bsharpe269

One of the students in the phd at my school had a marijuana criminal charge on his record. He was upfront about it in the application. If you think this sort of thing will be found then I think that it may be worth it to mention it and give a reason. Nearly all Freshman go to parties so if handled properly, I don't see why it would hurt your grad school chances.

I did an REU. I applied to 4 and was accepted to 2. One of the ones I was accepted to was my UG institution and the PI who I did research with fought for me. The other was actually a really highly ranked school and my gpa was only a 3.3 so I'm not sure how I got lucky with that. I had a ton of research experience by the time I applied and the professor who I wanted to work with was in a similar area so I assume that's what did it.

I agree that you did the ethical thing. I bet that once you get to your program, you will be so excited that you will quickly forget about the other school.

Actually grading in an MS in engineering is very similar to liberal arts or any other field. Just because a field is more focused on writing an arts than math doesn't mean professors magically give As to everyone. I'm in bioinformatics which is in the engineering department at my school and the coursework overlaps with engineering courses a lot. As or at least As and Bs are expected just like any other field.

I'm working in my MS now and I do think that an F could hold you back. Are you struggling due to not putting time into the class or is the material too difficult? In grad school, a 3.0 is usually required to stay in the program so even Bs are pretty bad... A B is basically the lowest you can and stay in the program so it's more like a C in undergrad

Well it sounds like you know what you are looking for which is really great! it sounds like bioinformatics would be right in line with your interests. Since you already have experience doing wet lab stuff and don't seem like you 100% need to be doing it as part of your phd, if you end up in a purely computational lab then you could eventually combine the expirimental skills that you already have with the computational phd knowedge when you are a professor. I personally find the field really interesting and like you, I enjoy both the math/CS/stat stuff and also the biology (though I enjoy reading about bio, not really expirmental work). Bioinformatics programs do a really great job combining these things. For example, when I am writing programs for class, my assignments relate to stuff that I find interesting. A beginnner program for example might invlove writing a script to calculate the CG content of a DNA sequence. My most recent statistics assignment was related to stomach bacteria. I find classes much more interetsing when they relate to important topics like this instead of just generic calculations.

You should be fine in my opinion... I recommend taking a great advanced statistics course in grad school if you can find one. To understand the theory, you obviously need a strong background in proof based math courses. I was a math major as an undergrad though and many of the professors who I see usuing lots of statistics (and understanding what they are doing at a conceptional level, not necesarily at a rigorous mathematical level) have less background in math than you.

I am in a bioinforamtics masters program currently. It sounds like your interests like up well with bioinformatics programs but I will give a bit of warnings as well: you dont mention whether you plan on applying to phd programs or masters programs. If you plan on applying to masters, then honestly the jobs that you would get after graduation dont care about your wet lab experience and will expect you to be an amazing programmer. This means that while working on your masters, you would need to do very CS/statistics heavy internships/research to be well qualified instead of wet lab stuff. If you plan on going the phd route (I will be applying to phd programs in the 2nd year of my masters) then still be cautioned that from what I have seen, most students who want to get into bioinformatics are bio students who want to pick up the CS stuff. There seem to be less CS students in the programs because they can just open a cell bio book and learn the bio so they dont feel the need to necesarily do the interdisciplinary program. This means (at least at my school) that 2/3 of the students want to be involved with wet lab stuff and only 2 of the 10ish labs in my program do any sort of wet lab work. If you go the bioinformatics route, you may be able to do wet lab stuff but it is equally or more likely that bio people will do the wet lab work and you will be taking that data and getting information out of it. I am sure that there are very biology heavy bioinformatics programs out there but I dont think that is the norm. If it is really improtant to you that you are involved with wet lab work then I would either look at biology programs or I would look carefully at the research being done in bioinformatics departments and make sure that at least half or so of the labs are doing wet lab work. Edit: Also, it may be worth checking out bioengineering and biophysics departments. I dont know much about bioengineering really but from what I have seen, both of these field tend to be more experiemental than bioinformatics.

Yeah I agree with teh above... it sounds like he wants you as more of a reserach associate and I am not quite sure he would be the best mentor based on how new he is to the program and everything else you ahve said (of course, without knowing him, I could be absolurelt wrong here). I think that Iowa state sounds like it would provide a better reserach experience.

Can you give some more info here? Are you choosing professors for rotations or are you supposed to commit to one for your whole phd as this point?

I was an IB nerd but never got into geeky hobbies. I ran track and cross country as my main extra curricular and various volunteer activies.

Thanks, that's very helpful advice! I am applying next season and am currently working on reading publications from all of the professors who I want to work with.

It doesnt really all come down to numbers and GRE scores actually dont mean much. It sounds like your numbers are up to their expectations so I bet his SOP was more in line with what they wanted or his recommendation letters were better (even if they were from the same people, his could still be better if the professors liked him a bit more or something). In engineering, work experience before a master can definitely be helpful anyway. It sounds like you have other good choices or could find a good job and apply again next year. Good luck!

Can you give any more info on what you mean by this? Like an example of what you wish you would have done?

People in my cohort maybe go out once a month... its really hard to find more time than that and sometimes even that much is hard for me. I am engaged so that plays a role I'm sure. I try to make a date night every other week so that sucks up some time.

Can you get in differential equations as well? And have you done a physics sequence? My guess would be that places like Clemson, ohio state, and NC state are realistic goals. I think that if you apply for a decent number (5-10?) of places around there then you should get a couple acceptances at least. This is just me guessing of course!

It sounds like you will be happier at school B. I would go there.

what math/physics classes have you taken and how did you do in them?

From what I have seen, most phd programs only accept students for the fall semester since due to funding issues and also the way that classes are set up. Classes are done in sequences so you wouldnt necesarily be able to take the classes offered in teh spring since you had not taken the fall ones yet.

This probably depends on the school but you should be able to switch in your first semester. I don't see why it would be a huge problem until you start your thesis.

To give another opinion on this, I have a copper IUD and love it! I have always been a bit hesitant of the hormal stuff and everytime I have gotten on it, I have immediate weird effects like headaches or weight gain. I may just be more sensitive to it than most. The IUD has been great though! I have had no weird effects and you dont feel it at all or have to remember to take pills.

I also see more positives for Y. If you get in, Id go there. If you dont get in, it sounds like you still have another great option!

Well I would stay away from having multiple excuses. In my opinion, having a few different reasons all together makes it start to sounds like you are making excuses. If I were in that position, I think I would focus on the major reason: that you worked full time. You downplay this but actually a huge deal and most students work 10-20 hours a week AT MOST. Since you also say that you have an upward trend in grades, then I would work that into your reason as well. So I would say that you worked full time and had a hard time juggling everything at first but improved at this with time, as can be seen with the upward trend in grades. I would not linger over all of this stuff though. If asked then I would give your reason, point out that you improved at this with time, and then move onto talking about accomplishments. This school is ovbiously interested in you or else they would not be interviewing. They are probably worried though that you will not be able to maintain the min gpa for the program (usually 3.0) so you will have to make sure they leave their intereview with you thinking that you have overcome whatever caused the bad grades and that it wont be a problem again.

Honestly, in acedmia people can be pretty awkward... so he may just be shy/sort of awkward and not comfortable wtih skyping. I wouldn't worry too much about it until you get there and meet him. Also, switching advisors may be an option once you are there.

If you want to do masters then phd then honestly, I feel like you could get into a masters program now and then do really well there and apply to phd programs. It doesnt have to be a really highly ranked school... as long as you do really well and have professors who can write letters saying that you are at the top of your class then a local state school would probably be fine.