neverdecaf

Interview at MIT BCS!!!!! I don't think I'll ever be this happy again in my life, but that's ok

Received a Yale BBS interview! Unfortunately, it conflicts with the Duke MGM interview I received today...

Yay, first interview to Baylor TBMM!

Ugh, sounds awful. 

Interview to Harvard BBS !!!!!! Just got the email

UT Austin Microbiology invite today! Wooo, first one

RECRUITMENT WEEKEND INTERVIEW FROM UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN (NEUROSCIENCE)!!!! ah i'm so happy!

I just got my second invitation to interview!! Columbia University Microbiology and Immunology! 

U Arizona biomedical sciences offered me an interview!

The two programs I mentioned are neuroscience programs, not biology programs. Also, you totally mixed up what I said. 20 people enrolling out of 400 applicants is not synonym with 5% admission. There is an important distinction between being accepted to and attending a given program. Not everyone who gets accepted to a program eventually goes there. It is much more informative to look at admission data to estimate your chances of getting admitted. 
 
So, 40 people admitted out of 400 applicants at MIT (http://bcs.mit.edu/academics/grad_howtoapplyfaqs.html)  or 15-20 out of 175  at Duke (http://www.neuro.duke.edu/admissions/general-information) is roughly 10%. If you look at Petersons' data, you find similar things for other highly competitive programs (11% for UCSD's neuroscience program, 10% for the cognitive neuroscience program at Duke, 9% for the David Rockefeller program).

I got an interview invite at Vanderbilt IGP-BBS! I applied the day before the deadline.

Congrats to everyone getting interviews! 
 
I also just got an interview from Emory Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis!!  

Just got an email to interview for Johns Hopkins Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences!!!

Just got an interview at Iowa! Jan 29-31.

Mount Sinai's was definitely the easiest. Super straightforward and I think it's the only application that asked for a photo of the applicant. I found Stanford to be the most difficult application from my bunch. 

UC Denver is also meeting the 15th, I talked with a professor of interest and he said interview invites will be sent out shortly after that. 

I just received my first interview invitation!! It's for University of Pennsylvania immunology.

UNC BBSP interview invite   Nice surprise during finals!

Penn is super competitive, don't kid yourself (also don't mix it up with Penn State!). Miami is less so, no idea about GW, but I would think the NIH would have high standards. Also rankings don't mean much; the US News were made by polling professors, and only 9% responded. It was based on no metric, just their opinion. (http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2014/03/10/methodology-2015-best-science-schools-rankings) 
 
I don't put much stock in that!

Got an email from UMass inviting me to their recruitment weekends...that's their interview right??

Congrats and good luck.
 
Don't forget to have a little bit of fun.

Yup.

Yes! Congrats!

I doubt that any committee would hold a misspelled name against anyone. They have hundreds of applicants to go through, and probably don't even know your name to begin with unless your name keeps coming up in discussions. 
 
Hopefully everyone on this thread has some good news from their schools before the holidays. I'll admit, I've never been in a situation where I don't know where I'll be living or doing in the next year and its screwing with my mind. But life has a way of working itself out, we are all freaking out for nothing most likely. 

Undergrad Institution: Small state school
Major(s): Biochemistry
Minor(s): Math and GWS
GPA in Major:
Overall GPA: 3.73
Position in Class: magna cum laude
Type of Student: Domestic female

GRE Scores (revised/old version):
Q: 161 (81%)
V: 159 (81%)
W: 5.5 (97% ?)
B: Never took because the biochem one is a soul sucking demon

I had one REU at a fairly well known school and 3 years of undergrad research at my unknown undergrad. I didn't have anything else particularly shiny about my application. In hindsight, I should have reached out to PIs and applied to programs that better suited my interests. I got very lucky to wind up in a great program for me!

Accepted to - Penn State BMMB(with a competitive fellowship), and UConn MCB
Interview but rejected - Dartmouth MCB
Reeeeejected - Yale BBS, Harvard BBS, Princeton MB/QCB, Boston PiBS, Tufts Sackler, Hopkins Biophysics, Cornell BCMB (winner of the fastest rejection ever award), and UNH (no idea why I actually applied here) ... I may be forgetting one, will update if I remember

So- if you take anything away from this: YOU WILL BE REJECTED FROM PLACES IF YOU DONT FIT WELL. For example, all of my research had been very old school biochemistry. Umbrella biomedical programs probably weren't my best bet. The two programs I got accepted to are biochem programs with some very chemistry heavy labs, which is exactly what my background is suited for. This is where taking a year off would've been handy for me to figure out what I actually wanted, but hey, it all worked out.