peachypie

I have no idea what MUSC is? South carolina? Number of recruits/interview weekend will vary by: number of recruitment weekends as well as how big the program is. Typically umbrella programs will be ~3X the number of applicants/matriculants as individual programs. I'd say my recruitment weekend numbers numbered from like 12-30 for the weekend I was there. Some of those programs were going to take 4-6 (12) and others would take 20-30 in an umbrella program (30 with multiple recruitment weekends). There is no rhyme or reason to the numbers sometimes, but they'll probably interview about 3X the number they want, extend invites to 2/3 and expect 1/3. Depends on how competitive the program is and how large of a class they want/can get and what historically they have gotten of ratio of accept to matriculate.

Your situation appears failry unique and you are correct in that I do not account for masters programs in this thread. I assumed, and it appeared, that most of the people wanting an official rejection had applied to PhD programs and many of the programs they listed were ones that historically would be interviewing currently (even some have already had interviews) or would be within the next few weeks. Thus for your typical biological science program at a fairly competitive school most app due dates were 12/1-12/15. Most of those programs begin interviews in January and go through February with a few last rounds into March. To give you my experience I began receiving invites to interview in December and into early January. I interviewed January-March but by this time had received all my interview invites. I was accepted into my first program at the end of January and by Mid-March within a week of finishing my last interview I had received my final acceptance. I made my final decision in mid-March. I realize there are going to be different circumstances per the program. To be honest I don't factor in Masters programs in these threads mainly because they are so different than PhD in terms of interview, application and acceptance process...as well as funding and all the other things that play a major role into matriculation. I go by the average applicant most of whom have completed their apps and deadlines had passed. I get that you applied to smaller programs with less evidence seen in results and you are a masters applicant mostly as well as having applied to programs with late deadlines. So under those presumptions...why would anyone be freaking out about not getting an interview in your situation if A. your program doesn't give interviews and B. none of the deadlines had passed yet or just recently? Clearly the people saying "I just want to know I'm officially rejected" have some reason to believe they aren't admitted be it that interviews have been posted and/or they are seeing results in the results search for their program, otherwise if I were you I, wouldn't be worried nor would I be posting about wanting an official rejection since it's so easy to simply reject someone when its not even a situation that would be happening yet.

I feel like everyone underestimates how hard it is to get into the University of Wisconsin.... I'd put UW-Madison over UCSF in that ranking for mol bio. I don't know your stats so I can't comment on that but that thread is unfortunately extremely inaccurate and filled with emotional and no fact based comments. I'm a scientist so I only like to discuss evidence based information Call me crazy. I'm glad you have interviews though, if you are international it may explain why many of the public universities have rejected or assumed rejected you. You cost more to a public insititution than a private one. Looks like you have Duke and UNC, best of luck.

Sounds like they aren't sure who is going to be interviewing those other two times but they wanted to get you a schedule soon, which is nice. Some of mine i got like two days beforehand. I'd prep for those two. things come up so you have to be flexible a bit with interviews i had at least 2 or 3 of my interviews where one of the faculty I was scheduled to meet with I couldn't do to like weather issues, one even had an emergency pipe burst that morning. An hour and 40 minutes is a loooooong interview, I'd feel bad for any recruits that would have two of those.

I mean if you are sitting here and have no interviews at this point, the chance you get an interview and an acceptance for bio programs is low. if you have some sense you realize this long before an actual rejection. i don't get the difference between knowing for yourself and officially hearing from the school. especially with the results search on this website which can clearly show you if/when interviews go out. i guess i still don't know what the difference of a rejection is between it being assumed and it being official.

i mean if that is the only experience you have then you can talk about that. you may have to explain why you arent doing research at the moment though.

i would reason that more often than not all of the electronic app stuff goes through the graduate school and not the program. it may be a lot simpler to first send out your invites and acceptances before telling the graduate school, all remaining apps can be sent the official rejection. the program and its coordinators and faculty are not the ones sitting there marking it as "rejected send official response" its someone else. If you know the situation and can guess what your outcome is at this point, then I don't see what impact the official rejection has if you are so certain you are getting rejected.

Always address as Dr. so and so until you have built a relationship with them. Typically none of the PIs I know go by that, usually they want you to go by the first name only, but out of respect before I know that I always address them as Dr. so and so. IF they sign their name as first name or whatever then I typically switch to that if I am communicating back and forth with them. For any communication from interviews though, everyone was Dr. unless they were a grad student or admin. I met the coordinators and grad students and if they talk, referred to as by their first name I would address any thank yous to "mr/ms xyz" or "dear xyz". I don't really know any coordinators that go by mr/ms. xyz all of them go by first name that I can recall from interviews, and in my current program.

