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Have you ever worked for a major corporation? They pay moving expenses. S.O. does, and I know exactly how much they pay for gas (and if they'll pay for a plane ticket or make you drive based on the distance of the move), number of days they'll put you up in a hotel room, number of days you can rent a car, and even that they'll hook you up with a realator during relocation. Even smaller companies will do something (like pay for gas/give a small stipend) to get and keep people they're really interested in. Moving is a pain. The only way you get around that is to hire local talent only, but it can get difficult to fill high skill jobs from a local applicant pool. Grad schools are on a tighter budget, so moving packages aren't typical. This comment is either a troll or posted by someone who has also never worked in the corporate world.

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.

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.

Unless you think the PI did something dishonest, I would just let it go. And even if you thought the grade was not fairly awarded, unless you need it corrected for some other reason, I would just let it go. I understand that the lack of feedback is a big downside of academia but it happens at all levels. The feedback we get for admission decisions, funding decisions, grading decisions, quals/comps exam decisions can be very minimal. I think it is an important skill for academics to learn from experiences independently, without feedback from our advisors. I think it's also important for us to develop the ability to "not sweat the small stuff", so to speak.
 
However, since a B is the lowest passing grade, this means you still passed. Since the prof said that the doors are open if you want to join the lab, if you do want to join this lab, then you should definitely talk to the professor further. Don't mention the B or ask about why the grade was a B, just ask about future opportunities in this lab.

Two things--
1) Why is it so bad to take two years off between undergrad and grad school? It not only strengthens your application, but you might actually realize in a year from now that you weren't really ready to go straight into a PhD program. I sometimes think that taking two years off to tech in a lab should be required for PhD programs. 
2) If you think that a job in academia in the US is something you'd want to do after grad school, then doing your PhD at a reputable institution is very important. Even if you want an industry or consulting job, it will be much harder to get if the place you've gotten your degree from doesn't have solid name recognition. People may not like the school ranking system, but don't ever underestimate the importance of being in a highly ranked school. Sorry, but that's the truth. Rankings and name brand institutions do matter, even in science. So I don't blame you for wanting to try for a better position if it makes sense for your long term career goals. But getting to those places requires a solid background in research, and undergrad experience often doesn't count for much because it was part time. You need two solid years of tech work.

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.

I hope my application profile might help future applicants! Good luck!
 
Undergrad Institution: Top 50 Private Research University
Major(s): Biology B.A.
Minor(s): Psychology, Political Science
GPA in Major (undergrad): 3.10 / 4.0
GPA in Graduate level courses: 3.85 / 4.0 (took a few grad level courses as an unmatriculated student)
Overall GPA: 3.48/4.0
Position in Class: Somewhere in the middle
Type of Student: Domestic

GRE Scores (revised version):
Q: 155
V: 166
W: 4.5
Research Experience: DAAD-RISE summer fellowship , one semester undergrad, 3 years post-grad.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: DAAD-RISE Fellowship, Merit Scholarships
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 3 years working as a lab tech after graduation
 
--Results --
 
Rejections :
Yale
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Weill Cornell
Duke University
UNC
Boston University
 
Interviews:
NYU Sackler (wait listed)
U Mass Medical School
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Northwestern Driskill Graduate Program
UNC Charlotte (declined)
 
Acceptances:
U Mass Medical School
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Northwestern Driskill Graduate Program
 
Advice:
- I would definitely recommend working as a lab tech after undergrad. I approached my work as though I were already a graduate student, and I benefited tremendously from the effort.
- Develop a method for reading journal articles. Just reading the abstract is not enough!
 
- Go to as many research seminars as possible, especially if you're unfamiliar with the topic. Don't worry about feeling out of place, faculty and students will be glad you're interested. Knowing what kind of questions interest researchers in various fields helped me in making conversation during grad school interviews, and it will help your research!
- Don't waste too much time on the GRE. I recommend using Magoosh to prepare.

I think you need to deal with it and grow up. Honestly, your going to have to deal with people you don't like. You don't have to be advised by them, but your going to have to deal with them no matter where you go. Just be polite when you see B. 

I find this to be sickeningly elitist and snobbish. 

Posting on a zombie thread to say that everything TakeruK said was completely correct. 
 
Luckily, I had my massive disagreement with Advisor #1 before I joined the group. So lucky. In fact, I ended up doing what TakeruK said and working for the other big badass in the department - who is known for his science and only his science. Not known mostly for his stupid bullsh*t and posturing. 
 
My advice to anyone else in the situation above, because you probably won't get lucky like I did and get Institution #1 without Advisor #1... GO FOR NUMBER TWO. 
 
