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Infinito

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Posts posted by Infinito

  1. 3 hours ago, CozyEnzymes said:
     

    What is the most polite way to broach the topic of receiving the fellowship with a potential graduate program? I want to let them know that I am a recipient and also ask some logistical questions, but I also don't want to sound like I'm trying to hit them up for additional money or something. Any tips? 

    Feel free to ask them questions, like if you'll get the travel grant stipend from it, if any amount can be allocated to your own small project, whether you can activate it in your third year, etc. But unless policy is clearly stated that you get some sort of "bonus" or anything else for getting a grant, programs tend to just absorb the money to keep the program afloat and make up for students that don't get the award (as most programs require their trainees to apply to the NSF, so they already have internal metrics that it's a crapshoot to get, and to make it fair for everyone they tend not to award extra bonuses for it).

  2. VG/VG, VG/E, E/E (Life Sciences - Cell Bio) Honorable Mention.

    Second year in a row and no more chances. The reviewers had really nice, heart warming comments, but obviously that wasn't enough. One of the VGs might have sunk me as their comment alluded to one of my rec letters explicitly stating what I was doing as this was my rotation PI adding to what I had no space to write about in my proposal, even though I did write it out (seems like they deducted points because I wasn't more specific about which "confocal microscopy" imaging I'd use, or which protein modifications I'd be looking at [I literally spelled it out, though]). 

    So it's still a crapshoot, but in this time of funding drought, I'm truly happy for everyone that got it. It's still a great writing exercise.

    Also, can people post which division/section they applied to because posting the scores doesn't tell you much as some divisions have higher or lower thresholds (I had an arguably higher score last year but still had HM, lol).

     

    49 minutes ago, Janiejoneswoah said:
     

    "The only Broader Impacts addressed are the potential benefits that the research might have to human health. "

    Seems like a pretty broad impact to me, but what do I know

    Remember: NSF doesn't want to hear anything about human health. That can actually hurt you because they have a limited funding pool for basic science, and the NIH is made to address that.

  3. I personally wouldn't invest myself in one PI, especially if the school isn't a top program. Maybe if the school had other options in case something happened with the PI, then I would consider it. Just imagine if your PI loses funding, decides to retire, move to another university, etc. Would you be okay then? I had planned to rotate with one PI since I got to where I am, but now there is the potential that they will move to another university. Definitely didn't see that coming. Things like that you need to be aware of, even if you think it'd never affect you.

  4. 5 hours ago, TB12 said:
     

    I'm hoping for some advice on handling my current situation! I have an offer at one program, and they want a decision by March 15. I'm not sure I'll hear back yet from the two other programs I interviewed at (one of which is my top choice), and obviously I'm not going to accept an offer with any chance of then declining later. Is it better to contact the two programs I haven't heard from yet? Or ask for an extension for my decision? 

    Accredited programs give you until April 15th to decide. You might just be overestimating their statement. Unless your offer is tied to something like an additional fellowship offer which might be time sensitive to lure people, they can't rescind their admission if you don't get back to them until after March 15th.

  5. 4 hours ago, MoreInformation said:
     

    Subject tests are useful if you come from a school that the faculty hasn't heard of and therefore are unable to assess the quality of your biology education. Do not waste your time with the exam if that does not describe your background. 

     

    2 hours ago, Kaede said:
     

    I go to a school that most professors haven't heard of (a very small LAC) and I still didn't take the subject test and got great results. If you have other external evaluations of your achievement (awards or letters of rec from outside your institution) then it really shouldn't be necessary unless you have a low GPA.

    Unheard of school, low GPA, or actually if you're applying to a program for which your undergraduate major or coursework doesn't seem to fit the picture (an example in my current class would be a music major who took time off, did a post bacc program, and took the GRE Bio exam to apply to a Biomedical Sciences PhD program).

