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I see. If they're already comfortable with Skype then most likely you're going to have to get a full laptop for them. Yes the laptop you linked is overpriced. By a lot, in fact. For instance, you could buy that same laptop and get a free TV for the exact same price: http://dealnews.com/Dell-i5-Dual-16-Touch-Laptop-32-720-p-HDTV-for-700-free-shipping/1326700.html As a rule of thumb, don't buy laptops directly from a manufacturer's website unless they're running some kind of deal (holidays, clearance, etc.) - they are often overpriced and carry hidden fees that don't show up until the final payment screen. Looking for deals on Google or buying from Amazon/Newegg is generally a better idea.

Did you try calling the administrative assistant? A lot of the time they can help you by letting you know if official offers have gone out, are being processed, etc. Additionally, I didn't get a physical official letter - only an unofficial offer came to me via snail mail. I had to check my application status portal to see my official letter of acceptance, so that may be something you want to check as well.

I would also go for the master's program, especially if it seems like you may be able to continue onto the PhD. I wouldn't even consider UCSD if you're not getting any funding - don't put yourself into crazy debt for a PhD, it's not worth it. A funded masters may open up even more doors for you down the road. If you're considering UW-Madison, maybe you could ask about the success rates for people that get off the probationary period? I would assume it's rather high but if it turns out to be a 50/50 shot of getting funding, I would say that's not really worth it either. As an aside, yes Urbana-Champaign is basically a college town with nothing around it but cornfields. It's a really nice campus though and the student body is really active.

I haven't started my program yet, but I'm in the same boat as you. I would say it's definitely acceptable to have a diversity in topics that you are interested in. I don't think anyone expects you to go into a PhD application/program and detail exactly what your dissertation will be on. I am like you in that I don't have a clear idea about what I want to focus on and from all the discussions I've had with professors, they said that was not a bad thing at all. Think of it like this - if you go into your program with an open mind, you'll be able to gain as much exposure to different subfields and topics as possible. You're not limited in the sense that you've already narrowed down your focus and who knows, you might even find a topic you love that you didn't even know existed! If you're excited by the research in your field from reading scientific journals, that's definitely a good sign. Hopefully you'll find something that truly captures your interest, but until then, keep reading those journals and staying open minded.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with this. There are definitely opportunities to perform lab-work in industry. My current boss (in industry) has a PhD and works alongside me and others that he manages (albeit with much less frequency than myself or those others). However, the general gist is probably correct - PhDs typically spend less time in the lab, more time pushing projects forward at a higher managerial level. I can't really comment on an industrial PhD program, because i'm not really sure what that is, but with a masters degree in Biology (I'm assuming a research component), you can be an RA or SRA (E2 or E3) at many biotech or pharmaceutical companies. This would most likely mean you don't get your own project to work on (SRAs usually get their own project), but rather are under the jurisdiction of your boss. The majority of the people I work with have at least a masters and are at the SRA (or above) level. I'm not entirely sure what this part means - are you asking how someone switches from academia to industry? Could you elaborate more about what you're concerned with this switch?

You're right it doesn't, but there are many alternatives as well as workarounds: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/3217430?hl=en and http://www.howtogeek.com/199857/how-to-use-skype-on-your-chromebook/ Not sure how tech savvy you are, but there are alternatives (such as Google Hangouts) that are supported fully on Chromebooks and are just as easy to use and helpful as Skype.

Speaking as someone who always opted to do the industry internship - I think it comes down to your specific needs. For example, do you need another LOR from a professor? A lot of the schools in my field said that only 1 LOR could come from my supervisors in industry. I would say that it doesn't really matter how big name the professors/institutions are since you're going to have publications already. If you haven't done any industry before, it might be a good idea to try the industry internship while you still have a chance to. It sounds like you really can't go wrong here though!

Don't know too much about differences, but a cursory search says battery life is a concern for the Flex 2 (manufacturer says 7 hrs, but tests say ~3 hrs) as well as weight for both is a bit hefty (or sturdy, if you'd prefer). For both laptops though, it seems the wireless card is rather weak. If you're looking to compare a deal for the Lenovo Flex 2, try checking out this deal (and others on the site): http://slickdeals.net/f/7786555-lenovo-flex-2-touch-screen-laptop-i7-4510u-8gb-ddr3-500gb-hdd-8gb-sshd-14-1920x1080-led-touch-549-with-free-shipping?v=1 or: http://slickdeals.net/f/7786583-lenovo-refurbished-flex-2-touchscreen-laptop-i5-4210-6gb-ddr3-15-6-1080p-led-500gb-375-or-1tb-402?v=1 If you only anticipate your parents using Skype, this is fine. It's a bit pricey for what you're getting, I would try to see if you can get a deal on this or a similar model. I would recommend a chromebook for just day-to-day activities + Skype, as they are much cheaper (often <$200) and are long-lasting as well.

