Vene

FYI, on the topic of stipends, the fine print matters. Stipends can be eaten up by fees (a tuition waiver may or may not include course fees) or by health insurance. One of the things I like about my program is that I don't have to pay either of those. I'm not saying that you shouldn't accept an offer if you have to pay fees, but you should be mindful of it and keep in mind that's money you're supposedly being paid that isn't actually going towards your living expenses.

Started pre-pharmacy, switched to biotechnology, left early with an associates degree, worked for a little while, transferred to a different university as a biology major, worked a little while longer, now in a biomedical PhD program.

You should be fine, but feel free to hang on to others until you feel comfortable. From what I recall from last year I did get an email from the admin assistant welcoming me to the program, and later information for setting up email and such. I can't recall what the graduate college sent afterwards, if anything.

Yep, pretty much. It's more important to look out for yourself when making your decision than worry about potentially freeing up a slot (which may not even free up a slot depending on the nature of the department).

It's important to realize different universities recruit differently. Some want exactly x new students and if they have x-n then they ask for more from waitlists. Others will accept x+n expecting n to reject the offer and are comfortable taking on more or less than x that year. (where I'm at one year had an exceptionally large cohort followed by an exceptionally small one) Schools will also treat the April 15th deadline differently. It's not a legally binding agreement so if they really want to have a certain number of students they can still try to bring more on.

If you haven't received a fully official admission by mid March it may be worth contacting A. Seeing how there's still a month and a half left before the April 15th deadline for B, there's plenty of time for the graduate college to send out the official forms. I also see no problems with not formally declining B's offer until everything about A is completely official. You need to make sure your ass is covered first. In all likelihood, you're in at A. It's very unlikely for the program to recommend you for admission without the ability to pay for you. I get the impression it's more common for the recommendation to be denied if you don't meet some minimum standard (TOEFL, GRE, GPA, etc).

Have you been in touch with a PI? The biology program is very PI centered and I believe that you need to establish a relationship with a professor seeking out a graduate student in order to get accepted as they don't do rotations. So, if you don't know anything yet I'd contact that PI asking what they know about your application.

Actually, they could be. My university has a minimum required score of 300 and the graduate college has rejected applicants recommended by departments for low GRE scores. That said, to the OP, to put it bluntly I don't think graduate school is for you unless you can get your anxiety under control. Graduate school is very stressful and if the GRE hospitalizes you I'd hate to see what grad school does.

Damn, that's awesome. And, personally, I see nothing wrong with taking money into account. As long as it's a good fit making a decision based on money is perfectly reasonable and justified.

I've lived in the north my whole live (midwest and now New England) and have drove both sedans and a SUV. 4WD is nice, I won't deny it, but I've seen a lot of people do stupid shit with it and wind up in a ditch. I also rarely used it because of the drain on my gas mileage. Regardless, if you are going to live in a rural area outside of a city it may not be the worst idea (although AWD crossovers can be nice). But, for a city, FWD is plenty. You are much less likely to fishtail compared to a RWD car and with decent tires you should be able to control the car in all but the worst conditions. I've driven them in snowstorms in the Minneapolis area and would go with them over a gas-guzzling SUV. What you'll really want for winter driving is good tires. And you are going to need to buy a set of winter tires if you're moving from the south as I'm sure you don't already have them. Otherwise, it's technique. You drive slower and allow more distance between you and the car in front of you. When you try to take off from a full stop and you start to spin (it will happen), you don't try to go faster. Instead, you stop and very gently depress the accelerator, downshifting can help. Also, I've always found that I'd rather drive my car on ice than I would on snow. But, I'd rather walk in snow than on ice. The car gets stuck in the snow or worse is dragged off the road. But, on foot, it provides so much more traction.

We are a part of it. We're asked our opinions of recruits during interview weekends.