I think you can take pictures? I wouldn't necessarily be doing it when you are like on your way to/from interviews (you don't get a lot of time so stopping to take pictures when you are on a schedule may be a bit annoying to the student leading you around). Definitely on campus tours or more relaxed situations go for it, I'm sure people understand and like to see the excitement you have for the school. I had a lot of interviews as well and after awhile you get tired of traveling and coming back and getting ready to leave within a few days, but it still was fun and my work was very supportive of my being gone. I would guess that once you interview a few places and once you get an acceptance from your top choice, you will feel a little less "gusto" for the interviews, but I still learned a lot and approached each one with an open mind just in case, some places can really surprise you along the way. My work understood that is how it works and generally I got a lot done in those three days of full time work and I just made up for it as I felt necessary. You'll get tired week in and week out of doing interviews but in reality it isn't that exhausting its just the process of being gone pretty much every weekend for a month or two and not getting a chance to see friends etc or just like catch up on grocery shopping/errands. You kind of live in/out of your suitcase for that time and I never bothered to get much in my apartment for food since I was spending 50% of my time gone. I love travel so it was fun but I got sick of eating so much!

Ummm could be days to months (literally). I was accepted to all the places I interviewed at, and i would say on average I heard back within a week. I do know others in my program who heard weeks after that. Highly dependent on if they have multiple rounds of invites but usually the ad coms meet right after interviews and make decisions and then it just goes through the necessary means of schools putting together the official invite, though some places someone from the program may directly contact you to let you know. All depends. Try not to stress, this is the part that was for me the most worrisome until I started hearing back and then realized that I had nothing to worry about. Keep busy, its always great if you have other interviews to prepare for or be at so you aren't sitting around.

totally understand being shy, there are a lot of shy applicants and students and those who are introverted. everyone undrestands that. I'd highly recommend going for a bit. usually when there are social gatherings at bars or whatnot there are groups that leave at different timepoints, so go for a bit and then the first group that wants to leave/go back to the hotel you can head back with them. I'd recommend it because it gives the grad students a chance to get to know you better and a great time to talk to people about who they researched or rotated with and you can actually learn a lot about the program. it may be also a great chance to meet and hang out more with your potential classmates! the people at this interview weekend are possibly going to be the people you take classes with in the fall. don't you think you want to get to know some of these people? I didn't have a lot of spare time while interviewing, and you get tired fast. You will get some down time of course, but usually they kept the recruits pretty busy with dinners and they'd start in the morning. You won't have extensive time outside of activities and again, when you are there you should be wanting to learn/explore the campus and the city you may be calling home. Please have fun, interview weekends were some of the more fun parts of the process and you only get to go through it once, so don't waste the opportunity to get food, drinks and taxis taking you around. As a grad student i wish i could get wined and dined again like that

No one checks their email on the weekend? trust me, grad students and faculty are checking their emails at least once over the weekend.

i did that and i think its a good idea and polite. Keep it brief, as others have said. But it reaffirms your interest and shows them you are really interested in the program. i tried to reference something specific we talked about so that they would remember our positive exchange.

Wear the suit! I wore a suit for mine (I'm a woman). I wore reasonable heels, I treated it like a job interview. I neve felt out of place. When I wanted to be a bit more casual during the day (lunch with students etc) I would take my coat off and just wear the blouse with pants and heels. I loved it and I wore it to all my interviews and thought nothing of it. It is totally ok and there will be others dressed like that as well. For non-interview days I would wear a nice pair of pants (not jeans or khakis but a cotton or blend) and a sweater or blouse (sometimes an oxford under a sweater)...more business casual if you will. If it was a social gathering and/or just a grad student thing I would wear jeans and a nice sweater with boots. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable and screw the people who say don't wear a suit, most of them have no idea what they are talking about. Even if you are interviewing for a job and the president of the united states is wearing a sweatsuit does that mean you should wear a sweat suit to the interview? No...you wear the clothes that you want a job for and you always dress up (thats my opinion). Grad school is a relaxed world when you are a student but it doesn't mean being a slob is to be expected. As a matter of fact I can tell you in my program the faculty are fairly casual in everyday wear (as most programs are) but when they were trying to woo some faculty to come, they all got dressed up and a lot more suits were being worn. Just saying...

If you have some great letters/research and above average GRE (try to get that verbal up) than I think this GPA will not rule you out of top 30 schools.

I think it would be unlikely that they would extend interviews to some but not others that they are interested in accepting. I would email the POI or admin to ask why only after you have received an official rejection letter. It would be a great way to confirm your continued interest in the program while also maybe figuring out what you can do to improve to be a better applicant for their school. I wouldn't contact them now to ask why you didn't get an interview. That is a bit of an awkward situation to put a POI in especially when they may not know the reason the adcom committee or graduate school made the decision they did.