It's pretty rough, because #1 still 'hates' me, and tried to get my boss not to take me; I have no proof but she's also done other things to try and discredit or devalue me. It's rough seeing her around the department, and feels like there are constant fireworks. This is not fun. You do not want an Advisor #1 in your life.
 
So, the point of reviving the zombie thread was to thank you all for your great advice. I didn't take it, or anyone else's, and it's just by a tiny chance that everything still worked out for me. Thank you. 

Speaking as someone who really likes a big, solid, tough challenge, and, as a result, can really understand why uni #1 is so tempting to you, even beyond the science: you may want to entertain the question of what on earth you will do if the big, solid, tough challenge becomes insurmountable. Or, to put it differently, if the challenge is not so much a challenge, but, as the other students have warned, a surefire disaster. You write that your decision is, "Partly due to the science, partly because if you get through this group, it proves you can take that much shit and still be standing." And I really do understand that--I think many fellow grad students would. But what if you're not left standing? In that previous question and this following one, I second TakeruK: do you have a Plan B at uni #1?
 
I recommend searching through these forums for the word "advisor." Maybe also look for the same word in the Grad School subforum at the CHE forums. Things can get hairy, to put it mildly. The bottom line is: if you have an advisor who does not want you to graduate, you will not. Your advisor will continue to be someone spoken about with awe and Nobel Prize murmurings, but you will not be, and it might even come to pass that telling others that you work with this person, which once felt like such a huge coup, will start to feel like an albatross around your neck. At the end of the day, as you yourself write, you are looking to work in academia, and to do that, you're going to need to graduate with good work that has your name on it and an advisor who will recommend you for future positions.
 
If you're still committed to uni #1, you may want to seriously consider moving from generalities ("abusive") to specifics (behaviors A, B, C, and D) and considering, concretely and dispassionately, how you would address them. Also, you may also want to speak with someone who did successfully make it in and out with the same advisor you're considering. 

"Abusive" is not a quality that you want in a mentor, no matter how good this person's research is. If nearly everyone associated with that lab is telling you not to work with this person, then there must be a good reason why. If it were just one person telling you this, I'd suspect that it's just an underlying personality mismatch between that student and the professor, but a large consensus makes me think that there is some truth to these complaints. Never, ever work with a professor that you would describe as "abusive." An intense professor is okay if you work well in that kind of situation, but "abusive" is never good no matter what. S/he may be doing really good science on a topic that is currently "hot," but if s/he really is abusive and hard to worth with, then your own work will suffer, as will your mental/emotional health most likely.
 
Go with the second advisor. It sounds like the lab is well respected, and a Top 15 institution is still very prestigious. You're also genuinely interested in the research being done there. Remember that your research will inevitably be somewhat different than your advisor's-- the whole point of a PhD project is do something original. So, perhaps you can come up with a project of your own and make it have that "badass factor" that is missing in your advisor's work. Perhaps you can spin it a certain way or approach the question from a new angle or incorporate techniques from another field. Your project can be as amazing as you make it be. And it will definitely be easier to make it amazing with the help of a supportive PI.
 
I feel like it's a clear choice here... you really don't want to spend the next 5+ years in an abusive relationship. The stress and depression just won't be worth it. And if you're stressed and depressed, then there's a good chance that the work you do will not be your best anyway.

The "April 15th" agreement that people commonly refer to can be read in full here: http://www.cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGSResolution_Rev2015.pdf.
 
A few things to note:
 
1. This is a formal but non-binding agreement between graduate schools listed in the document. There are no penalties for not following the resolution they agreed to.
 
2. This is an agreement between the "Graduate School" at each of these schools. If your program is not administered by the Graduate School (e.g some professional masters programs, such as MBA, MSW, MPH, etc. are administered by different groups on campus) then your program might not be part of this resolution.
 
3. This is an agreement regarding financial offers only, not admission offer. In most funded PhD programs, financial and admission offers come together, but it is possible for them to be separate. The April 15 deadline is the earliest deadline a school adhering to this resolution may set for applicants to accept a TA offer, a RA offer, or other financial offers.
 
4. And finally, you might find that a lot of programs that did not sign up for this Resolution will follow the April 15 schedule anyways, for convenience of everyone

Have you ever worked for a major corporation? They pay moving expenses. S.O. does, and I know exactly how much they pay for gas (and if they'll pay for a plane ticket or make you drive based on the distance of the move), number of days they'll put you up in a hotel room, number of days you can rent a car, and even that they'll hook you up with a realator during relocation. Even smaller companies will do something (like pay for gas/give a small stipend) to get and keep people they're really interested in. Moving is a pain. The only way you get around that is to hire local talent only, but it can get difficult to fill high skill jobs from a local applicant pool. Grad schools are on a tighter budget, so moving packages aren't typical. This comment is either a troll or posted by someone who has also never worked in the corporate world.

