expandyourmind

I was a 2017 Ford Fellow winner and I checked my portal every day. One of the days I noticed that instead of the application page, that it said FELLOW MODULE but it didn't say anything about me winning. A few hours later I got an e-mail saying I got the fellowship. From I gleaned about freaking out over the change in website is that they set up the site in stages and wait until they sent out the acceptances for you to actually access the portal. I'm wishing all you guys luck!!!

from my understanding is that you should e-mail and request the feedback.

Just heard back too and I got it!

my undergrad gpa was 3.5 with a 3.2 bio gpa. my masters is a 4.0 so it evens things out!

has anyone been offered Associate fellowship? i was just notified by e-mail!

im also attending UChicago, it is on the south side, but hyde park is relatively a bubble compared to even a few blocks west or south (i mean, Obama's house is there stuffed with tons of secret service). hyde park and bronzeville are pretty nice areas surrounded by a lot of sketchy parts. but UChicago has its own police force thats filled with chicago police that patrols the entire area - so its pretty safe. i think the areas of concern are more south-west of the city where you get out of the university areas and more into gang territory. generally the more you stay along the lakefront the safer you are, so once you get further west it starts going downhill. it looks like you're coming from New York, so i think if you have the street smarts necessary for NYC - chicago will be easy and you have nothing to worry about. the numbers of shootings and outbreaks is always daunting when you look at the stark data, but you can say the same about NYC, too. i hope that helps!

chicagos like any city - theres going to be violence. you can swap out Chicago with New York, LA, any other big city and itd be the same thing. generally these outbreaks are in concentrated areas, usually in the southside were there's a lot of gang action (but i could be wrong). but chicago is a huge city so i dont think you should worry.

Sorry i have to COMPLETELY disagree. Yes, there are areas that have homeless and are a little run down, but this is a HUGE city. you have to be street smart and be able to live in an urban area like Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. I moved from a small town in Wisconsin to Evanston, then Evanston to the edge of wicker park/humbolt park and i LOVED the area. Wicker Park/Bucktown is a great hipster area with a lot of great restaurants. i'm now headed down to Hyde Park and I honestly couldn't be more excited. today I went to look around the area and found some really nice places around UChicago campus. I have friends at UIC, UChicago, NU, Columbia, etc. They live in uptown, wrigley, belmont, streeterville, lincoln park, south loop, hyde park, chinatown, jesus you name it - I've loved every area and have felt completely safe in every one of these areas. Chicago is a big city and like any big city there is going to be homeless. but I really think you have to be smart about where you live and the crime around that area. if you find yourself in a bad area, of course its going to be mentally tough. but each of the neighborhoods has a totally different feel so i think it really depends on where you feel most comfortable. you have to be smart about where you end up living. do your research on the different neighborhoods because like any big city there's going to be rougher areas. but i dont even know where to begin on how amazing of a city Chicago is!

Northwestern has some great people for regenerative stem cell work

Weill Cornell is VERY generous to its international applicants. They really are proud of being able to take in a lot of international students and they all seem super happy there. Not to mention their relationship with Sloan Kettering is pretty awesome.

i'm planning on doing a summer rotation! so i'll be there but not for the SLI course i think

i wouldn't go about it this way. you never know whats in an application. some may have had "worse" reviews than another one but gotten a fellowship. it's a crapshoot...

i'm in a masters program so this was technically my last year to apply. i forgot about the deadline 3 days before (my LOR hated me hahah) but i got G/G E/E E/E writing it by myself. i think if i had an advisor to work with (i'm overseas) i could have done a lot better, but i'm pretty proud of myself for writing up a proposal like this. they were all very excited i just had one reviewer that wanted more nit picky details that i should have provided. on to the next one!

RESULTS ARE UP. didn't get it, but my reviews are excellent. i'm pretty proud of myself - i wrote my application with no guidance and a day before the deadline. i keep reading the reviews and theyre so good. its a bummer i didn't get it but hey science grant writing is a process

on the interview day he was so much fun! he ran to his lab with a petri dish and brought a baby octopus back to show me! cool shtuff

how feasible would it be to have a car and just do street parking in the residential area?

now that april 15 is fast approaching its so exciting to see where people are ending up ^.^ good luck choosing everyone!

ugh i second this. basically at one of my interviews they already knew who they were going to invite for admission. they decided IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INTERVIEW process. like wut? seriously? some adcoms are just so weird and have their ideal type of student in mind.

is there generally a good area to live in? i've heard anywhere between 50th and 60th and youre fine. a friend of mine goes to UChicago and said never to come to campus from the south... is this true? i'm looking at apartments and a lot of relatively cheaper ones are a block south of campus. thanks!

