Serric

Truth be told, I would stay at Berkeley. From what I've heard, although 'name' of the institution helps more in industry, in academia it's who you did your doctorate under. You already have what most people spend their entire first years in PhD programs trying to find (and lots of people end up less than happy), an academic support network, and a lab you actually seem to enjoy. The fact that Berkeley is "only" 25 is pretty much irrelevant if you did your doctorate under the preeminent researcher in your field.

I would e-mail and ask if they're accepting graduate students before I dropped the money on an application fee. My rule of thumb was to make sure there were at least three professors I was interested in working with, and I made it a point to e-mail them before applying. On the other hand, you never know. One of my friends applied here at UMich to work with a specific professor; the professor wasn't accepting students, but my friend convinced him to take him on.

I'd agree most strongly with rising_star. I don't think reading a few papers is a necessity for e-mailing a prospective PI; it's nice for your own knowledge, but I never said, "I read such-and-such and want to be part of your lab." What I did do, however, was identify a minimum of two or three PIs at schools I was interested in. I then sent them an e-mail that said, essentially, "I'm interested in your work, I've done (insert related work) in the past, and--as I'm an applicant for this cycle--I was wondering if you're currently accepting graduate students." After I applied, I then referenced these professors in my statement of purpose to give the sense of continued interest in the program. Long story short: don't go through the department, e-mail directly if you're interested in. You'll likely get mostly one-line responses, but you'll occasionally get a really helpful response (a PI in my current program, for example, wrote a two-paragraph rundown of his colleague's research interests I might be interested in).

Overall, I'd have to say my experience this application season was pretty good. The biggest problem, of course, was the stress. No numerical part of my application, with the exception of my GRE, was above the average. I didn't realize how much weight was given to the letters of recommendation/statement of purpose, and so discounted their importance in my mind. I spent five and a half years in undergraduate (switched majors from English to cell/molecular biology three years in), and REALLY didn't want to spend another year trying to figure out what to do and go through the whole thing all over again. So I started early. I looked through as many grad schools as I could find and narrowed my list down to ten, made sure I knew exactly why I wanted to go to each of them, researched faculty, revised my statement of purpose at least a dozen times, networked as much as possible, and ended up getting interviews to half the schools I applied to. At the end of the day, I ended up with a fully-funded acceptance (with a fellowship) into my top choice; which (thankfully for my stress!) was also the school that gave me my first interview and my first acceptance.

I'm both a first-generation college student (I'm actually the first person in my family to have earned a four-year degree) and a first-generation Ph.D. student (I'll be starting at UM Ann Arbor this coming Summer). For me, I suppose, the idea of a PhD is both exciting and scary. Scary because it's something I've never done before, I know it's going to require a massive time commitment, and partially because I know it's going to require picking up a bunch of complex skills on the fly. It's also exciting; both for those same reasons and because, well, I love learning and I always have. As for preparation...I'm really just looking at the PhD program as another 'step' upwards. My mom is about as far from academic as it's possible to be. My dad is brilliant with history, but never cared for science/math while he was in school, so I've been on my own since algebra in the seventh grade. I dealt with the practical matters of high school, college applications, college, and grad school applications with no input from family; I'll be able to deal with graduate school in a similar fashion. My family, however, does provide a huge social network. Although I've already experienced that sort of distance between most members of my family in describing what I do in school and in the lab, my father, mother, and stepmother are all very supportive of what I want to do. My dad is really starting to get into Carl Sagan and science-y stuff in general, so--although he doesn't understand everything--he enjoys learning about it and my descriptions of it.

I think it's a perfectly valid reason to give location as one of the (but not THE) reasons you'd want to attend their program. Several schools I interviewed at made it a point to mention the area and climate in a positive light (Duke, I recall, pushed this fairly hard; although it may have been due to the fact that it was snowing, and that's not normal) and an overview of the city was par for the course everywhere I attended. Make sure you can explain why the program's a good fit for you academically--preferred faculty, academic fit, facilities, possibilities for collaboration/other details specific to the program--but it doesn't hurt to say, "...and the area's a nice fit as well!"

Agreed. I know for a fact I was rejected at UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, and Columbia (interview dates are past for JHU, and I phoned the offices for UCB and Columbia), but I have yet to hear any sort of rejection from them. Sort of frustrating to put so much time, effort, and money into applying, then not even warrant common courtesy.

I wouldn't freak out. Take my advice with a grain of salt (since I have no bearing on admissions processes/etc), but I think that it generally helps your application. I think the only way it could really hurt you is if you applied to a school and made it quite clear you were interested in only working with a single professor (which is a risk if they're not taking on students, but is also a risk considering you may not get along personally). Something to this effect was mentioned in a post about applications and interviews a few weeks (months?) back. Personally, it never hurt me. All the schools I applied to required me to list my research interests, and--in addition to listing them--I'd list faculty that represented those interests as well. For example, something along the lines of, "My research interests are X, Y, and Z. Ideally, I'd be able to pursue these interests at the University of Blank due to the concentration of faculty in these areas. Dr. A's work, for example, takes a unique approach to X...etc" It didn't hurt me at all, and several professors during my interviews mentioned that--though I'd mentioned them in my statement of purpose--they thought I might also want to look into other professors that I might have overlooked. In a nutshell, relax: they're not going to reject you because you dared to mention work by professors who weren't them

For me, I define 'fit' in several ways: how well does the university's research interests align with your own? How many professors are doing research you'd be interested in? What parts of the program do you think you'd enjoy taking part in (dual-degree/certificate programs, public outreaches, etc)? How does the area/geography/city/climate appeal to you? All these can be factors in determining fit for me. In a nutshell, I guess it's really, "Could I be happy here--both academically and personally--for five or more years?"

I figure that, since we've all been stressing out so long about applications and acceptances, it's going to be a little difficult coming down off of that adrenaline high. So, I made this thread to complain/rant/etc. about stuff that comes after! For example, moving. Cross-country moves (I'll be going from San Francisco, CA to Ann Arbor, MI) are a pain in the BUTT.

I'm a heavy metal drummer: it gives me exercise, lets me work out aggression while making music, and looks impressive when done properly. Plus it uses up a good chunk of my attention keeping me constantly focused on keeping a beat. I also play video games (Mass Effect 2 is currently sucking up a good chunk of time), read books (just finished up "The Golden Compass," and am going to head into "The Subtle Knife" soon), read webcomics (way too many to list, although--funnily enough--I hate PhDComics), write (short stories/poetry/graphic novel scripts), and watch documentaries (my girlfriend got me Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" for Christmas, and I'm getting her "The Life" collection w'/ David Attenborough, so we'll be busy on that front for quite some time).

Relax, you're in I felt the same way when I got a call from the professor informing me of my acceptance, and fretted until the e-mail arrived...but relax. You got it!

After talking it over with the girlfriend a month ago, and after my rejections from both my California schools/my acceptance into my top choice of Michigan, my situation has gone from bad to good: she offered to move with me and try to do her vet medicine degree at Michigan State University. I'm buying her David Attenborough's "The Life" collection as my way of saying thank you. She deserves it.

Without question, the wait. Everything else was a pain in the butt, but it was something that helped keep my mind off things and it was under my control: the interminable wait for that first e-mail notifying me of an interview is something I hope I never have to deal with again.