ballwera

I know I'm getting into the knitty gritty now, but if I choose to drive have you heard of programs providing rental cars?

Anyone know how travel works for programs that are only 4 - 5 hours away? Is it still a flight?

Would be nice if schools waited to send out customer service surveys till the end of the cycle.

I honestly would highlight the NSF proposal ( because it's a big friggin deal) and scale back the stuff about the field. Any place where you aren't talking about yourself is wasted space imo.

I feel yuh. I almost had a mental breakdown when I was reading over mine.

Just got an e-mail from Vanderbilt that they are forwarding my app to faculty and I will be in the first group of reviews. I guess this is real now...

I talked to the admissions officer at Case. She told me to apply directly to my program of interest and to also apply to BSTP. Is this common / necessary?

Those are the programs I'm applying to this year!

Bonez- Just saw you are applying to Cincy...I did my undergrad there and am Currently working at CCHMC (where you'd be doing your research at). Let me know if you have any questions about the school, CCHMC, or the area in general.

Depends how it was used in your courses...If it was something you learned and used frequently throughout the lab then definitely list it. If it was a technique you were taught and only used it for 1 experiment then I wouldn't list it.

I'm applying to a new program as well (first cohort will be fall 2015). As long as the professors are strong, and its not a no name university, I see no issue.

Where did you see him say he was against international students? You are basically just trolling at this point...

Again, if we were applying abroad, the majority of us would assume that we are at the bottom of the pile (thus considered last).

I'd say this happens at a lot of schools they just aren't up front about it....if their students are paid by grants or certain other methods, then you must be a citizen to receive these funds..also with international students you have to deal with visa issues and any number of other things. As an American if I choose to apply abroad, I assume I would be at the bottom of the list as I should be... I'm a bit confused as to why people don't have the same mentality when it comes to U.S schools....Heck U.S students face this when applying to certain schools out of state...

Is there a protocol for applying for multiple programs within the same school?

Scripps Research Institute - All programs University of Utah - Molecular Biology Vanderbilt University - All programs Washington University in St. Louis (WashU/WUSTL) - not sure which programs (at least DBBS and immunology) UT Southwestern (UTSW) - All PhD programs

Vandy

How does research experience effect the application process? Say an undergrad with the 6 - 12 mos. of thesis research vs. a Recent grad with 3 years of full time research (on top of undergrad work)?

How common is it to contact potential PIs before sending in applications?

Too many interests to list, but I'd have to say the biggest are functional genomics and systems biology.

I'll be applying to a mix of Computational and Systems biology programs. I have a list of about 10 potential PhD programs and 1 masters program that I'll be applying to. I am still considering a few others. I have 2 LORs from PIs in my lab. One is the director of our institute and the other is a tenured professor and my direct supervisor. My 3rd letter will likely come from another PI in our dept. On the GRE front, I've been studying for the general and looking into the subject tests (really don't want to take). Haven't touched an SOP yet. Been out of school 2 years and I've spent that time working full time in a genomics group. So this summer will be spent grant writing and hopefully getting a manuscript published. I'm also working on a grad certificate in Bioinformatics that will be finished next spring.

Its at a 3. If you just take my last 2 years, that goes up to a 3.5.

I keep running into places that say, "recommended but not required". What is the best option in this particular case? I didn't have the best gpa coming out of undergrad (1st couple years were brutal). Should I just take it anyway to boost my app? I'll have rock solid LORs and I've been a full time research tech. for 3 years. Will I need to take this? I'd prefer to avoid if it at all possible.

Thanks for the response, I guess it would have helped if I mentioned I'll be applying for PhD programs! I'm interested in a broad range of things both in the lab and on the computer which has made things a bit difficult. I'm really interested in using the data comes from the experiments and then applying them to whatever I'm looking for so I guess it's not the actual experiments themselves I'm really interested in (it's just nice to get my hands dirty every once in awhile). I'd rather design the experiment for someone else to do and analyze the output myself.

I'm looking for programs to apply to this fall and I'm torn between applying for Computational Bio / Bioinformatics or programs with a biology focus. I enjoy doing wet lab biology as well using computational approaches. I've been working in a genomics lab for the past 2 years doing anything from basic molecular bio (PCR, Westerns, Southerns etc..) to doing NGS analysis (alignments, variant calling, RNA-seq, CNV analysis, Metagenomics etc etc.). Are there any programs/fields that focus on the integration of the two disciplines?