DuongVat

Congrats!

My papers that are in actual peer reviewed journals I will keep on until I (hopefully) have enough to start doing "selected publications". For my presentations, I will probably phase those out much sooner (probably by the end of grad school if I present enough). I don't want them to water down my work that has a bit more impact, and is a bit more recent.

The grad students who helped with the interview weekend were asked to give recommendations with a deadline of today. I would think invites would come soon, but that bit is not in my control.

It was fun talking to you guys! It's a little bit weird knowing that I talked to some of you (make believe!) forum people in real life, without actually being able to connect the face to the username. But I'm sure at some point we got to talk, and based upon what was said in conversation regarding research interests, and matching that to the forums I think most of us can make pretty reasonable guesses as to who is who ^_~. For better or worse, what you saw this weekend was an accurate representation of what it is actually like here. In terms of research, as well as interaction between faculty and graduate students, and interactions between graduate students and graduate students. No one really attempted to hide anything about the program, since it is to no one's benefit to have someone come here only for them to find out they hate it. Rumor has it from the powers-that-be that out of all of the people interviewed, about 85% will get accepted. Maybe I'll see you again in August!

I don't have an exact number, but it feels like a majority of people who interview get accepted.

The presentation won't be a big deal, as long as you practice a bit. MSU has been closed the last two days, so Becky/Betty have been unable to send out information regarding the interview weekends. Most people get a graduate student to take them around to their interviews and whatnot, and that has all been assigned internally already. The university will almost certainly be open tomorrow, and with it the information regarding interview weekends should be sent. If any of you have any questions, feel free to ask. I am a current student at MSU. See you all there!

Michigan State

At least here, that's not the case. All of the applications that were submitted before the deadline were divided up between members of the admissions committee for them to read individually, regardless of submission date. After all applications were read by the respective committee members the entire committee met and decided who to send interview invites to. After the committee met, the interview invites were sent the next business day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uUlOAyQsn4 I always watch this video when things just are not going my way and I feel like quitting.

Ah, cool cool. Perhaps we will meet then

Which program inside of BMS did you guys apply to?

Just eyeballing it I would say that maybe 20% are in state, 50% out of state and 30% international. Edit: For what it's worth, though, most of the out of state people are from the general mid-west region that michigan is in. Mostly Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, etc. People from the south are probably scared of the cold up here, which is why there are not so many of them. For those in that situation though, I promise it is not that bad. People typically get used to the cold after a few months.

Very many. For the most part at an interview you stick with people applying to the same program (inside the BMS program) as you, like CMB, BMB or Genetics. There were either 2 or 3 interview weekends (can't remember) and at least in the CMB program there was about 30 people at each.

Yeah. The rule of thumb to go by here (and probably everywhere) is that not everyone you interact with has the power to accept your application. However, anyone could possibly have your application rejected by telling the director that you were rude to people.

I would just think briefly about what you would say if someone asked you the exact question "So tell me a bit about your research". I wouldn't waste your time reading every paper from every professor who interviews you, they are going to assume you don't know who they are, and they will explain everything on pretty basic terms. Just think of a few general questions to ask them, and also maybe bring some questions for the grad students who show you around as well. The people showing you around/taking you to dinner don't really have enough power to push for your acceptance. But just make sure you're polite and stuff to them, since the director asks the grad students about you as a person, and if the grad student says you were rude to everyone or something, it could lead to a rejection.

Congrats! See you when you come probably! (Even though you probably won't know who I am, and vice versa).

For the interview weekend you just kind of hang out with current graduate students and listen to some professors briefly present their research. There's no big presentation thing where you need to show what you've done in front of everyone. You just talk 1 on 1 with professors on their office the entire day. The interview is mostly them talking a bit about their research, and you talking a bit about yours. It's pretty casual. The general vibe is that the point of the interview isn't to filter people out, it's to convince the "better" candidates to select MSU. Then some current graduate students kind of take you on a 1 on 1 tour of the buildings where all of the labs are (Biochemistry building, Chemistry building, BPS, Plant Biology, etc.). And you also go to dinner in a local restaurant with some current graduate students (there are not many good places to eat in East Lansing, but Lansing has a bunch). But yeah, the point isn't to squeeze the juice out of you, they all want you to come there, that's why they picked you to fly you out there and get you a room in probably the fanciest hotel near campus.

For the GPA it mostly depends on which professor reads your application, some value it a bit higher or lower than others. I know some of the people who read applications and they for sure care the most about the last two years of undergrad. Some professors don't even look at the first two. Most of the people I know had a GPA of between 3 and 3.5, and a lot of people went to smaller universities for undergrad. For research experience, most people here had a few summers or maybe 1-2 semesters during undergrad. A significant amount of people here went to a university that did no research for undergrad, so their only opportunities were over summer. Most people here didn't have a paper or anything during undergrad. I would say about a year, or maybe 1.5 years is what most people had. Having a really "good" research experience will be your best asset, as the people who read applications value that very highly. For interviews, it's less of an interview and more of them trying to get you to come here. But you can still get rejected if you totally mess it up. I don't have an exact figure on this, but most people get accepted after interview. Overall, just a solid application should be enough to be competitive here. You don't need a 4.0 and 3 nature papers or anything like that.

They pay for everything. If you have any questions about MSU BMS let me know, as I am currently a student here.

Trust me, northern England only has one season throughout the entire year. You'll be fine.

I applied there and my application was successfully submitted but they did not actually charge my bank account for the application fee. I emailed them and they said that it was fine and my application was submitted correctly. They updated my account with my GRE score, but not my transcript yet. I know I sent it, so hopefully it is just taking them a little bit of time to get it updated. Not sure if it helps you, but maybe someone else has this situation as well.

At least for the places I applied to, they told me to black out all but the last four numbers. I suppose it could differ by location, though. I'm guessing the SSN is not required, since my transcript does not even have my SSN on it, and they put it in my application folder just fine.