  6. 7 hours ago, Ecce said:
     

    I'm fine with any housing that is decent. The cheaper the better. Not gonna share a room, but totally fine with a room in a 2 or bed apartment. Not in grad school to live in a great house, I really don't care,

    And are taxes really that low? I've been told it's anywhere between 5 and 8k and that ita's easily 25 to 33% of my stipend. But you give me hope

    Obviously I don't know your financial situation, and I know I'll probably personally have a higher tax payment this year as I worked before graduate school, but we're pretty much in the lowest tax bracket, which is pretty much ~10%.

  7. 44 minutes ago, LoveMysterious said:
     
     

    I've been in the industry in the past four years, and I've noticed that the vast majority of PhD scientists did not do translational research during grad school. You won't be at a disadvantage at all if your dissertation is geared toward basic science. However, there are certain skills that are highly desirable in the industry (bioinformatics experience, NextGen Sequencing, CRISPR, etc) which you would be more exposed to in a translational lab. Regardless, you will likely have zero trouble getting an industry job with a PhD from Princeton.. 

    Agreed. Pretty much when you're in a top tier program, it really matters up to you how you get to industry if that is your goal. Sometimes it can be useful to have connections through a PI that collaborates with industry, so being at a university where industry pathways and collaborations are not shunned (as they classically used to be) may be something to consider when picking your PhD program. I just recently went to an alumni event for my program which had some panelists from different career paths. On major take away was that you can actually end up in industry without planning for it or even having certain skills - the PhD is supposed to indicate that you're able to learn anything fast and to obtain mastery after all, so there is loads of room for on-the-job training that you wouldn't expect (this includes both science at the bench, but also other things like regulatory affairs and science portfolios and financing). Additionally, it is good to be upfront with your PIs and thesis committee about a genuine desire to go into industry (as opposed to just keeping the door open) as that will allow them to tailor the expectations they have to graduate you (they might require a less impactful paper/s to fulfill your graduation requirement, while a purely academic path may require you to publish in more impactful journals).

    Though not as necessary, some other factors to consider would also be institutional career development programs, potential institutional programs that allow you to take a quarter/semester off to intern in industry without repercussion, or else programs that will pick up you salary for a period of time if you do an unpaid internship (as an example, maybe in science regulatory affairs, science writing, or a science startup). Also consider whether graduate clubs exist for career development (consulting cases, biotech investments, etc).

     

    Also, @jougami: While I cannot speak to the majority of the schools you were admitted to about neuroscience (as I applied to more bio related programs, including Duke), I can attest that Penn Neuroscience is top notch with people doing using optigenetics, in addition to it being one of the best stipended/funded programs at Penn. The only negative comment I have is that there are some politics going on in that department, but I'm not sure how much of that spills over into the graduate students. 

  8. 2 hours ago, Ecce said:
     

    Updates SF budget. 

      UCSF  
      Yearly Monthly
    Sipend 37000 3083.333333
    Housing 16800 1400
    Food 6000 500
    Taxes 4800 400
    Transportation 1680 140
    Car 0  
    Misc 4200 350
      3520 293.3333333

     

    In addition, there's $4k for moving. 

    Also, I really don't know how accurate that tax figure is.

    Thoughts? Corrections?

    Housing is about on point if you don't try harder to get into a larger house. It's probably ~$1200 if you land in campus housing. Food is probably lower than you think. First years get plenty of free food, so much so that I usually don't cook for weeks on end. Taxes would be a better estimate at ~$3000 for the year for Federal, and ~$300 for CA. Note that obviously your first year at UCSF you'll only have gotten the stipend for a quarter, and you don't pay CA taxes until you've lived there for a year. Transportation is also too high, unless you're going to be living really far and doing the $70/month MUNI pass. I don't travel that much, so I just use my MUNI card by filing it with money, not a monthly pass. The UCSF shuttle gets me everywhere I want to go (and, remember, a majority of my classmates are in campus housing, though mostly in Mission Bay). Also, usually when I go somewhere in an Uber, I split it with friends so it averages close to $3 a trip (compared to $2.25 on MUNI).