I know them feels. Talking to the professors that wrote my LORs (and thus am reasonably close with), they said that many grad students go through this, so I'm (and you! and the reader of this!) not alone. You just have to remember that you were chosen for a reason - these are not decisions that people make lightly, so you can be confident in your abilities! One of the professors also gave me a bit of hilarious advice: Fake it till you make it. It seems oddly apt...

On the baby topic, I feel like my viewpoint has changed dramatically. Coming out of undergrad I couldn't even imagine having a kid or settling down in any fashion (not being in a relationship notwithstanding...). After working in a company for a year and being surrounded by people either settling down or having babies (sometimes second babies!), I can feel my opinion about it changing. I see how happy having a child and a settled, committed relationship has made them, and I feel more than a little jealous. Obviously I don't see the 4 am wake-up to a crying baby or the fresh brown trout in a child's Huggies every morning, but everyone that i've talked to says that having a child has changed their entire lives for the better. Now, this isn't to say that I'm going to jump into a relationship with the explicit intention to have a child (baby steps, people.), but I can definitely feel myself changing my opinion about having a child, settling down, etc. Maybe... just maybe... is this what they call growing up?!?!?! Just kidding (...I think).

I went to Berkeley for undergrad and had an amazing time. The school has a lot of um... personality and diversity, with a vibrant/energetic community. It sounds like you would enjoy your time more at Cal than at MIT and that sounds like a pretty large factor to me. As far as grad school in general goes, you always read/hear about people who question themselves and their work during grad school, but you're already questioning this decision? It sounds like maybe you need more time to sort out your feelings for your career. Just an aside, people with MDs can still do research - you don't need a PhD to do research, strictly speaking. In fact, many med schools require research on the side (during the summer, etc.).

I had a similar situation to you. Typed up the email at work and just left it for the entire day. I finally hit send at the end of the day, after struggling to hit that blue button. Definitely experiencing a bit of buyer's remorse in the sense that after committing to one program, I start to question that decision. I think the important thing to remember is that you chose the program you chose for specific reasons and it might be helpful to reflect on why you chose that school! Obviously it had a lot of positives about it, try getting excited about those positives

The salt is so real. How the hell does a horoscope tell you what school you should apply to?

Without knowing what is important to you, it is difficult to give you any advice, really. Do you like big cities? How did the professors fit with your research interests at each school? Did the current graduate students at each school seem happy? I think it's a little unreasonable to just throw three schools out and ask complete strangers to pick one for you. Would you really want our opinion without first providing more information?

It seems that rejections as well as acceptances come in waves. At least for med school, I know that the waitlist is often ranked in terms of tiers - they pull from each tier to reassess candidates after they decide they need to. I wouldn't be surprised if waitlists for grad school worked in a similar fashion. This would seem to imply (pure speculation on my part) that after the first wave of acceptances and rejections go out, and then enough acceptances turn that school down, they pull from the waitlist. It seems that the adcom might meet again at this point to go over the waitlist and determine another set of acceptances/rejections/interviews. After they decide this, they send out all these offers/rejections and that's why you see waves of notifications. It's probably the easiest way for them to operate (read:schedule) without literally ranking every single person that comes to interview/every application. If you haven't heard back from the school, chances are you're on the waitlist and the school is saying "application under review" to keep you around. To be fair, the waitlist for a school is often just a safety measure for them - most schools send out a larger amount of acceptances than they have spots for in anticipation of people not accepting.