This might be field dependent, but I can list countless of labs in top-tier institutions that recruit post-docs across the world AND schools with different "caliber".
 
Aside from the "list of publication" and who did you receive your PhD training with (how big your PI is, which matters quite a lot), your presentation as a post-doc applicant will also be a huge factor. Communication skills, knowledge, personality, almost everything can be observed in a 30-60 minutes presentation will be evaluated.
 
To OP, if you do great research, you will succeed no matter how and where. If, for example, you get a post-doctoral fellowship (that has a less stringent pre-selected lab requirement), you financially can choose any lab that you want to do a post-doc with (I personally know 2 individuals who got their a PhD in top-tier public school and, interestingly, go to a less well-known school for post-docs -- to work with an expert in their corresponding fields). I also got a verbal commitment from a PI for a post-doctoral position at a very prestigious institution should the funding situation allows few years from now. So, anything can happen. You can definitely go out and do big things even if you are a "big fish at a small pond", as your quality of work is reflected on various tangible and intangible "records"; on the contrary, being a "small fish at a big pond" doesn't guarantee you a bright future, neither. All in all, if you are a big fish, with the right mindset, you will succeed no matter what and where the pond is.
 
 
 
A friend of mine was thinking what you weren't thinking. Briefly, he chose Berkeley over Princeton and Yale for his PhD, and he is now doing post-doc in Harvard. So take your time -- no pressure.

I like having a partner who isn't in academia. He's a music education major (which is actually a lot more time intense than I previously thought), finishing his Bachelor's degree and teaching crednetials. He is curious about my research and genuinely thinks it's interesting and tries to understand it, but I don't have to deal with nitpicking the minutia with him. It keeps my work/school life very separate from my personal life, and I like it that way. I am not someone who can think about my research 24/7. I need to have specific times I work on my research, and then I ignore it when I have my relaxing time.
 
But, if he wasn't interested in my research at all, I think that would be very difficult. Research is 50% or more of our lives, so it's important to have someone who can support you through that and be interested in what you're doing outside of your personal life.

You could also accept the offer and then apply to other programs if you're really unhappy, right? Although rare, I know people who have transferred in eco/evo, not sure about biochem.

No program is going to let  you transfer. You are going to have to Master's out and then re-apply to phd programs. You can only transfer when your PI is moving institutions.

I'll also add that I've seen cases where person A has a very general idea that they never follow up on, and person B gets interested, does research, refines it, and then gets accused of stealing the "idea". 
 
An idea, in my opinion, has to be fairly well refined to be owned- and not just refined, but you actually have to have intent and interest in following up on the idea. 
 
Additionally, as partly echoed above, it's not alway the intent of a collaborator to steal an idea. Ideas evolve fast, and we don't alway remember where the initial impetus came from- it may have been a conversation, or that conversation may have sparked an interest in the general field, and we began formulating a similar idea as we read more. 

Thanks everyone, I appreciate your thoughts on this.
 
I am pretty sure I'll go with Lab A; they may not be as rolling in $$$ or prestige but it fits my goals better. Anecdote: Lab A advisor invited me to breakfast with a visiting lecturer back in October, months before I was to even start my rotation. Meanwhile, Lab B advisor didn't meet individually with me or another rotating student unless we specifically requested it. I think that says a lot right there.

In terms of mentorship, Lab B lab meetings consisted of people presenting their work and B advisor telling them what they should do next, so it would get into a good journal. I didn't see much back and forth dialog, if anything the students seemed scared to voice their opinions. Lab A meetings had plenty of discussion and A advisor asking us questions about how we would approach a problem, then working through it from there. I want a lab that encourages independent thinking and problem-solving, not where you're following orders from on high. To be clear, Lab A advisor is pretty hands off but more available, while Lab B advisor tends to be gone a lot and you won't see her more than once a week, period.
 
I've talked to the students extensively. Lab B has placed people in great postdocs, so Genentech student is the first to buck that trend, while Lab A has been more varied based on the students' interests. Lab B Genentech student also told me Lab A would give me great mentorship and an easier life, but I wouldn't get as high-impact publications, so it was up to me and what my goals were. I should note these labs have collaborated in the past, so I'm planning on floating the idea of collaborating on some of his project between lab A, lab B, and lab C at a nearby institution. And I'd like to have B advisor on my committee if possible, I do respect the hell out of her.
 