  9. On 2/28/2017 at 10:50 AM, Ecce said:
     
     
     
     
     

    UCSF

    pro

    • Top-notch program
    • Huge choice of PIs and labs
    • Excellent research in genetics, genomics, RNA (my field of choice)
    • Bay Area - connections with other great schools and industry (still undecided on industry vs
    • San Francisco

    con

    • Just a medical campus, no engineering or physics etc (although Berkeley connection)
    • Crazy expensive (stipend is 37K, but SF is crazy expensive)
    • Lesser known school outside of bio circles

    Princeton

    pro

    • Fewer professors, but all of them are top in their field and full of funding. Quality over quantity.
    • Excellent training, smaller program
    • Tons of money and funding
    • Would have more money and be able to save (stipend is 35K)
    • Could work in a bioengineering lab since it's a complete university
    • Prestigious name school (although in Bio UCSF is more well known

    con

    • No Med school, no translational research
    • Fewer lab choices (only 40-50 faculty)
    • Less research in genetics, genomics, RNA (my field of choice) (but one could argue that it's just grad school, you can go into your field of choice later)

     

    I've been mostly holding off on commenting until I saw my pal @Bioenchilada post, so I figured I'd chime in as well.

    Pretty much everything that Bioenchilada said was on point. Having gone to an Ivy League for undergrad myself, and knowing that prestige of school and overall funding =/= grad school experience or funding, I only applied to like 1 Ivy only for their program during my application round.

    That being said, I'm now at UCSF and had some misconceptions before I even got here, so let me address some parts in the section I quoted above.

    1. UCSF is TWO campuses - Parnassus and Mission Bay. There is literally a Biophysics program, there's TETRAD for more pure sciences research, not to mention powerhouses like QB3, etc. There isn't necessarily an engineering department besides the joint program with Berkeley, but I'm actually rotating in a bioengineering lab next quarter. So many innovations come out from UCSF because engineering research is being conducted here (with applications to medicine, obviously, but that are generalizable). 

    2. On the money issue:

    • You're not going to graduate school to get rich while you're there. Whether it be NYC or SF, the cost of living in these desirable places is pretty much the price of admission to be in the theme park. I did originally have qualms about this, as I even calculated that at some other schools I might be able to save up about $20K across 5 years or mortgage a house, but is that the point of graduate school? Also, if I'm going to be somewhat destitute, I'd rather do it in graduate school, not when I'm doing a post doc (note, loads of post docs love being here, and they get paid even less than graduate students due to the UC-wide post doc union).
    • As someone from a low income background, with no family to support me, it's not as bad as you think. Once you get over the mental barrier, you realize that even here people can live fine on our salary. I won't say it's necessarily comfortable or thriving, but it's enough to survive.
    • You forgot 4 other important things that UCSF does to offset the cost. a. You get two years in heavily subsidized student housing. b. You get a $4K relocation-allowance which you can use for anything before coming to UCSF (helps to offset costs of moving). c. Some programs provide you with a laptop and other goodies for matriculating (some have additional housing funds). d. There is a cost-of-living allowance given to people that live off campus, and even then you can find off-campus housing for under $1000/mo. It might mean not having a single studio, but that's just the way it is.
    • Final point: anywhere you go, fellowships do not supplement your income directly. Some programs might give you extra money, but this is incredibly rare as your stipend is set by NIH/NSF standards, so usually programs that advertise these bonuses do so because their stipend is on the lower end of the spectrum. 

    Now, I'm going to flip around some of your pros form Princeton.

    3. Quality over Quantity. I'm not sure why you would put that as a pro, as if somehow UCSF's overwhelming amount of faculty is indicative of lower quality? You do realize that UCSF is the number one recipient of NIH funds, right? No school anywhere hires people without their own sources of income, and a scientist's ability to maintain funding is pretty much a straight correlation with the quality of their work or its impact. Obviously UCSF is a purely medical/science university so there will absolutely be an overwhelming amount of faculty to choose from, but that is not a sign of lower quality.

    4. Tons of money and funding. Princeton may have a huge endowment, but you'll almost never see any of that money, especially since those endowments tend to be trapped in undergraduate services or things that don't spill over into your science. You may get better career services, free food, and other things, but graduate programs tend to be maintained through training grants, tuition remissions, and funding overhead. At any top program, you're going to see programs tell you that you're covered by the program for X number of years, and then your PI guarantees the rest of your funding; of course, in the case of something catastrophic, like your PI losing funding or leaving, top programs have mechanisms to still support you. So look out for that information from places you're interested in. 

