ilovelab

Are you from Cambridge, Mass or Cambridge UK? If its the latter international admissions are much tougher than for domestic students. If you're not, then how were your GRE Scores and your SOP? The schools you applied to will most likely have GRE Cutoffs. They don't say it on the admissions page but if you're not above the cutoff then most likely your app isn't getting looked at. How was your SOP? If it wasn't very good, that could easily have been your KOD at these programs.

Email admissons asking if there is an alternate weekend. Let them know you already are committed the week they offered you. Worse comes to worse, ask if you could do skype interviews with the faculty if you cannot make it in person.

UCLA did not accept more international students than domestic in those years. It has NEVER done that for undergrad and NEVER will. Here's a link showing geographic location of undergrad admissions http://www.aim.ucla.edu/tables/geographic_origin.aspx

Having attended UCLA I can tell you for a fact that your 40% international population is made up. I was actually curious about the real % and lo and behold its significantly less than 40%. https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/campusprofile.htm Here is UC Berkley: http://opa.berkeley.edu/uc-berkeley-fall-enrollment-data Here i UC Davis: http://budget.ucdavis.edu/data-reports/documents/enrollment-reports/eethnicity_fcurr.pdf None of them are near the 40% mark. Public institutions do not value international students over domestic, that is not the case at the UC's. Where you got that I don't know. The reason the diversity essay and the other ones they have you write are used as deciding factors for admission. UCLA gets 80,000+ new undergrad apps a year. Here's a link for 2013 http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-sets-new-undergraduate-applications-242778 They enroll about 5000+. At a certain point the all of the candidates have the same test scores, GPA, volunteer etc. But you still have 15,000 qualified students. They need a way to weed people out, that's the point of the essays. Also, taking more international students doesn't fully address the budget gaps. Have the UC's increased international and out of state adimissions, sure but NO WHERE near enough to make a dent in the budget.

Also, maybe this year fewer people applied to MIT bio who are on grad cafe.

The school I did my undergrad in has a PREP Program. Here's my experience from having multiple friends in the program. One CAUTION about PREP programs is that you really only get an extra 5-6 months of research experience before you apply. You start in May/June and apply in fall. Your letter of rec from your new PI isn't going to be glowing, they only know you for 5-6 months. Who knows how much progress you have made on your project in that amount of time. It could be a little or a lot. The GRE prep is good but they threw my friends in a large class 20+ people, with one tutor so its a little tough, but its free! 3 out of the 7 prep students got interviews. 2 of those who i knew really well would have gotten interview regardless of the program. For the remaining 4 the issue was that there wasn't enough funding to keep the 4 current students and take a new cohort of 7 students for the following year. Your not guaranteed a second year in the program, it depends on funding. That being said, the prep program is a great opportunity for URM students to get extra research experience for Grad School. Personally I would try to find a lab tech position in a research lab I was interested in over a PREP program b/c 2 years of research on your CV in the same lab is going to be better when you apply for grad school vs. 5-6 months.

If the program you are applying to has 20 labs and you are interested in two of them and only one has funding for a student would you really expect the adcom to seriously consider you? If that one lab doesn't work out, you would either choose a lab you aren't interested in or leave which is a lose lose for you and the program.

UCSF BMS should be done sending out invites. One of the posters is currently in the program and will know for sure.

Arizona is on the semester system so they might not even be back from break right now. I know Berkeley gets back the jan 13th. I would stress too much. Most likely the admissions coordinator is still on break.

I think the programs at University of Kansas have deadlines in feb or march. University of Kansas Medical Centers Umbrella Program is due Today.

The more important question is: Do your research interests fit with these programs? IF so then you should give Janelia Farm a chance. They care far more about research fit than failing 2 courses. IF you are only interested in the work done in a lab or two its going to be harder for them to consider you for admission. Can you for sure do your thesis work at CSHL if you are at stony brook? I would email admissions at stony brook to see how common it is. Why not apply to CSHL?

IF that's the case then why do you need to do a PhD? Why can't you just find an established tenured faculty since you have lack of grant writing in your background?

Is this in Greece? I can guarantee this is not the case in the US. At my research institute some of the PI's with the most NIH funding are MD's. You should consider taking scientific writing/grant writing courses. It sounds like that would be more helpful to you than a PhD. Also, why don't you consider apply for staff scientist positions? Quite a few labs associated with Med schools/research institutes have MD's working in the lab. It would provide you with the neccessary research experience/grant writing/scientific writing that you are looking for.

That's pretty broad. Can you narrow it down anymore. If its just Biochem, every major university will have a great Biochem program (for the most part). Figuring out what is a reach and what is a safety (if that even exists for grad programs) depends on what specifically you want to study in biochem. That's how you going to find the right programs.

It depends on what you are actually doing in the lab. If your doing westerns/confocal imaging/two photon etc. Your going to spend a lot longer than 10 hours in lab. If its something else then 10 hours would be more than enough.

Can you apply to these schools with your 3 year degree? That's the first thing you should find out.

We'll that's impossible to do. There's like 10-12 weekends they can have interviews. Besides, why would they want to coordinate with each other?

What do you want to study??

I can't believe people are still arguing over this topic

My brother interviewed there for the ABBS program. PM me if you have specific questions about the program. I'll bug him for answers.

The subject test is only offered April, September, and October. So You've already missed the opportunity to take it.

I don't think you have time to re-take the exam. Most of those apps have to be due Dec 1. Dec 15th if you are lucky. It takes at least 3 weeks for the scores to get sent (or something like that). The earliest you could take it is what, Dec 1? The Adcom may have already made interview decisions by the time the scores arrive. I think your PI is right that you shouldn't mention them. Unless you have a good reason (family death the day before etc) the adcom is just going to assume you either aren't a great test taker or you didn't study. Its not like you can write that you didn't study for the GRE in your SOP. Just make your SOP as strong as possible.

They should refund a portion of it back. it depends on how long you waited after the deadline. Or is this before the acceptance deadline?

You need to email every program you are applying to. Most will have pre-reqs for admission. I don't know if they are explicitly stated on the program website. Sometimes I think they assume everyone applying for a neuro grad program was some sort of science major. Then you would have had all the lower div science classes. They might not even consider you b/c of the lack of pre-reqs. Definitely ask them before you apply. It would suck for you to have gone through all the trouble of applying and not get in anywhere because of this.

It depends on whether the connection is on the adcom or not. Unless you have a super famous PI writing your LoR then it all depends on if the adcom knows you PI. They don't have to personally know your PI but if they have heard of him is a definite boost. Ex: Everyone in molecular biology knows who Dr. Yamanaka is due to the groundbreaking ipsc work he's done that's changed the field of stem cell biology. Most PI's might not personally know him, but if he goes to bat for you in a LoR it definitely has a greater influence than a PI who the adcom doesn't know.