ilovelab

le prospective grad. I did my undergrad at UCLA and I've been to most of these apartments. Do you have a car? IF not, DO NOT live in the Venice Barry apartments. Its far away, I think its close to university park. There is no way you are going to be able to bus it to campus from here (I mean you could but it would take a while). Biking will be a bitch as well. You're going to be in lab late with rotations/classes etc. You do not want to have to deal with buses/biking (especially with crazy LA drivers) to apartments every day. Keystone/Mentone: I had to look this one up cuz I've never heard of it, but its also far from campus. Rose Avenue: I actually like these ones, I've been to a few house parties at these apartments and they are not bad on the inside. Personally, If you can afford it with the stipend I would choose Weyburn. They were almost finished when I graduated so there practically brand new and they are furnished I think. The apartments are right across the street from whole foods and like 2-3 blocks from Trader Joes/Ralphs. If you don't have a car these apartments would be ideal. There are bars within walking distance like Maloney's... BrewCo closed the year I graduated (still not happy about that). There's a theater in westwood. And student favs like Diddy Reese/Buck Fitty. If you have a car/$$ issues, Rose avenue isn't bad. I would also look at cragslist(obviously). I hope some of this was helpful. PM me if you have specific questions. CONGRATS on choosing UCLA Fellow Bruin!

Acetylcholine, Email the adcoms at the schools you interviewed at and ask why you weren't accepted and what you can do to improve your app. They are usually straight forward. Your undergrad school ranking has no bearing on whether or not a schools will admit you into their grad program. WUSTL, Vanderbildt and other programs have class profiles for their incoming classes. A lot of the incoming students did not go to top tier institutions. I've never heard of most of them (Jackson state, Hendrix college, Truman state, Denison University, Murray state). As others have stated, you may be too specific in your research interests, the PI's you are interested in working with may not have the $$$ to take new students. If you appeared to be pretty set in your research interests that may have done you in when it came to admissions time. IF/WHEN you apply next time you are going to have to have broader interests.

LMAO these state reps have time to collect money from donors and do their bidding in the state legislature but passing this bill is too much work? I hate our political system.

Can you leverage your financial package from Syracuse with American? Let them know that you got a stipend and GAship from Syracuse and see if American can make a similar offer. People do this all the time with MBA schools.

Depends on where and how far you want to live from campus. If you live in the new grad apartments (the ones on weyburn) you're going to pay 1100+ for rent and utilities. Parking is pretty expensive as well. Its cheaper to live in Santa Monica or south of Wilshire Blvd. Its obviously doable but you're going to probably have roomates unless you don't mind living in a crappy apartment.

Go with you gut. Where do you want to live? SF and Princeton, NJ are two different places to live. Do you like living in a major city? Your stipend would go further in NJ than SF. Name recognition between Princeton and UCSF isn't that different. Funding will depend on the lab you join. I would personally go with the school with more PI's that I want to work with.

cross-fit

Then I wouldn't worry too much. The biggest thing is your going to have to be patient which is hard. Bureaucracy is what will drag this whole situation out.

I did my undergrad at UCLA and took some EEB courses. PM me if you have any questions about UCLA!

Talk to the PI about this. They have way more pull with departments than we realize. If HE want you in his lab and you want to join his lab it shouldn't be an issue. Your situation is actually not uncommon. We had a graduate student switch from Neuroscience to Developmental Biology and all it involved was paperwork. Granted she was an older grad student ( had to re-do thesis committees)but still. Would you want to rotate through labs or Direct admit into his lab? IF its the latter than this won't be an issue as the department won't be paying for you, he will.

To quote the awesome Christina Yang “Don’t let what he wants eclipse what you need. .... but he’s not the sun. You are.” If this is your dream school, you should go for it. You mention that the other school isn't the greatest research fit, that should play a big role in your decision. You have no idea about funding/PI Personalities/Lab environment till you are at the other school. Some of the PI's you like might actually be douches, they could loose grants and not be able to support you. If those are the PI's whose research you are interested in what will you do? Would you really be happy having to settle for a lab/mentor you are kind of interested in just to live with your bf?

I wish your programs notified you sooner. It sucks that you guys have to wait this long.

Then the ballpark of 25K a year isn't that bad. But your situation is different b/c you have a family (I'm assuming from your username). Honestly, just call the department when you have time. They should be pretty straight with you b/c you were accepted.

I'm procrastinating big time in lab, so I tried to find information for you. Here is the link to the genetics Grad program at UGA and their stipend listed: http://www.genetics.uga.edu/graduate-students The genetics grad students get 25K. I don't know how far that goes in Georgia vs North Carolina. I would assume your biochem stipend would be very close to 25K.

