disasterprone

I still stand by my answer for two reasons: 1) h8thewinter specifically asked about contacting professors 2) he/she asked if it was a "good idea." All I've heard from faculty and coordinators is that "checking in" regarding application status is nagging and terribly annoying. You certainly can and you might get an update, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Emailing grad coordinators might be okay if you've already interviewed and it's been like a month without hearing an admission decision. If you haven't gotten an interview notification, bothering the faculty/coordinator is a quick way to the reject pile if you're not there already. I'd also agree with madbiochemist in that admins and professors aren't always on the same page with notifications, but I'd say that's most relevant after interviewing. Hope this helps clarify.

Short answers: No, definitely don't email and ask. Yes, people have been admitted straight up after getting NSF. Coordinators will scour the list once it comes out ~March 30th. That might be an excuse to email the coordinator and let them know of your continued interest at that point, but not this early.

Hey all, current BioE PhD student at Stanford here. Feel free to post or PM me with questions about interviews or about Stanford/Palo Alto in general. I can also try to answer questions about the other programs I was deciding between.

I suppose, but idk if profs at one place in particular would have enough feel for both of the programs (unless you're at one of them haha). I guess it's worth a try though! Thanks! I'm leaning towards living in the bay area so probably Berkeley/UCSF or Stanford.

I've heard the same thing about Caltech being more theoretical/academia-based instead of being more translational/industry-based. I suppose it boils down to what you want to do with your PhD. Clearly, going to UCSD won't prevent you from doing academia, but if you feel like there's an edge to Caltech then perhaps that might be better for you?

What is your research fit like between the two schools? Do you fit in at one a great deal more than another? Honestly, at this level, for academia the name of the school in general might still help getting postdoc/faculty positions, but it's really more about your mentor who is going to be writing letters for the rest of your life. If you have a great fit with a few excellent faculty at one school, that's probably the one for you. Either way, they are both excellent/top-tier programs. For industry, UCSD might have an edge because of the huge biotech industry/network in San Diego (similar situations in the Bay and Boston).

At the last visit weekend, a prof said that they expect to accept only ~75% this year (so kinda like Stanford). That will still be way more than 30 last year, but current staff/students also said that JHU class sizes fluctuate apparently. Last year was particularly small and they're expecting this year to be much larger.

I haven't heard anything back from either Berkeley/UCSF or Stanford in terms of the actual interview day itineraries. I did get the Saturday/Sunday pre-interview event schedule from BEAST though.

Don't know about UMich, but I think UPenn and Northwestern have already set out at least one set of invites. One of my undergrad classmates applied to UPenn and visited last week I think and I'm visiting Northwestern this week.

Yeah, I need an afternoon flight out from the West Coast. She's literally gone through 3 or 4 different itineraries and each time I repeat my original request (I already gave her the actual flight numbers I needed), she fixes one thing and regresses back on two others. It's beyond frustrating. Plus, she was haggling with me over a $40 difference in flight costs. And then didn't respond to my email for 5 days. By the time she got back to me, the flights were $200 more expensive and she expects me to pay the difference...smh

Speaking of Hopkins, has anybody else had a miserable experience with booking flights? The travel agent that I'm in contact with has to be one of the most unprofessional people I have ever met. It's like she can't understand anything I say...and I can barely interpret her emails due to her poor grammar/punctuation and misspelling.

Yeah, kinda echoing what others said. I'm doing seven recruitment visits and am missing basically Wed-Sat for the next month+ with a 10-day/3program trip scattered in there somewhere. I'm lucky that I basically only have one lecture/commitment from Wednesday afternoons to the end of the week this quarter, so I'm not really missing much. Honestly, I haven't even told my professor I'm going to be gone...except for having to reschedule the final exam to make my last visit (yay quarter system). For the class I do miss, I have an awesome study group that I can get notes on and do hw with. If I didn't have that support, I don't know what I'd do! Really though, the advice I got from a 1st year BioE PhD student is that unless you're trying to keep a 4.0 (ha!) or otherwise graduate with summa cum laude or something, classes don't really matter at this point. Especially classes that don't have to do with your field of interest (even bioengineering classes). Yikes. Does your school normally have students interviewing for PhD programs? From your bio post earlier, it seems like it would. I'd definitely try to bring it up with the department or try again to reschedule it. In the end, you're right...grades don't really matter a whole lot at this point. But that's still extra stress that doesn't need to be put on any of us right now :/

Ahh, thanks for the insight!

I'm pretty confident that UCSD has now sent out almost all of their invites. The dates we were given were Feb 13 (this Friday) and Feb 27. If you haven't gotten an invite or a rejection by now, you're probably on some sort of waitlist. You can see on the results search (http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php?q=UCSD+Bioengineering) with different phrasings of "UCSD/UC San Diego Bioengineering" that some rejections have been sent out already.