and messages in the online application, today. It looks like they're reviewing students in the wait list! They ask if you are still interested in the program.

I should make it clear that I'm paid a salary... I don't get paid for every hour. We all know that being paid for 20 hours per week in science means you work 3x that. Most areas, you get paid a certain amount of hours, but you really work more.

Experience, grasshopper. 6 years of it. Luck is also of importance.

This is actually a great idea. If enough people answer, we can get an idea of distribution by field. My stipend is going to change when I leave my current Masters for PhD... so it will be more. However, I'll still be living with pretty much identical expendable income at the end of the month. LOL

I do that in the life sciences and have done it since the day I stepped into the lab. I spend 10-15 hours per week teaching and grading, and then 60+ in my lab working. Most concentrations outside of science don't have quite the time sink with the RAship since they don't have to worry as much about experiments not working... or they can at least do more of their work from home. If you're working with human subjects, etc, obviously an RAship can take up a lot of time. I spend so much time in lab because I want publishable data, and 90% of the time, the first time you do something, it doesn't work. I still find a Saturday every few weeks to just lounge around or go outside to play. I think you'll be fine.

Right now, I'm in a rural area with fairly low cost of living... and make around 18k per year for my Masters. I still end up spending half my monthly income on housing per month, and then each semester an entire paycheck goes to the school for fees. A little rough, but doable. The school I will go to this fall has a cost of living only slightly higher than here but a stipend of $29k. I will be spending about 1/3 of my monthly income on rent, and probably another $200 on utilities, etc. It will be much more affordable for me to live, but I will probably spend a lot more on gas and transportation.

I personally would not recommend that. If you're going to start a masters, make sure you complete it. Your programs that you apply to are going to ask you about your current program and what you're doing with it. It won't look good if you're just using it as a place-holder until you get into the program you want. It could seriously help your chances for PhD programs if you will have a masters before you start your PhD, so why not finish it? Apply for your PhD for the Fall AFTER you complete your masters. I'm finishing a masters this summer and will start PhD late this summer... those two extra years of experience helped me a ton.

I know exactly how you feel in the life sciences, and like what you're probably up to right now, I'm putting in 60+ hours per week. We don't have time for very many, if any at all, outside activities because we're either in lab running experiments, organizing and computing data and statistics, taking classes, studying, or reading for our research or classes. There is not really much "down time." I'm lucky if I get at least one run in every week. I tend to work late in the evenings for my masters work right now, and my lab group is small, so it can get pretty lonely. The grad students in the department started organizing a happy hour every Friday. There are usually 15 or so of us, and it is tons of fun. I try to go at least every other week. It gets me out of the lab for a couple of hours to relax and have fun. It usually is a giant nerd-fest with us talking about triumphs or failures in the lab, or figuring out what the weird professor is up to. I figured out that one of the other students in the department often does her studying late at night, as does one of my guy friends. We pester each other between incubations and during study breaks and all of us feel a lot less isolated. Maybe you can set up something similar? If your department is small, maybe a couple of departments can get together?

You are very lucky. You have a beautiful way of expressing yourself. It is rare that I've seen someone in your field with the ability to put these feelings into words as you have done. Most of us have felt that hopelessness and desire as well, but have been unable to express it. If you got an ounce of the feeling that you express in this post into your statement of purpose for your applications, I have great confidence in you. Any company would be lucky to have you; with skills in finance as well as the skills to express yourself so, you must also have the skills to emphasize with others, and this is so very important in your field. I wish you the best of luck; you can go so far!

I would use that type of application like crazy if it showed the pedigree of that particular paper as well... as in the papers that led up to it. If I could have that + Mendeley, it would be so much easier for me to find my data. I'm using to seeing, "As discussed previously" in papers and then having to spend hours tracing it back to find the source. You would have tons of people that love you forever for revolutionizing literature review.