i used to be a div1 athlete but kinda let myself go a little bit. the past month ive been hell bent on losing some pounds. i joined crossfit (which is actually very similar to my old practice regimen) and have been going 3-4 times a week. i love it. definitely see the crazy crossfitters in there which is intimidating haha. i just know that if i went to the gym myself i would slack off after running 15 minutes and call it a day! this really forces me to push myself and having the other crazy crossfitters is motivating, even if i can barely lift 1/3 of what they do. it's only an hour but its very rewarding and nice to follow a routine. i've also cut out 80% of my processed carb intake. i definitely think i was addicted to anything carbs. so instead of eating bread or cereal or chips (ugh my favorite things in the world) i try and eat as many veggies as I can and just cook healthier. even after a month of this shit i feel slimmer and less bloated from all of the processed foods ive been eating (but i treat myself every saturday to a donut heh). I'm already around 10 pounds down and i'm going to try and see how far i can take it. ive never felt this healthy in a long time! I've been following this website which has delicious recipes that are low carb and sort of paleo diet-y http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/

acetylcholine, you have all around better stats than i did in your application, so something must be deeper. i dont think it has anything to do with weight or being introverted. in these interviews you really have to make a connection and be passionate about your research. so if you are introverted, you can still come across as loving science without being an over the top kind of person. when you say you are more easily exhaustible than average for social shit - that seems like a bad way to enter these interviews. granted these interviews are SO tiring that even for me, a pretty social person, i felt brain dead afterward. these people are trying to see if they find a connection with a person to see if the program fits with their personality. so if someone comes across as not introverted and shy, but possibly standoffish (which can be confused with introvertedness) it might be a bad sign and they might go for someone that they really click with. when it comes down to it there must have been something at the interview stage. you're getting interviews so on paper you come across well, you just have to follow through with your interview! theyre not trying to fuck you over at all - theyre trying to see if you live up to the hype from your application and to see the person they read on paper. so if you can come across as passionate and make a special connection with the adcoms - you're golden. i think of it like speed dating. you have one chance to put yourself out there and make a special connection and in the end, hopefully you get the girl! it might be scary but you should open up to these people and show that you're human, that you want to learn and grow as a person and that you're not set in stone. grad school is a process of growing- they dont want someone who thinks they know everything they want in life, etc. i really think you have great interests and a good application, but maybe need to grow as a scientist. 3 semesters of research is very little and even after that it seems like you are dead set on what you want to do. i've been in research for 5 years and have changed my mind at least 4-5 times. be open minded, science is such a fluid area that you should be open to new things and new possibilities. also a lot of the people i interviewed with went to colleges that I had never heard of. probably in the top 250 in what you were saying. honestly this doesn't matter as much. yes, going to a top tier research institution will pull some weight, but in the end its how you present yourself in your application AND in your interview. how did you enter this round of interviews? were you still thinking about last year or more nervous?going through one cycle without any acceptances must be so hard. but hopefully you brushed that off and didn't let that affect you this time around? if you're in a very niche field consider looking at UChicago (i might be biased lol). Cliff Ragsdale does a lot of evolutionary development in squid and comparative development of the neocortex in birds/mice/turtles etc (if thats what youre into) but he does some cool stuff that might interest you. you can find plenty of evo-devo bio programs everywhere that have your niche interests. i know its still an up and coming field, but there are tons of labs that can cater to your interests. but also be flexible. if you're too set in stone with what you want to study they might not think you are a good fit. good luck! i'm rooting for you!

everyone should check out Erasmus Mundus! so many americans have no idea what it is. They have masters and doctorate programs in like 100 different areas ranging from biology to social policy to fucking like water management or something. It's usually a 2 year program where they pay you to study and travel around Europe. It's a pretty sweet deal. Check it out!

eh just got a rejection letter. i dont really care this means i can take a summer rotation with my POI! :-D

went to NU for undergrad, lived in chicago for a while, and going to UChicago. i also interviewed there btu didn't exactly like the fit as much as others. The weather isn't that bad as long as you have a good coat and boots and you get used to it honestly. Also, you can find relatively cheap housing in some of the burbs like wrigleyville or lincoln park or wicker park that are really nice and fun neighborhoods. if you live close to campus of course you're goin to be dishing out 1500 for rent, but maybe 10-20 min el ride away you'll be able to find rent closer to 700-900 for sure.

so my journey through this whole weird process: i went from matched to held and had a phone interview with an employer a few months ago. only just in march was my status changed from released to matched. i'm not sure what this means, but i haven't gotten a rejection letter or anything. has all of the GEM employers done their interviews? i'm soooo confuuuused