    Finally, I'm going to address this since it's so insidious.

    Get.Over.School.Prestige.To.Non.Science.People.

    I don't know why people feel like they need to somehow boost their egos by thinking that people not in the sciences need to recognize their school - as if that was a metric for anything. If I had listened to my family, I would have gone to Yale or MIT since they didn't know about UCSF; luckily, I know better and have no need to be used by family and friends as some talking point to other people they're trying to impress. I went where I thought I had the best fit with the program and my interviewing cohort, in addition to the science being conducted there and where I would be living for the next 5-6 years. Additionally, UCSF has huge recognition on the West coast in all circles. I also see that you turned down Harvard and MIT interviews; so really, if non-scientific reputation means anything to you, you should have taken those interviews, since while it seems that UCSF doesn't hold a candle to the prestige you desire, Princeton realistically pales in comparison to those other two as well, and even more in the sciences.

  10. Any school worth its weight will have classes that are challenging - they're critical to make you think like a scientist, and unfortunately most undergraduate programs don't help develop these critical thinking skills. I can tell you that taking time off before going to grad school has taken me out of the zone for studying, and this is true for more than half of my classmates. That being said, programs have an incentive to help you pass. Nobody fails. You may suffer for a bit, but it will eventually pass, and you will learn form it. And, usually after your first year, you don't take courses any more, so learning becomes up to you (whether you want to take extra classes, or to learn about things related to your thesis). 

  11. 4 hours ago, Cryptochrometime said:

    How much does ranking matter to you when selecting which graduate program to attend?

     

    2 hours ago, biotechie said:
     

    It mattered very little to me when I applied. I chose programs based on the structure of the program, research support, and faculty I was interested in working with. You need to ultimately go to a school where you feel you fit and can get a good education that will prepare you for the next step, be it a job in industry or remaining in academia. Some will argue that higher ranked schools tend to have better research funding and faculty, which to a degree is true, but they might not have the type of program you need, and the faculty there might not be working on things you're interested in.

    Linking to my previous post on this matter (and the forum search function is great since this gets asked every year)

     

  12. 4 hours ago, seventwo said:
     
     

    You could do a postbac, it's full time research experience. Depends on the program, I think for the NIH you can only be two years removed from your undergrad, but you should look around that may not be the case everywhere.

     

    This. There are plenty of non-traditional postbacc programs as well (designed for people in your situation).

    However, if you don't get in to your Masters programs, I suggest actually applying to PhD programs. Even if you believe what you do as a tech doesn't count as research, that is irrelevant to the adcoms since your personal statement will drive home the fact that you have been doing science for many years now, and are hungry and passionate to pursue a research career where you are actually asking the questions. There are plenty of people whom I met during my interview weekends and whom I have met during recruitment that have atypical backgrounds and little research experience. 

    P.S. the reason I suggest a PhD is because a Masters will pretty much keep you as a higher-salaried tech or lab manager (if that's what you're looking for) in academia, but that usually isn't enough for industry anymore (there is a glut of PhDs clamoring for limited positions already). If you're fine with that (and can find a lab where you can have your own project), then great! But if you do want to conduct your own research or run your own lab, then you might want to do more research on the matter.

  13. Two quick points to follow up on some of the conversations here.

     

    1. If you are wait-listed, other people declining will rarely move you into the "admitted" zone. Every accepted individual has until April 15th to decline, which is when you also need to accept your acceptances to be safe. Because schools accept more people than they plan to have matriculate to get their desired class sizes, you need to consider that you might only be called off the wait-list only in some catastrophic circumstance, and most likely after April 15th. So if you're betting on this, think very carefully about your other options. Additionally, cajoling people into speeding up their thought processes in figuring out which school to attend is uncalled for; though, on the flip side, I did let go of schools after all my interviews were done if I couldn't see myself "going there," so people don't need to hoard schools that they know they ultimately won't go to.