I was originally a marine bio major. I loved my classes but I realized I had no desire to be a marine biologist. I didn't want to do anything marine biology related for a career. I just loved learning about EEB/Marine bio. Honestly I probably would have been happier in my personal life had I stayed with Marine Bio, but I wouldn't have a job. Most of my friends who were EEB/Marine Bio majors have had a hard time finding jobs/getting into grad school in this economy. Most of the jobs they have found are seasonal at best.

Can we talk about how they pretty much listed fire fighting (fire protection) as a major? What school offers this. On a serious note though, how are chemical engineering and computer science on the list? While those majors don't pay very well immediately, you can easily find a job in those fields and work your way up the company.

Like ERR_ALPHA has said you have another interview coming up. U Florida IDP is a good program. You should be focusing on that interview. How have your other interviews gone? Have your conversations gone well?

I don't know if there is anymore advice that we can give you. You know what you have to do. You say you want to be a tenure track faculty member and that you are not interested in industry. The biggest issue for you is your Undergrad GPA. You can't do anything about the GPA now so you have to do a masters or a Post-bacc. Since you've been out school for a while I don't think you will qualify for most post-baccs. That leaves a Masters. You have 2 options: a coursework based masters or a thesis based masters. The latter will help you more in grad school admissions. With your uGPA you are not getting funded for the masters unless you know the PI you want to work with. That means at least 50-60K in student loans. After you've completed your masters you are going to have to be selective to where you apply. You can't apply only to top tier schools this time. You're going to have to apply to some less competitive programs. I would also suggest applying to Umbrella programs as their admission standards seem to be less strict than straight neuro programs. All you need is one school to accept you that you are willing to go to. You have a long road ahead of you but other students have been accepted into grad programs with sub-3.0 GPA's (there's a thread on it). The other option that I suggested earlier in the thread is industry. Your uGPA won't matter as much. Med schools like Stanford/Davis/UCSF/USC/UCLA always have SRA positions open. There are more jobs in the bay area for biotech than on the east coast.

Honestly I don't think its a good substitute for a masters program. I've had friends in PREP programs. Here's essentially the breakdown of the prep program. You start in June/July and then apply to PhD programs in December. You are working in a new lab for 5-6 months so honestly research wise your CV won't be much different. Your letter of rec from your new PI will only reflect 5-6 months of work. Depending on your new research you might not get a lot of work done in that time. Over the summer you take GRE courses and prep for the GRE. You can take courses during the fall semester/quarter, most students don't take courses. You then finish the program the following may/june. There is no guarantee for funding the following year, so you don't get into PhD programs that cycle you most likely are screwed. If you can't find a funded masters or a research tech spot I would go for the prep programs. Pros: Funded position for one year, new research experience, Free GRE prep/gre test fees, New letter of rec from PI, pretty much guranteed an interview spot at the university the program is at. Cons: Program assumes that with 5-6 months of new research experience you can turn your application around, depending on the applicant that might not be enough.

I feel as though this will depend greatly on your discipline. For example, in the life sciences it doesn't really matter where you do your PhD. It matters who you do your post-doc with. That is what greatly determines if you get a tenure track position.

That has to be satisfying!

Depends on the program. The most competitive programs aren't "Crazy Checks' there is still a good chance you may be rejected after the interview. The undergrad in my lab last year said Arizona's ABBS program interviewed close to 100 applicants. They sent offers to 60 students hoping for a class size of 25-35 students. 40 people got rejected during the interview. I doubt they were all crazy.

I did my undergrad at UCLA so I know the horrors of FLYAWAY. It depends on the time of day. It can take as long as 20-90 minutes depending on how backed up the 405 is. Estimate it to take 45 minutes. If you are arriving in the afternoon than its probably closer to 45-60 minutes. If there's an accident on the 405... send a prayer to baby jesus, b/c you will be there a while.

If I were the male TA I would be ecstatic. Fewer students emailing me = less work I have to do and more time I can spend on research and in the lab. That would be awesome if they bugged another TA instead of me. I wonder if there is a difference between the disciplines. In most of my science classes students would go and bug the "Nice/hepful" TA. Mainly because they assumed they could get more hints/clues on assignments and exams. They were usually right. It didn't matter if the TA was male or female. Having been the "Nice/helpful" TA for a bio course I was the one who the students came to bug during exams or for assignments. I was the one who got the emails. There was no gender discrimination involved in these instances. I don't know about other fields though.

I hadn't thought of that. Madison is going to loose 300 Million over the next 2 years (unless I'm mistaken). Hopefully the programs have NIH Training grants they can put students on.