notsaxophones

Oh dear. Now I'm a little worried. I'm flying out to Seattle for two interviews back to back. I was planning on visiting my cousin, because Tuesday everything ends with one program, and everyone else for that interview flies home. The second program's activities don't start until Wednesday at 6 pm, because that is when the students for that program are flying in. If I'm doing other things while neither interview set is either occurring, that shouldn't hurt me, right?

So I realize that honesty is always best, but that's something I would wait to bring up until after you are accepted. I wouldn't want to give them any reason to not accept you. I realize that purposely avoiding mentioning a conflict might be sketchy, so people who are actually in attendance might have a better contribution, but I'm even avoiding telling people that I'm planning a wedding for the summer after my first year. Why? Because I don't want it to look like I'll be trying to do too many things.

For some interviews, I didn't even talk to the professors about my their research. I had 6 people I met with at Ohio State, and I think I only talked about the specific research occurring in the lab with 3 of the professors. What I found is that you REALLY need to have questions about the program ready, and if you can explain your research in an interesting manner, they may just keep on asking you questions about your research. Or other things that your lab does that are in no way size shape or form related to your research (that happened twice, glad I've been in this lab for 4 years, lol) And I don't know how competitive your school is to get into, but for one guy who worked with animal models (which I am not interested in), I just admitted to him that I've never worked with animal models and am not sure if I want to - but then turned around and asked him how working with the animals works in his lab, so that I could understand how these things I've never done before work in real life. There is always a way to show you are interested in "how things work", whether or not you actually want to work with it - just put a positive spin on it! (And yes, that's the one school I've been accepted to so far) EDIT: Meant to type "their" research -- but there were also two professors who I didn't talk about my research with either! (One was a collaborator of my lab, so we talked about the project he collaborates on; the other had attended a conference where I gave a talk and I had asked to interview with him so that I could essentially have a break to chat with someone I had met before)

What I've found is some people are very flexible in rescheduling you. I had initially told U Washington's MCB program that I would attend their first interview weekend, and we booked a flight. then U Washington's micro program invited me to interview and if I switched to the MCB's second weekend, i could attend the Micro program's first weekend and only have to fly to Seattle once. I felt really awkward calling to ask if there was any chance they could move me, and they were more than happy to do it. This could be a special scenario, however, as the MCB program now only has to pay for half of the flight

Got an official acceptance from Osu! This should make the other interviews a little less stressful

I think I got accepted to Ohio State - their online "appstatus" thing says I've been offered admission, but I haven't gotten any emails yet. Anyone else hear anything from their micro department?

I brought copies of everything but didn't need anything. I also only talked to two out of six professors about their research - we only had a half an hour per professor and the two who did talk about their research had either heard me give a talk before or were a collaborator of my lab. This was however likely the most casual interview I will have - it was ohio. Also they sent me my schedule on monday, I met with everyone on friday. One thing I noticed was that every 15 minutes I was asked if I had any questions about the program.

So at the interview I went to, we had a dinner with the students and they told us they were going out afterwards and invited us. And they made sure to say "your interviews are officially over, you're not obligated to come and choosing to go back to the hotel won't impact your acceptance at all". About half of us crashed, the other half went out. Unless it was a dance bar (salsa or swing), I would have been just as dead at the bar as I was at dinner (about half of us were nearly asleep and struggling with small talk, and the other half were chatting quite rapidly).

Well if you have any questions on how the weekend goes let me know, I'd be happy to share my experience

Which osu program? Will you be at the micro recruitment this weekend?

I dont know about all invites but at least some have. Their first interview weekend is Feb 8-10 and the other is later in February. So you should hear pretty soon I would assume

Sorry guys, on mobile, hit submit before I could figure out how to write a post haha

For the shoe question, I probably tried on every pair of black dress shoes at designer shoe warehouse. And then finally went to jcpenny and found a pair of comfortable ankle boots that have a 1" heel that is very thick. Theyre not quite as dressy but boots are my thing. The brand is yuu and they have some other dressy shoes, and cost less than brands such as Clarks

I had an issue with a ticket being non-refundable for Washington's MCB program, but they're willing to pay a cancelation fee for me. My situation is that I just received an interview from their Microbiology program and if I switched weekends for the MCB program, I could fly to seattle once and stay for a week, rather than flying to and from multiple times. I thought it was a long shot calling to request a change but as soon as I told them that I had a second interview that would line up with the other weekend, they immediately told me that it would make so much more sense to come to the second weekend. So if you're not flat-out cancelling people are surprisingly understanding.

University of Washington Micro interview! Their interview weekends are Feb 8-10 or Feb 22-24, so Sunday-Monday-Tuesday. Not sure how to schedule this quite yet, haha

In general I don't think they expect gifts (that's what they all told me after I gave them one, haha), but I always do something handmade - Because I was home over christmas I got the chance to make caramels, so I wrapped a couple dozen caramels for each letter writer and put them in a nice tin. Simple, but it still shows that I appreciate what they did for me. My letter writers are also on my honors thesis committee, so I will probably do something else after I graduate for them as well.

Inorganic lecture/lab, biochemistry, microbial genetics, and cell biology for fall semester....Inorganic here is the "Dreaded course" and is considered to be death even without any other science courses

Where I do my undergrad, "full-time student" status is 12-17 credits. I've taken between 14-18 each semester, but 1 credit is always band and the past two years I've used research for 3 credits each semester. So 14 "real credits" One tip, for those who are less math-oriented, all of the programs I considered would accept 1 semester of calculus and 1 of statistics instead of 2 of calculus, which is something to consider.

Not this thursday, my interview weekend is the 16th (I applied to the Microbiology program)

I'm waiting on Washington's Micro program also...all of my other programs got back to me the week of Dec 15 so the waiting is killing me! I'm hoping that if I get an interview there the interview days aren't Thursday/Friday like for their MCB program...I'm an undergrad so having to leave on Wednesday morning means I miss all of my Wed/Thurs classes (I realize this isn't a big deal in the long run, but I still find it stressful)

Oh no. I hadn't heard that. I have almost three weeks between two of my interviews.

Wisconsin-Madison interview! I have a question for everyone So I'm free for either of their interview weekends. Is it better to go to the first interview weekend? Or is it okay to ask for the second one even if I could go to the first one? The reason that I ask is because the weekend before Madison's first option, I have an interview in Seattle, WA. I don't want to burn myself out going to two in a row, especially because the first involves flying and I tend to have bad luck with getting stuck in airports for forever. Any advice?

I may have the same problem as you - I applied to UW Microbiology (haven't heard from them yet) and MCB because you can join the same microbiology labs with each! I had originally intended on just applying to Micro, but a friend told me to apply to MCB because they accept more people. My plan is to go to both, if i get an interview at both - for each I listed 6 faculty in the micro department I'm interested in and I doubt I'll get to interview with everyone at just one of the weekends.

It probably depends on the program. Wash MCB said "I look forward to hearing from you today!" in the closer of the email, so i assumed I had to get back to them ASAP. Ohio State said to reply by 5pm on the 21st. I guess if the program is more competitive it is better to reply ASAP

I'm sorry to hear that I looked at your stats and I'm surprised because you have a lot of papers....I have none. I keep thinking "Oh, this former labmate of mine got into WashU DBBS a few years ago that means I can!" Then I remember "Former labmate has a first author paper in science. crap." (and numerous 2nd and 3rd author publications)