biochemgirl67

Fingers crossed in the next few days for Vanderbilt! I saw they released their first round last year at this time.

For a second I maybe thought you went to my undergrad and had to suffer through BBMB 301 where the poor students have 40% averages on exams. (It's for non-majors) But I don't think you graduated from ISU. As long as it's the one bad grade, it's not worth the time to explain. I didn't explain my C+ in Physics I. I let my A- in Physics II speak for itself. I still hold it against the physics department though.

OMG I KNOW. Don't worry, we're all in freakout mode anyway!

The GSAS one? I freaked out and called them because it didn't have a check mark beside one of my letters but it said received... They were unconcerned. Also, my school doesn't do that. For a university of science and friggin technology you would think they would. Biosciences would have accepted it. What programs notify mid-December?

Haha I thought they might be. Although my friend and I are both applying to Stanford and it feels like the sheer amount of hoops you jump through is an automatic rejection in and of itself. I'm still mad I had to FedEx 2 copies of my transcript to them. So I could see them sending out a letter telling you that you shouldn't bother! :P

Where did this happen? And was it this cycle? I've never heard of anyone getting treated like this and it kind of is terrifying.

Where did you apply? It seems odd that any program would turn away a student before review has even begun.

Oh makes sense. The Harvard students that were there did that as well. WHAT? Ugh. My physics class was not only engineering physics but it was designed to fail everyone out. They reserved the right to take away points! (Still mad about that...) But I'm trying not to think about all these apps even though I'm on here talking about them!

Where did you do yours, if you don't mind me asking? (And I know, Harvard is all they claim to be and more. For us bioscience people, Longwood Campus is AH-mazing. I really felt completely honored to work there, even though the traffic getting into work was bad. :P)

And I think your LORs will be a great match for your application. If an applicant had a choice to have 3 research LORs, that would be the best case scenario. I really tried to make an impression through my REU and Amgen so even though I was only there for a bit, they could still talk about my abilities. FINGERS CROSSED THAT IT WORKED. But if I didn't, I was going to have a professor that taught my molecular signaling grad course and graded my NIH grant I wrote write my letter. Like I said, you have to use your best judgement and trust it. I agree with your side note. Everybody IRL says I have a great chance at getting into the schools but here, sheesh, I don't have a 3.9! Ah well, we'll all be biting our fingernails together I guess!

I know, right??? I don't want to settle but I want to get in somewhere. Amgen was one of the best experiences of my career/life and I feel like maybe it ruined me for everything but the best. UGH. There's all these people on here with 3.9 GPAs and I echo your feelings of average. Good luck to you too!

Calm yourself! It isn't a big deal... what IS important is that they know your research capabilities. A research committee is NOT going to go, "Oh, we don't know their name offhand, NOPE." And trust me, working for both well known and lesser known people, sometimes the famous people know you least. Although 2 of my letters are from summer PIs, I tried to make an impression of them. You should go with as much research as possible, though.

I think it's too late to get any other letters. However, I will say that letters are one of the most important parts of the application and it would have really been better to have 3 research letters, although you know your situation best. Trust the judgement you made because you can't change it.

See I thought that with my experience that they were not actually unthinkable schools. Now I'm freaking out that maybe I overestimated myself. ARGH I WANT IT TO BE JANUARY.

All my applications are in and while I'm relieved, I'm... anxious. I'm having big time regret for applying to the caliber of schools I did and a serious freak out about my lack of back up plan. What if I get in nowhere? What if my experience last summer spoiled everything and all I want is Harvard and I can't get in? Ugh. Please tell me I'm not alone in feeling a bit like I'm in limbo. And does anyone know when we can realistically hope to hear back from the admissions committees? One of mine says late December! (University of Washington)

UPDATE: I got my home university to FedEx out two copies to Stanford... thanks extra $25 fee. Stanford said that because I had the upload, my file would be reviewed. And while it's a relief, it's also ticking me off that I have to have a meltdown over 2 official transcript hard copies when you are required to upload an official copy.

Oh I hope so. They were super nasty on the website and same "critical" like five times about getting things in. Hopefully my home university will work with me or they will. I'm praying to every deity known to mankind and hoping one has TRANSCRIPT POWERS. It's like I can't win with these California schools.