     

    2. Interviews are not only a test of fit for yourself, but also for the program honestly (as they'll be making close to half a million dollar investment in your education, at the minimum). Interviewers are coordinated by the best of the ability by a program's admin, so sometimes getting someone that you didn't want or ask for, or getting grilled, wasn't actually the intention by the admin - it just ended up that way. As stated above, the admins know which professors are known to grill. This is usually frowned down upon in the grand scheme of things. Students with overwhelmingly bad interviews get rejected, but out of each interview panel, there tends to be one professor with veto abilities (this can go for or against you). What people tend to forget is that the hosting students also have a say; while the right review from a PI is enough to get you in, an overwhelmingly negative response from a bunch of students will also likely get you rejected.  

  14. 8 hours ago, BeakerBreaker said:
     
     

    This is a near pointless exercise to involve multiple people on this site. There will be no consensus on what the 20 "best" graduate programs are in a field. If you want the metrics, they are freely available online; otherwise, sites like US News use their own. You will be the best judge when it comes to appraising each program's value based on what you feel is important.

    WUSTL, UWM, and Emory are all good schools for MCB. You will probably find that there are other factors much more important to your decision among these high caliber schools than their absolute ranking in some subjectively influenced list.

    Absolutely agreed.

    The best piece of advice that I can give you @Pepperoni and anyone else asking this question is that you need to take department rankings with a grain of salt. Even for US News, their rankings are heavily influenced by undergraduate prestige, endowment, etc. This sometimes translates over to the graduate programs, but the correlation isn't strong. Just think of a couple of schools with huge university endowments, and then remember that most of that money is not dedicated towards departments or graduate funding.


    Finding out about all these unquantifiable/subjective metrics is the point of interviews. There's noway somebody could give you a definitive 20 school ranking without having interviewed or been to a majority of those schools.

    But, I'm going to throw you some helpful information.

    Schools receiving large amounts of NIH funding tend to have incredibly strong graduate research programs and infrastructure for those sciences. 
    Check out the Tables of NIH Funding to US Schools, which I found compiled at Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.

    For example, the ranked list of schools awarded NIH funding can be found here.

    Another great resource to look at would be the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities. They have good breakdowns by broad subjects, which give more weight to graduate level research. Also Phds.org gives you intervals of rankings based on surveys from doctoral recipients from a bunch of schools. The Bio/Integrated Biology and Biomedical Sciences one can be found here

    Since I can't be unbiased as I am happy at (and attend) UCSF, I'll give you an example of why GradCafe or US Newsweek rankings would suck to be used as a metric. 

    For instance, UCSF has been the #1 recipient of NIH funding for many years (as in the table above). Additionally, their Shanghai ranking in Med and Life Science categories puts them in the top 5 overall. However, if you compare them to other rankings, they fall short because they don't have undergraduates, alumni, or a large endowment (which is heavily weighed in other rankings). Yet, almost every scientist and person in the life sciences field, especially on the West Coast, would know what UCSF is, and it's high caliber level of excellence. Despite this, most of my non-science friends and family keep confusing my institution with Berkeley or SF State. So, if you're in it for the layman's prestige , you'll probably be disappointed in a lot of your choices if that's your sole metric, or even something you're considering AT ALL. 

    TL;DR: Do your own research, go on interviews. Nobody here can answer your question besides giving a nebulous list of Top Tier Schools (much easier to judge based on top 20 NIH funded schools). Thread should be closed before people get the opportunity to flame.

     

  15. 3 hours ago, Cryptochrometime said:
     

    Has anyone heard from UCSF BMS?

     

     

    3 hours ago, jumanji5a said:

    I'm waiting, too. There are a couple of responses on the results page, but I think it depends on when each faculty member gets around to calling people. 