I suggest you give them a call. Sometimes application decisions just fall through the cracks or they're possibly going to send it out today. It's close enough to the decision date (April 15th) that you shouldn't feel bad asking for a definitive answer.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is a ChromeBook - extremely cheap alternatives (like, <$200) to laptops that serve most people's day to day functions. If you only use it for .pdf reading, MS office, youtube, and netflix then it will definitely serve your purposes. Battery life is incredibly long (because it's very minimalist) and extremely light as well. A couple of factors to look for otherwise (non ChromeBook), mentioned above, is SSD, RAM and processor. SSDs are becoming extremely inexpensive - there's really no reason to not get one. Especially if you don't play video games, you could probably get by with a low amount of storage (<300 GB) and then invest in an external drive if you need more space. RAM is used if you like having a lot of windows open, especially if you use Google Chrome (RAM-intensive) and keep like 50 tabs open (*shudder*) or Photoshop/Image processors. Processor is pretty obvious, but to be honest, you won't notice it too much. I've seen i5 mentioned and there's no doubt that it's a very solid processor, but if you're trying to save money feel free to switch to AMD processors - usually much cheaper (sometimes 1/2 the price for same power).

Got my wisdom teeth out last year so I know the pain Did your dentist give you one of those larger syringes to direct water flow at the sockets? That's what I used to rinse my sockets out with salt water every night, seemed to work.

First off, congrats on your acceptances! I think you should put your happiness first in all respects to choosing a grad school. For me that would be fit - do I fit into a specific lab (or labs) and can see myself doing really good work there for the next 5-7 years of my life? The next criteria would be location - you'll be living there for the next 5-7 years. If you really can't deal with cold, but are going to get a PhD in Boston well... I have some bad news for you. Do you like small cities vs big cities? West coast vs east coast? I personally don't really care about name/prestige (to an extent, of course) because it's all about what you do during your time at the program and what you do WITH your degree afterwards. My advice to you would be to create a numbered list of the things that are most important to you and then see how these two schools fit in to this criteria. I'm having the same trouble as you, deciding where I want to go, and it's a very distracting procedure! One day i'll be so set on school A, then change my mind when I wake up the next day.

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.

I laughed at the "cuddly" part. Never actually heard anyone describe PIs like that before! I currently work at Genentech, and I can say that if you're really looking to get into the company as a postdoc or directly from your PhD program, publication does matter a lot. Many of the labs here are run by PIs that work as those coldly efficient labs you described in B. However, if you want to work your way up to a company like Genentech, many people take the route of working at a smaller company and building experience there, and then applying for a job at a more well known company (Pfizer, Genentech, Gilead, etc.) once their work experience speaks for themselves. In that sense I would say you should choose A so that you'll for sure be very comfortable, passionate, and knowledgeable about your project. Also, being able to research what you want is important as well - you'll be able to choose something you genuinely care about. I would personally talk to the students currently in both labs (you probably have) about their perception of job prospects after being in their respective labs. If possible, try to contact the people that have left the labs as well in order to better get an idea of if those "perceived benefits" are real. Personally speaking, I would choose lab B and hope that you get that project you're really interested in. But I can definitely see picking A as the comfortable lab. Either way, it's all about how hard you work in the labs and what you do during your time there.

University Of North Carolina Wilmington Creative Writing, MFA (F15) Rejected via E-mail on 26 Mar 2015 26 Mar 2015 Just in case I didn't understand the first rejection email, they sent me a second 247one today. Duh - I get it! You don't want me! Honestly the people who send out the rejection emails/mail really ought to know better, knowing we all put our emotional well being into these applications...

I suppose it's a different process in Canada, but speaking as someone who had a sub-3.0 gpa in undergrad, the best way to distance yourself from your GPA is with other strong stats (e.g. GRE, work experience, etc.). I had a lot of internships and took a gap year to do research in order to bolster my profile and speaking to a few people on adcoms, they said that while my gpa was a risk, the rest of my application was quite strong. The best advice I can give you is to try and get some work in the field of public health - work in someone's lab at a university if possible to get experience in the field and then re-apply to MPH programs or nursing programs (if that's your passion) in the future. Don't be afraid to take a few years to work. I agree with Saila09 though, don't feel as if you're doomed, there is always another path to succeed in whatever field you want to. It just takes hard work, time, and a little bit a luck.

Seconded. The people I talked to about applications look at grades and GRE of course, but they're mostly concerned with experience and enthusiasm. At the interviews I went to no one said a word about my GPA (sub 3.0), but instead raved about my LoRs and work experience.

I think you should go to Michigan. As Ixwllms said, once you get past top 10 (congrats, btw!) the margin of difference is so razor thin. If you think you have a better research fit at Michigan, you should weigh that more heavily. At this point it's really all about where you think you'd be happiest, regardless of ranking. As an aside, another factor to consider is the location - do you have a preference for Urbana-Champaign versus Ann Arbor? And I guess... do you like yellow and blue or orange and blue more? (That last part is a joke)