And now there is more drama. I did not see the "send in 2 hard copy transcripts" to the Stanford Biosciences office. It's not going to get there in time. I'm so so mad at myself. This is horrible.

I'm mildly freaking out! I went to go check my statuses and on my UCSF BMS application it said my transcript has not been attached. WHHHHHYYYYYYY. So I emailed the guy that they said to email last night and the BMS program this morning with the file and an explanation. I'm really unhappy. This is horrible. There's no time to mail it with the holiday and I'm worried that now they won't look at my application. Any wisdom or support would be helpful. It'll all work out, right? I didn't just kill my application to one of my top choices?

I mean, the deadlines are approaching so the amount of work you're gonna need to do to get appropriate SOPs and everything for each school at this point is staggering. If you were domestic this wouldn't be a consideration because you'd be a super strong applicant. But you aren't domestic so I would recommend pulling in some lower level, less brand name schools. It's not that you're not strong, it's that international applicants are not held to the same standards because there is less money. I would choose at most 3 of the following: Stanford, UCSF, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Cornell, UCD, or NYU. Replace the others with schools like University of Iowa, Brandeis University, University of Oregon, Oregon State University, University of Utah, Texas A&M, Iowa State University, Ohio State, etc. These are great schools that will still be hard to get into but you have a better chance here.

I'm so sorry, I misread it and thought it said, "REU-type thing." Which is what people say at my university when they are trying to say their summer lab assistant job at their lab was more than it really was. I literally had some guy freshman year tell me he got an REU as a freshman to stay at the university when all he did was wash dishes. And the only reason people found out was because he was running around saying the genetics department picked him specially for his wide array of talents.

And all the labs that I've researched in have treated lab techs as workhorses without the creativity allowance that the grad students enjoy. I don't know if maybe it is a discipline thing, but lab techs don't design experiments, they perform them. And that is a trait that PIs expect in the grad students; someone who has the ability and inclination to design experiments and projects rather than someone who keeps animal stocks, does genotyping, makes competent cells, cultures stocks, etc. I was just making the point of to not get too excited at this stage because any PI the OP contacts will probably wonder why they are being contacted at this point. The lab tech I worked with in Boston got the job through her graduating university for 2-3 years before med school. That would really be a place to start with your university's(or any university you have worked at) connections to labs and institutions rather than cold emailing the PIs. But then, take my advice with a grain of salt; I'm a person that actually doesn't agree with all the emailing of grad students/faculty at prospective programs. I think it is presumptive and can be annoying. I lean more conservatively toward emailing the program director if you truly have questions, not just if you want an in, as so many people on this site seem to do. Your dedication to improvement and accumulated experience will shine through without the emails, believe me. But again, I'm sure there are people who would disagree and encourage emailing and contacting. It's really up to you.

I would say you are over-exciting yourself with dreams of the future. Even if you were to get a job in one of these labs, it does not mean that much for grad school. The qualities a PI looks for in a grad student are completely different than the ones for a lab assistant. And that's what you would be. Your best shot would be to try and get a real job. It'll show that you're focused and give you a tangible reason for going back to school. Oh and BTW no REU programs accept graduated seniors. And most of them too have a strong 3.0 cutoff. Not to be picky, but if you have an REU experience with the kinds of grades you have and the described fairly limited experience, it just leaves me wondering. Was it a real REU or something else? You don't have to answer, but the way you represent yourself in the dialog you have with grad schools eventually will give them a peek into your personality; are you humbly seeking greater education or are you amplifying your past and trying to make excuses? Again, I'm not trying to be harsh so please do not think so.

What kind of strict cut-offs have you been hearing about??? I applied there and it's like a dark horse for me... I don't know much.

Unless you had a unique experience (ie I worked in Botswana at a medical clinic for HIV/AIDS or the like) or you spend only a couple sentences on your mom's condition, it's not worth it. It might work for a hook, however, if you can make it strong. "I listened to the doctor explain XXX syndrome to my mother; there were words I recognized from biology and many I didn't. As she processed her diagnosis, I interjected, asking more about XXX"