eeee1923

low level

Business casual (no tie needed) is good enough, especially in the cases where you've already been accepted to the program. At this point they are trying to get you to accept their offer.

I'm also finding myself in a similar situation - I'll be setting up a decision matrix in the next few weeks to aid in making the best decision. Good luck.

top down

hold on

stand up

Pink Floyd

smart outfit

new town

"So you'll go to school X since it's close to your family, right?"

metal jacket

fruit snack

Yup as soon as I got my acceptances, I've started to lose all motivation to do any work. Too bad I need to pay my rent and bills.

Award shows. The winners tend to "act" like they had no idea that they would win. Come on, really.

belt loop

Also ask the average time that students take to complete the degree, how many years of funding are students guaranteed, is a TAship required. Things along those lines in addition to the above points.

political scandal

pirate bay

organic food

chemistry major

soap box

Intended Program: Pharmacology (Cancer Research focus) 1) Research Interest/Fit and PI's available (i.e with funding) 2) Research Facilities 3) Cost of living 4) Program Environment (do the students and profs get along, collaborations, etc.) 5) School Program Ranking (Higher rank tend to have better facilities and networking opportunities that will help with future goals) 6) Weather (I want to live somewhere warmer) 7) Distance from Home (I wouldn't want to go ridiculously far from my family for 4-5 yrs, maybe for postdoc) 8) School overall ranking (name only gets one so far) 9) Professor status (e.g., well-known or not) - PIs having funding and conducting cool research is more important IMO than how famous they are 10) having worked with (AND LOVING) your advisor prior to application (This is almost of no real concern since I've never worked with any of the PIs I looked at)

board games

- Extremely strong LORs, especially from profs, PI, and mentors that either attended, personally knew someone, or had previously taught at the institutes I had applied - Writing a strong SOP for each program, clearly demonstrating that I knew what the degree would entail and that I had adequate preparation (especially in my case where my BS & MS degrees weren't in the standard fields of study that many of the applicants coming in had - though that may have worked to my advantage) - Having 4.5 years of research experience. Even though some of the research was not in the area I'm going into - the transferable skills that I gained were viewed quite favorably. Plus by the PhD level, one should be self-motivated enough to learn material they had not previously studied if it would help with their research. - Keeping a high GPA and doing quite well on the GRE. Now I list these points last since the typical applicant in the programs I applied to already possessed these qualifications and thus I feel the first three bullets held more weight in the application process.

One thing that I've been surprised with is how fast some of the programs reach a decision. Also the corollary of how slow some programs are in the aforementioned decisions.