iheartplants

Officially accepted to Berkeley Integrative Biology. Had received an informal acceptance from POI a couple of weeks back. Really excited!

YAYYYY! Just received my official acceptance to UC Berkeley Integrative Biology! I am officially going to grad school in the fall!!!!!!!!!! Edit: I accidentally upvoted myself and now I can't undo it. However, in reflection, I would upvote it again lol

Woke up to official rejection from the University of Maryland at College Park BISI/BEES. Expected. Was actually excited to hear something official from a school even though it was negative lol. Hope some good news rolls my way this week!!!

Congrats! Definitely not expecting anything from State, but was curious if those PSFs were out

Plant Sciences Fellowship?

Haha I had made a point of it until today....wrong choice lol

That moment when you're re-reading your proposal and you find a stray piece of punctuation in one of your sentences....oy vey. Haha noooooo

If anyone is waiting on decisions from Berkeley IB, the grad department coordinator says they will be sending out decisions "by March 15."

I wouldn't assume this. Chin up. I am currently waiting to hear back from a program that I know made their decisions 2 weeks ago (4 weeks since interview). I swear sometimes these things just get stuck on peoples' desks...

Way to go, nermah1!

Hey nermah1! The lab rotation system (if available) is designed to help you find an ideal fit. As long as you have not committed to specific lab or if Cornell has told you otherwise, you can likely rotate and feel free to make your own decisions about ideal fit later. However, in agreement with zebura, it would be polite to include this professor in your rotations.

They are making decisions right now (lab nominations are going in this week). There is some pretty interesting stuff going on in the department this year, and they will likely only be accepting a few students because of funding issues it seems like.

This has always been a personal favorite

I would definitely still go. These weekends are very exhausting; I can't imagine doing 6. However, if you committed, you should still attend. It is a great opportunity to meet more potential colleagues etc. It could reflect poorly on you in a professional sense to cancel so soon to the interview. Everyone knows everyone and you want to keep as many "friends" in as many places as possible

Yay, ERR_Alpha! Now you can relax Congrats!

Haha that BU PiBS email sounds veiled with hostility. They must be getting a lot of inquiry emails.

haha thanks, I've tried to stay positive through this process. It's kind of fun if you embrace the awkwardness of the whole process. My interviews have been good so far. I had a very good interview at CU Boulder last summer--very relaxed and fun and met with my POI and the department. Last weekend I was at Berkeley, which was also fun. I prepared like crazy for faculty interviews, but when I got there it turned out to be a very relaxed/non competitive interview situation. All of the faculty I met with just wanted to talk about my interests and past work (really fun--no grilling). Today, I am on my way to Michigan State (Brr). This will be my first more "competitive interview." Should be a good experience. I've spent a lot of time at MSU nduring past studies. Also--have experienced a LOT of phone\skype interviews. I am hilarious on the phone, but it seems to be working out okay. You've just gotta laugh sometimes. I just try to convey my love of plants and research interests, and more importantly try to be myself. Keep on keeping on, Nermah1! Good luck!

Phone/ Skype interviews can be weird, nermah1. Maybe it went better than you think! Good luck!

ERR_Alpha-- I definitely second the boots. If Dartmouth ay casual, they probably mean it. Go with dark pants that fit into the boots and a nice top. You'll look pulled together. However, even at Berekely last weekend (SUPER casual vibe) some people wore dress pants. Then again, I saw some people wearing Teva sandals and hiking shorts. Just do you! Whatever makes you comfortable.

On a similar note, Berkeley IB PhD post-interview acceptance rate this year will be 80.4% to all those who may be interested. Just found this out.

This exact thing happened to me for my upcoming interview weekend. I was asked to select 6 faculty to meet with, and when I got the schedule, I found that I am only meeting with 3/6 of them. The others sound cool too though!

I was actually discussing this with one of my POIs today. The purpose of talking with other professors that you are not necessarily hoping to directly work with is for you to get a feel for the department and its overall research, and also for THEM to assess you. This is generally how they decide on who gets departmental fellowships. They have all of the students/interviewees come into the department and talk to professors. Then, after the students leave, the department basically takes a survey or talks about who they were impressed with and who should get fellowships. So, yes, I would say that the "other" proffs do play a role in acceptance, because funding plays a role in acceptance. Having said that, my POI also said you probably don't need to prep as much for these mini-interviews or know as much about the "other" professors' research. They want to know you're intelligent, enthusiastic, and ultimately deserving of the department's time, money, and resources. Hope this helps! It helped me.

Same. It's really hard with these programs that make choices so long after other schools.

I eat my words. There are interviews for Biological Sciences at least posted on the forum.

I second this. Like Mono says, applicants don't seem hear back until quite late in the game. Also, I've not heard mention of UMD CP extending interviews. You could ask the program, but they can't give you information via phone or email, so it wouldn't do a lot of good I suppose We'll just need to be patient.