poweredbycoldfusion
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Posts posted by poweredbycoldfusion
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Whelp, it's over. The predoctoral fellowship is done notifying.
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It sounds like you want to do A, but I'd do B. (And this is regardless of wanting to stay/leave academia.) What sells me on it is that the lab is well run. This means that there's a highly functional lab manager in place that can get stuff done, so you won't ever be stuck like that again. It also sounds like there might be older staff scientists in lab B who have institutional knowledge of how a lot of things work and could be very valuable resources.
My PI sounds very similar to the PI in lab B (although we're not pumping out nature papers...), and I really like that highly independant type of work environment. I think it just depends on how you work and what you want to get out of your PhD. I know people who *have* to work at the bench with their PI, but I'm fine seeing my PI 1-3 times every week (some weeks only in lab meetings). However, I wouldn't call my
PI aloof. Also, don't under estimate a PI that has the weight to go to bat for you. That's important and having money means your cool project won't get dropped because the lab didn't get a grant renewal and can't fund it (although that's happening at bigger labs these days). -
I saw a red flag student during interviews. It was awkward.
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Reddit has a group for almost any city. The moving to city guide there was a great jumping off point.
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Anyone get an honorable mention thing yet?
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You sound like you REALLY don't like this place. That kind of attitude is going to show around the other grad students and PIs. That's not a good thing and could end up hurting your career in the long run. It might be best to just try again verses going somewhere that you hate or where you act like you're entitled.
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Everything needs to be over 50%. If you have strong LORs and a good (3.8+) GPA, you can get into good programs with 70%+ in both sections. If you have a lower GPA, even good GRE scores won't get you into top programs.
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Well, thanks for the information. I am a bit confused what to do now. Should I email them or just keep waiting? Btw, congrats on your Mt Sinai decision. I am sure you will love it. All the best.
Lots of schools are on spring break and interviews went later this year because of bad weather out East (there's bad weather out West, too, but drought isn't delaying interviews). I'm waiting until April then shooting emails to any program I haven't heard back from, which is 2.
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Honestly, anyone getting a PhD with the dream of tenure track in the life sciences needs to do some reading. Could it happen? Yeah, but science careers had an article about a student who got their PhD at Harvard, did their post-doc at Princeton, published a bunch, won prestigeous fellowships...and was not able to land a tenure track position. The fact is, those jobs are going away. If you want a career in research, and potentially academic research, either of those institutions will be perfectly fine, but neither can garentee you the elusive tenure track prof job.
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To add a story, I emailed a grad student I'd met from the program I attended interviews at (and was then subsequently waitlisted at) to thank her and get clarification on how the school does admits. She said that there are usually two rounds of admissions: the first candidates (contacted directly after interviews) and the second round (after they see who has accepted/rejected them). She said that she got off the waitlist late March the year she applied, so it does happen.
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Edit: I was waitlisted but now admitted into the program.......yet the program is still accepting applications. What was the point of the waitlist?
At least in biomedicine/biosciences, programs have X number of spots to fill and X amount of funding for said spots. They want to fill those up with their top applicants first. However, top applicants typically have a lot of choice in where to go to grad school and have equally good offers from other schools. This is why biosciences send out programs in waves. Maybe most years they need to make 50 offers to fill 20 spots. Maybe some years they need to make 40...or 60. But they can't make them all at once because they're not sure how many of the initial round of invites (say, 30 top candidates) are going to accept.
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On 3/6/2015 at 3:47 PM, bsharpe269 said:
Haha I completely relate to this! I keep coming back to WUSTL as my top choice but my interest is mostly emotional... I loved the environment, clicked with professors and students... I want to go to this school really bad. I was excited when I received all of my offers but I was actually so happy that I cried when I got this one. I was way more excited when I got Wash U's offer than when I got my first offer even...
It is a great research fit but others are even better research fits. The top "famous" professors in my field who I have always dreamed of working with at are a different school (and I was also accepted to that school - so I have the option of working with these guys). I clicked with professors and students at that school too but I don't feel emotionally attached to it like I do Wash U. I made a pro/con list and Wash U came in 3rd. When this happened I found myself wanting to rearrange weightings so that they would come out on top.
What do you guys think? Do I let instints or logic win? Do I go to the school that would give me the best job opportunities (I dream of tenure track...) or the one that I really want to go to, even if I cant articulate exactly why?
I think you know which school you've got to go with. (Aka WUSTL)
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Speaking of making decisions... is it bad to accept pretty early? I have heard of people getting fellowship offers to convince people to accept their admissions. I don't know if this is true or not, but I really just want to accept my offer already!
Honestly, I don't think it is. There are very few people that get offered those special fellowships, and funding is funding. You can ask your top choices about fellowships and funding, but going to a lower choice just because they threw in some extra $$ seems a bit silly. Now, if you have a tie--you like multiple programs equally well--the one that gives you a special fellowship and shows more interest in you could be a valid way to break your decision.
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Things have gone a bit quiet around here.