Once you get an interview those types of things matter less, that is something much more important in whether or not you get an interview. Interviews are more about fit, personality and confirming you are the applicant that you presented yourself as.

Grad schools care more about the research you do than how long it took for you to complete your UG degree.

Intrigued that you didn't mention Mount Sinai in this list.

I contacted/conversed with all of my letters of recommendation writers probably around August/September of the fall I was applying. This was for applications due between November 30th and January 1st. I let them know I was planning on applying to graduate school this fall, what programs I was interested in, general gist and some of the schools I applied to. I made sure to get the "ok" from them. One of my more prominent writers asked for my updated CV as well as a short paragraph of different things I had accomplished in my time working with them as well as requesting a list of programs and due dates once I had solidified my list. Others just said ok. Then I tried to get all my letters of recommendation request to them via electronic submission at least a month before the deadlines. Whenever I got to a batch of schools I send out an email to them nearly immediately after stating You should have received a request(s) from XYZ instituation. I am planning on applying to the XYZ program there. the deadline for this application is DAY month/day/year. Please let me know if you have any questions or did not receive notification. All of my recommendation writers knew me well and knew something like this was coming and was happy to write it. Pick the people that can speak well to your abilities as a graduate student (often this should not only be PhDs in your field but also people who are researching actively). All of my applications had an online submission system so I had no other option to request. i don't know what those looked like when they were received which is why I always sent out my follow up email so that everyone knew the program specifically, the school, the deadline etc.

Most minds when they read would not even catch that. people read these personal statements fairly quickly and I can guarantee that there are errors in nearly every one of them. No use in worrying now, what is done is done, but I hardly think this will have large if any implications in your application.

I'm going to chime in only since I have a friend that gave me some advice when she applied. (she is now a postdoc). She got an interview to a top 20 school and she had a friend affiliated with the program. She found out later she BARELY got an interview, but apparently knocked their socks off in the interview and was one of their top candidates. I will say that there are already the rankings or the people they want right off the bat, but once you are in an interview you can either make or break your case. the interview is about seeing if what you are on paper is what you are in person. Then additionally if you are really awkward, inappropriate, or a bit off hinged. If you have a bad personality no matter your stats you'll be out. So yes most people go to the interview and stay where they are, but I bet maybe 25-30% could easily move. Schools will have their favorites coming in but that doesn't mean you are sentenced to last if that is where you started. everyone goes back to equal playing field once you get to the interview.

I would almost bet there won't be faculty at that dinner. you can maybe get a pair of casual non-jeans and wear those? Or just wear a nice top and jeans and then quick switch at the airport when you get in. I always popped into the airport restroom when I got in to make sure I didn't have like pen on my face or something if a grad student was coming to pick me up. One time I had a dinner the night I got in and with delays and traffic I was running late but it wasn't faculty attended so I got to my hotel and just changed because once I was late I figured it' be ok to be 10 minutes more. That dinner was in my hotel so I could just pop in when I was done and I was barely a few minutes late (everyone was still eating). Don't stress about running late on travel days....many interviews had people getting in late or delayed until the following morning and it happens especially since interviews happen during january and february when a lot of snowy weather disrupts things. So being late or being a no-show people figure it out that it was an issue and no one holds you for it. I will say that one time I was flying out and the weather was bad from where I was coming so I sent a quick email to the admin to let them know that my flight was still on track but there was a possibility that I may have travel issues. They really appreciated the heads up if you know bad weather is happening or your city is still recovering to at least make them aware it could happen.

I only made it a point to be a bit dressier if there were faculty. So I wore less dressy on non-interview day if the dinner or event included professors or deans/chairs etc. If it was just grad students (like tours, out to the bars etc) I wore jeans and thought nothing of it. to be honest though i think even after the interview I would have been ok wearing jeans and not feeling too out of place. Some places take you out to really nice dinners and then its more of a to look ok for the restaurant. if you get an itinerary which states where you are going for a dinner then just do a quick google to see the feel of the place and dress accordingly. Some places also will have a big dinner at a faculty's house and have it catered (or sometimes even cook--yes for like 50-60 places i had a place where someone was married to some chef). anyway then again I think you could even wear jeans. Don't stress too much about what you are wearing as long as you feel comfortable in it. You can rock it.

A nice pair of leather boots can look dressy without being uncomfortable. I find most shoes relatively comfortable so I wore both short heels (~2-3 inch heels) and leather boots (for the snowier/colder interviews) and I always had a flat and then a good walking shoe (typically wore that for travel days but also could work for a tour on non-interview day.