As most of my experience has been industrial I'll weigh in here. From what I've seen there's normally two paths. One is working as a contractor/temp through an agency. These are typically either 6 months or 12 months long. They may be temp to hire or not, but from the perspective of the employee you treat them the same; as a short term job where you should be constantly looking for other opportunities. The other path is direct hire, where you are an employee of the company until you quit, are laid off, or fired. Most states are at-will, so your employer is free to dismiss you at any time and you are free to leave at any time. In either case there's little to no harm to your reputation if you leave, assuming you give 2 weeks notice. In fact, this is quickly becoming the standard way to move up the career ladder. You may be required to sign a non-compete for a direct hire position which means you can't work in for a competitor for x period of time (if you go back to school it makes no difference). A non-compete for a contract job is absurd.

The cost of living isn't much greater in Ithaca, NY compared to Ann Arbor, MI.

I say go to Cornell. Doing all your degrees at the same institution isn't the killer that it used to be, but Cornell is a good university and you'll expand your professional network.

I found an interesting story at The Atlantic yesterday about the Minneapolis metro: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-miracle-of-minneapolis/384975/

Sociologists aren't a protected class.

Depending on what Marquette University's anti-discrimination policy is, she may well have been in the right to say that students can't "make homophobic comments, racist comments, sexist comments". I'm very much not in the field of philosophy or even the humanities, but I'm pretty sure where I attend that if a student was making bigoted comments that it would be my role as the TA to stop such and make it clear such will not be tolerated, including booting the student from my class. But, since I'm not in a humanities field I can't think of a case where we'd really be discussing such things in class in the first place. From looking at our student harassment policy it includes "creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive learning environment" and defines harassment as "the use of epithets, stereotypes, slurs, comments, insults, derogatory remarks, gestures, threats, graffiti, display, or circulation of written or visual material, taunts, and negative references related to age."

Fit is definitely more than academic interests. Fit includes that, but also incorporates a general attitude towards life and the academy. As an example: One university may foster a very cooperative environment where different professors are expected to be highly collaborative in the hopes that they will augment gaps in each other's knowledge. Another may expect professors to instead compete with each other in the hopes that the pressure leads to greater output. Some people will fit better with the former, others with the latter. If you don't like that one, another example that comes to mind is how the program treats career goals. One university may only want students who wish to continue in academia and wishes to train future professors. Another university may be perfectly content if its students leave for industry or governmental work instead and will try to build a network outside of the university system. While compatible research interests are important that is very much not the limit for what fit entails. So, yes, different universities will appeal to different personalities. I know graduate students at public universities who have turned down offers from the Ivy League because of this. You didn't explicitly ask this, but if you got along well with the personalities at one university and didn't at a different one, that is a perfectly valid reason to pick one program over another. You have to go where you can succeed and you are going to want to get along with the people in your cohort.

A couple thoughts I have, how does the funding of each compare to cost of living? After all, $25,000 is great in Iowa City, but poverty in New York City. Do you see yourself as being happy at B University? If you'll be happy at one, but not the other go where you'll be happy. Graduate school is long and difficult, being miserable is just asking to drop out. And most definitely do go to the interview with an open mind. Keep in the back of your head that they are putting on a show, but the show they put on can still tell you a lot about what they offer. Finally, it does look like you'll be in good shape with either school, the question you have seems to be maximizing your time spent. If possible, maybe look to see who former students are in each program and where they are now.

That was actually my attitude during the process. I'd rather work for a PI I get along with well even if it's not the ideal topic instead of for a PI I don't mesh with even though their work fascinates me. But, I have discovered that I'm actually pretty flexible when it comes to what I work on.

I'm 90% certain that NGP is done with interviews. I know 100% that CMB is done with interviews on the off chance you applied there.

So, those of us who don't need a masters are told we need one and those of us who do need a masters are told we don't need one. You just can't win.

This could be my cynicism showing, but I doubt it'll hit the administration at all. The cuts will come from the little people first.

I didn't fill one out. Try to think of it as a free trip to talk with interesting faculty, tour a campus, and be wined and dined. That may be program specific, so I'd ask current grad students first. You know, I didn't put any thought into it. For me, the toughest adjustment was because I had been away from school for a couple years and because I was TAing right away. The rotation was almost a comfort because it was the closest in feel to what I had previously been doing. It did take me maybe a week or two to really get back into the academic world, but it was a successful rotation overall.

You know, when I first heard that news my very thought was it'll scared away prospective grad students.