It feels like it's at the point where most of the first round acceptences have been sent, and everyone is either waiting on a school or is in the process of making/finalizing their decision.- gliaful and tito balisimo
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I've done LDR for the past ~2 years while working as a tech, but that ends next year when grad school starts. I honestly couldn't imagine doing LDR for a significant portion of grad school, mostly because maintaining the relationship costs time AND money, both of which are going to be in short supply during grad school. Just some thoughts:
- Having an SO with a job who works in a specialized industry helped me narrow down my list of schools. There are some areas of the country where he would have a tougher time getting a job, so I didn't look at schools in those areas.
- You'll need to have big (scary?) talks about what you see for yourselves in the future. Preferably do this before you apply or even decide to start an LDR. We dated in the same city for a significant time before we did LDR. I knew LDR was worth the risk because I felt we were both (and are still going) in the same direction at people. He said 'I never want to live in X city', and I was like 'YES, me neither!' This is partly because we like the same things and tend to view areas/social scenes the same way.
- Because my SO is a young professional, the overall quality of the area where my school is located was of greater concern to him. A picky SO who only wants to live in one area or stay close to family could make applying to grad school stressful. (See: above point)
- A lot of single people (especially those just coming out of undergrad) are NOT going to understand why you are putting limitations on what schools you applied to. If you're serious about your SO (and are trying to move to a city together while you're in school), then there's a certain amount of ignoring people who think you're crazy for 'compromising' in anyway on your grad education.
- That said--go to a program where you can be the most successful! Don't apply to somewhere you hate because your SO pressured you into it.
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This is a comment by someone who works in admissions. Full thing here, but here's pertinent quote:
We would send out our first round of offers in early to mid-February, asking for a definite reply by April 15. The people we were turning down in the second round got letters now also (the first round of cuts got theirs a couple of weeks earlier). We didn't tell the waiting list people anything at this stage.By late March I was phoning the ones who still hadn't decided. If somebody wanted to push it to the bitter end (probably because they were also wait-listed at their top choice), they had the right--April 15 really does mean April 15. -
This is also the stage where 1) the final 'first round' of offers are just being offered for some schools 2) additional funding packages may be offered around this time 3) people are contacting profs to make their final decisions. Believe me, I'm on a wait list and want off it ASAP, too, but either it'll happen later this month or it won't.
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Hi Jalish-
I think they are in the process of waiting for people to turn down offers before offering more. I was one of those accepted right after the January 16 weekend and was asked to either accept or reject them by March 15. I would assume that another wave of acceptances will go out around March 15 as people turn down the offer. I got an email recently reminding me to tell them of my decision as soon as possible.
No one should be pressured to make a decision hastily, but this is a good point. If you have multiple offers and know that there is a school or schools you don't want to attend, let them know sooner rather than later. Funding can often be on the line, too. Hanging onto multiple offers until the last, bitter hour of April 15th isn't fair to anyone. It actually can screw lower ranked schools out of taking full-sized recruitment classes, too. If you're waiting on your #1 program, hold onto #2, but maybe let the others go?
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PhD programs definitely DO have wait lists. If you don't want to go to a program and you have an official offer (espeically one attached to funding) from 1 or 2 choice schools, withdraw your applications from your back up schools. This lets them know that they need to make additional offers; they want to do that before candidates on their wait list accept somewhere else, too, or else they can't fill up all the spots for the upcoming class. Interviewed at a place where they had this problem last year, btw. Students didn't decline soon enough, and their wait list ended up not being deep enough to fill all their spots.
In the professor's email, it does say that the formal offer of admission will arrive in the coming weeks. I have no reason to suspect my offer would be revoked, but nonetheless it is better to be safe rather than sorry. I will wait till I receive my official letter of acceptance before withdrawing any other applications.
This is a solid move, although I think you could probably withdraw at places that are lower on your list at this point. Keep your app in at your #2 until you get the official paper, although there's no reason to think you're not in at this point.
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Be honest about your research interests. Saying you'd love to join her lab might get you in the program, but then, if no one else wants to fund you, you'll have to stay and work in her lab. If you know there's no way you'd do that, don't lie to her to get into the program.
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Yeah according to the acceptance rate they told us....around 30 people are going to be rejected. So I guess I'm wondering what factors they look at in order to determine who the rejected people are. It's scary to think that one can feel confident about his/her interviews and still be rejected.
You're probably wait listed first. A prof confirmed this for me at a recent school. That said, being waitlisted at my preferred program and having to take an acceptance at my back-up still means I'm going to grad school.
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Worst: UCLA by far. The other 6 were all roughly equal in responsiveness, but UCLA sent me all of these generic emails about my status, and when I inquired as to whether they were missing something in my application--nothing. Yet they kept sending me emails that indicated something wasn't done with my application. I checked everything I sent them and determined everything should've been in on my end, but I have no idea what has happened with that application.
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For what it's worth, I did email. Several profs responded, too. Maybe this is just because I like technology/have bad hand writing, but I prefer email. I might send a hand written note to a letter writer that lives out of state, though...or just type up a thank you and put it in the card.
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I did it when it felt relevant. If I had a good interview, I 100% sent the email. I thanked my student hosts in person before I left, so no emails there.
waitlisted...
in 2010-2015 Archive
Posted
I got off a waitlist today. They told me I literally had a day to decide. I've already made my decision (going to another program), so it's kind of a moot point.