Danny Cell

I'm from Lima, Peru and I will start my PhD in Immunnology  this fall at Yale University.   

I'm from Lima, Peru and I will start my PhD in Immunnology  this fall at Yale University.   

I believe that it depends on the program which you are applying. I got in to Yale Immunology (PhD) with a verbal of 160, but I got some friends who were accepted to other universities (phd as well) with verbal scores around 155 and quantitative scores around 163.
 
Good luck and don't worry to much.
 
PS: I'm from Peru.

This depends a lot on your department, university, and most of all your advisor.
 
My advisor is pretty chill and encourages breaks and vacations.  I can also do all of my work from any Internet-connected computer with the appropriate statistical analysis program.  This describes my laptop, so I can pretty much take break when I want to, although of course it's limited.  There was no vacation or sick time; it was just..."Hey Advisor, I am planning to go to see my family for a week between X dates."
 
In my first two years in grad school I went home about twice a year - a week in the summer and usually 2-3 weeks over Christmas break.  My advisor was also out of town during the winter break so it didn't matter. I also spent every other weekend with my long-distance boyfriend about 80 miles away.
 
These days, I typically go home once a year - during winter break - and for a lot less time - maybe 1.5 to 2 weeks.  I only go home other times if there's a special thing, like my sister in law graduating from high school (so I'm going home for a week next week).  My boyfriend is also now my live-in husband, so no more of that.  Occasionally I'll visit my extended family about ~100 miles away in the next state over for a long weekend, but I bring work with me.
 
...so long story short, yes, you should be able to go home and visit your family once a year! You're a PhD student, not an android

You can also mark up digital books, and in some cases it's easier to do that than on hard copy books.

Personally, I'm a huge fan of digital books, and if they were big when I needed textbooks I would have 100% gone with them.

-They tend to be cheaper than hard copy books.
-You can make markings, highlights, and annotations in a digital book just as easily - and sometimes more easily - than you can in a hard-copy book.  Your annotation can be typed and will be saved across multiple devices, and the annotation can be literally bigger than the physical space in the margin of the book.
-You can also flip to pages much more quickly and find your annotations, highlights, and bookmarks faster than you would in a hard copy book.  So if you need to flip to a passage for a paper - that happens more quickly.
-They take up less space.  As a grad student with a small apartment, preserving space is important to me.
-They're less expensive to move when it's time to move.
-The majority of my textbooks become redundant after the semester is over.  But even if they don't, digital textbooks last past the semester too.

Once I got used to reading most of my things on the computer, I didn't find it any harder than reading in hard copy.  I have a tablet and I do most of my book reading on the tablet.  I love reading articles on my iPad - highlighting and annotating is super easy.

I also don't feel like renting is a waste of money.  If a textbook is $200 but I can rent it for $70 for the semester and I'll never need it again, why would I spend an additional $130 to have a book that is just going to sit on my bookshelf after I'm finished taking the class?  That seems more like a waste of money to me, personally.

I have bought hard copies of reference manuals that I will be referring to a lot - like I have a hard copy of two books on structural equation modeling on my shelf.  I find those easier to use because finding the pictorial models and the syntax for the statistical programs is easier in hard copy.  But if the book is primarily text, I'm all about the digital.
 
Also, FWIW my program actually didn't require a lot of textbooks.  We had a lot of article readings you could find in the library and we had a few paperbacks.  The one textbook I knew I was never going to use again I borrowed from the library for a semester and then returned it after the class was over.  I bought a couple of other ones I knew I was never going to use again used, but if they had been available in digital copies for cheaper I would've done that.  Honestly, I would just go with whatever's the cheapest option for those books.  Sometimes you can find a used book or an older edition on Amazon for like $5-15.

Is there a way to start a sub-forum for those looking for roommates in New Haven? This would be helpful since incoming students can't see all of the listings. If this already exists- sorry! Please point me in the right direction. Thanks.

I'm from Lima, Peru and I will start my PhD in Immunnology  this fall at Yale University.   

Part of me thinks he started this thread because he's bored. He's a troll, plain an simple. He posted, we responded. He's probably sitting at his desk somewhere enjoying a bag of popcorn waiting for more of us to post speculative comments that are almost as outrageous as his initial/follow-up posts.
 
 
 
This thread has, however, sparked an interesting conversation about labratory work, collaboration and intellectual property. I think that themmasses' comment is bang on - trust and collaborative ability is such an important part of the academic process for some fields; I think it would be easy for intelligent yet arrogant/entitled applicants to get themselves blacklisted based on offhand comments made in their SoP.

I hear that anyone accepted to Yale AND Harvard actually gets sent to Yarvard, a school midway between the two of them that specializes in pirate academics. Yar!

Careful what you wish for!