Onward and upward!

I was quite surprised by this as well since I'm coming from a Master's degree. I thought I'd be a bit on the older side but I'm glad to see that most of the applicants I interviewed with took some time off to do master's degrees or work as techs.

For the career section, resources mostly means money to directly support your research needs. It would depend on field. For me, this means money to buy me a new computer if necessary, money to send me to conferences, money to pay for lunch/dinner for students to meet with visiting scholars. Resources can also mean facilities -- access to libraries that have subscriptions to the right journals, facilities like telescope time (my current school owns 25% of one of the biggest telescopes in Hawaii, giving people here a huge advantage over researchers from other places; and my current school will own more of a future telescope than entire countries). Hope that clarifies!

I had a very hard time choosing between UCLA and UCSD. Since both schools have fantastic research, it really came down to which school I think I would be happier at, since I will be spending the rest of my 20's at grad school. I liked UCLA a lot since it was much more personal of an experience, and I feel like the graduate students there gave off a happier vibe. I also felt that the labs at UCLA are more graduate student driven, and I think that as graduate students we really need the attention of the PI in order to get the necessary training. I think UCSD would be a place that I'd be more interested in when I am looking for post-doc positions. 

In order to rank them, it really depends on what your priorities are in life. It might be hard to know at this stage though, so maybe I'll rank these factors into two different categories and then you can decide your balance.
 
Ranking of career-based factors:
1. Resources available to ensure your success. This is often but not always, correlated with name/prestige. I think this is the number one most important factor for your future career goals. What you actually do in a grad program will have way more influence on your post-degree success of course, however, what you are capable of doing in your grad program is very strongly linked to how much resources are available to graduate students. Another way to think about it is that you don't want to go to a place where the lack of resources limits your ability to be the best you can be. 
 
2. Fit / number of labs you're interested in. I would worry more about personality fit than research topic fit. Your relationship with your lab/PI is correlated with your happiness/productivity. It's much easier to change your own research interests than it is to change your working environment.
 
3. Prestige of the school in your subfield. This is related to #1 (although usually the amount of resources comes from amount of funding, which is more linked to overall reputation rather than subfield reputation). It's important to take advantage of opportunities to meet top scientists in your field when they visit for seminars, colloquia, etc. If you are at a lowly ranked school, you are not going to be able to attract as many of these visitors. Similarly, you will not attract as many candidates for postdocs and potential collaborators.
 
4. How established the graduate program is. I don't think this is a very important factor for career reasons. This is because older programs are not necessarily better--lots of old programs have crappy systems and/or policies that are wasteful/annoying/unfair because "that's the way it has always been". New programs can be innovative and have more modern/forward-thinking policies. Perhaps a better factor is "what is the work environment like?".
 
Ranking of personal factors:
1. Financial circumstances. I put this first because financial stresses are one of the worst types of stresses, in my opinion. I've experienced it first hand and from working with student groups on campus, I've learned that this is one of the most common sources of stress/mental health issues for most graduate students. However, I want to clarify that by "financial circumstances", I mean that it is very important that the answer to "Does the stipend provide enough for me to live?" is yes, but I wouldn't consider money above this to be important. That is, if all else being equal, I would not use this factor to give preference to a program that pays $1000/year higher.
 
2. Preference for location.
 
3. Resources available for you to achieve work-life balance. Again, this is often closely related to name/prestige. You want to know if any particular resources you might want to use are available. For example, I personally asked questions about parental leave, childcare subsidies, can they help my spouse find a job, etc. Others might be interested in medical leave, personal leave (e.g. if you have relatives you know you might have to take a leave to care for), does the health insurance cover the things you need, are there enough social activities for you etc.
 
---
 
It's up to you to decide how much to weigh each list. Personally, I weighed them equally. This means that I would not consider any program that did not meet the #1 factor in both lists!

I agree with this point. Every single interview I went to had at least one interviewer who had not read my application before they met me. I assume this was done on purpose (not b/c the professor was too lazy) but after you get to the interview, no one cares about your paper stats, but rather who you are as a person and your passion/enthusiasm for not only being AT the school you're interviewing at, but also for the field in general.
 
Addressing acetycholine directly, I remember a thread earlier in the season where you rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and from that thread I formed an impression that you're very self-centered. Your first impression to the people you interviewed with may have come across in a negative light and it could be something to work on. As someone recommended earlier in the thread, it may be a good idea to schedule a mock interview with someone you don't know personally and get feedback from them. If you've been through 6 interviews and haven't gotten a single acceptance, then there is something about the interview that rubbed adcoms the wrong way.