     

    As a current BMS student and someone who was heavily involved in recruitment, I can validate that statement. Faculty get assigned (most likely someone you interviewed with), and they have until the end of the week to contact you. Good luck :)

  16. 8 hours ago, Butterfly_effect said:
     

    Quick question about applying in the second year of grad school:

    Is it still fine if your personal statement focuses on undergrad? For some context, in my program, we do rotations and classes first year. October of second year is the time we actually start to define our projects so most people have no preliminary data. I chose not to talk about my other rotations in my personal essay because my undergraduate work was more productive (resulted in papers) and my previous rotations had nothing to do with what I'm doing now so it seemed to me like it would disrupt the flow of the essay rather than support my current interests. I also got E/E E/E E/E (but only honorable mention) last year using last year's version of this essay. Thoughts?

     

    I don't see any problem with that. I'm starting my first year and doing my first rotation; I probably spent about 1/3 page talking about that, but I looped it into my new interests as pertaining to my proposal. 

    Also, that you can get E/E * 3 and still get HM is testament to the crapshoot that we are applying to.

  17. On 9/1/2016 at 2:33 PM, Butterfly_effect said:
     

    What does everyone think about Broader Impacts/Intellectual merit headings in the research statement? I previously had a broader impacts section, but I'm stumped about trying to shoehorn the intellectual merits in as well or just let the introduction/background also stand for intellectual merits. Thoughts?

     

    I think I'm writing something like "The intellectual merits of this project arise...' which is within the sentence/paragraph of where I talk about background and my hypothesis, instead of making a heading specifically for it like I do with Broader Impacts.

  18. Masters students tend to have an edge for PhD programs. I don't think your GPA is bad. Just make sure your rec letters come from great mentors that can speak to your drive, ability to think of ideas and execute them. Explain in your essay why you did a Masters first (great to talk about needing to mature, or explore science, and now being ready, etc.), and why the PhD is next (because now that you have a Masters, what's the point of a PhD unless you want to be a PI?). Do proper due diligence when picking your schools and tailoring your essays to them. 

    I know who you're talking about at Penn since I remember she gave a guest lecture in one of my classes before. Honestly, I would NOT apply to schools simply for the people. You never know what will happen by the time you arrive there (say they filled up all their spots the previous year, or aren't taking new students for the next year, etc.), or the personalities will clash. You should pick a program that you will enjoy in the event your ideal lab and mentor are not available. 

  19. Quit my job right after all my interviews, so now I'm on vacation until August.
    I'm helping plan a national conference via Skype as one of my extracurriculars to keep me busy. Besides that, gym everyday (trying to maintain that bod because I'm sure it'll all go downhill with all the free junk food in graduate school), picking up some coding, family time, and Netflix.

    I contacted a few professors about their interest, but the majority of them (and my graduate coordinator) definitely said to wait until I'm on campus during orientation to meet in person, so I'll do that. I did, however, request my POIs to link me to some articles to whet my appetite for their research and field (mostly as a primer for what I should know coming in).

  20. 13 hours ago, shim12 said:
     

    I am currently an undergrad and am honored to have received an HM. Do you guys think I should apply next year or wait until my 2nd year as a grad student? I am concerned that I will have only spent  a month or two with my advisor (might still even be in rotations!) before the GRFP is due. Is it okay to submit the same research proposal even if my research in grad school is different? My reviewers seemed to like it and only suggested minor edits.

     

    11 hours ago, ForTheLoveOfBrains said:
     

    @shim12 I was wondering the same exact thing! My proposal was for cognitive neuro but I'm entering a behavioral neuro program. Like you, minor revisions were kind of suggested so it's hard to decide whether to keep the same research statement or update with the new program. (I'd rather not risk it, honestly and stay with what I have). You know what I mean? Plus, I'm just scared that second year applicants may be way more competitive? Is that a crazy assumption?

    Due to the new changes that you can only apply once (we're grandfathered in so that we can apply in graduate school), I'm going to wait until my second year now. That way I don't have to rush the proposal, and hopefully it will be in my thesis lab. I'm pretty much keeping my original personal statement with some chronological changes.

  21. Honorable Mention.

    Incoming graduate student. Life Sciences division.

    Must be a really competitive cycle as I had no negative comments.  E/E, VG/E, VG/E.

    Congratulations to everyone that got it!
    Apparently starting the next cycle, you can only apply to the NSF GRFP once, so luckily the HMs are grandfathered in. So there's still next year!
     

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