biochemgirl67

I'm glad she's found a passion for disease! But. Scientific study is wawaaaaaay more than witnessing a loved one succumb to an awful disease, especially at a graduate level. In fact, if she were to apply directly to biology graduate programs, her personal statement would be so nonspecific and lack compelling evidence of an aptitude and affinity for science. It's so much more than being smart, and that's what she has no knowledge of right now. The study of science, in terms of research, involves so much failure that many highly intelligent people actually don't like it. So. Maybe she could get into a master's program somewhere, probably at a not that great school. But what actually might help her career is to go back to undergrad at a more prestigious university, get involved in long term research, and then decide where she wants to go. Then she'll have better options.

Um, your question is kind of a moot point. But we'll get there. First, you say nothing of fit. As a master's student you should be more mature, generally speaking, than your undergrad co-applicants and understand that you need to find programs with faculty that fit your interests. There should be several in any program you apply to just in case you can't rotate with some of your top choices. That being said, I can try to answer your question. You're international, I'm guessing, and that can limit you in the US. If you are indeed an international student, you will need to apply outside the "Top 30" because both your GPAs are low for that demographic. I can't tell if your research in your master's program makes up for that. You can apply to a couple reach schools with the high ranking but honestly I would focus on less famous/brand name schools and find maybe state universities with R1 status. So many people make the mistake of applying too high... You have to be a strong applicant to apply to top schools feasibly... Otherwise you run the risk of having no options in a year's time. Which, in my opinion (if it's worth anything), could easily happen given the application profile you've shared if you focus on top 10-30.

I think before the applications are in and options are still open, it's really important to be honest. After the applications are in and it's a done deal, however, it might cause undue stress on the poor person sitting there thinking oh my god what am I going to do. Right now, honesty can change something. After submission, it's kind of just up in the air and not in the applicant's hands to worry about. Most people will search out other options by the end of January if they haven't heard back if they overshot in all their programs. Basically it's a timing thing of whether or not I think it's worth it to tell the person their choices don't have a great chance of working out to their best advantage. And all these people apply to the top 10 programs but honestly don't realize the whole game is a fit search. I did not like any of the more "prestigious" schools I visited more than or as much as Vanderbilt. The school you don't consider your top choice (Vanderbilt for me) may actually be your top choice in the end so people might as well diversify their list based on fit. So yeah, I wouldn't tell some poor anxious applicant he wasn't gonna get in anywhere if he had already submitted. But now, I would definitely be more blunt about how your record, precluding special circumstances, does indeed affect your acceptance.

I'm concerned that as a master's student you have a 3rd author paper... At least the ones i knew would have one by the end of their thesis. But other than that, of course you have a shot at those schools. Especially since I'm assuming you have a mentor who will vouch well for you currently. But to be safe, I would definitely expand your applications to more than 4 schools. And focus on fit more than anything!

You're very right. I don't know why everyone is downvoting your comment, especially since honesty is essential before this guy goes and spends all that money and time on applications. @Dank you could take the Biology or even better biochemistry/Molecular Biology subject test to put off your GPA issues. NO LETTERS FROM POST DOCS. That is not an option. If you don't have any letters from a faculty member that has overseen your research or a supervisor in industry, you are 100% going to need to diversify a lot. Maybe focus on fit and reach out to potential mentors beforehand to not waste your time.

I took both semesters of P chem and I don't think you really need it. As mentioned before, you could ask if you want to. If you are interested in structural biology, it might be a good idea just to be able to understand the fundamentals of biophysics. But I get it! I hate physics, hate my biophysics class, and generally want nothing to do with physics. BUT. I did enjoy my quantum mechanics class quite a bit. Thermodynamics, which was my 2nd semester of P chem, was really boring. Honestly, I found taking specialized biology courses and grad courses much more helpful. Immunology, medical microbiology, virology, molecular signaling, molecular genetics. These high level classes will introduce you deeply to areas of molecular biology and, if you take a grad level course, you will probably get introduced to literature review which is one of the most important skills outside of experimentation and science you will learn. HIGHLY recommend finding a publication-based class in an area of your interest to try your hand at what journal clubs, grad classes, and researching for your thesis will be like. I took 4 before applying and it really helped me to explain what I liked and why, even if it was outside of what I currently do. (FYI I took immunology, molecular signaling, molecular genetics, and nucleic acid biochemistry as my publication-based classes before applications. They were also graduate level. I took like 9 grad classes total, I think, before application. But that's completely over the top!)

I just realized that I'll actually need less than I think... by a lot. I'm going to look into some options, but I really should only need $1500 - $2000 and will be able to totally cover it with my first-day bonus.

Can anyone talk about loan options? I don't have a maxed out credit card, no student debt, and will have a first day bonus if $2000. The bank said we could do student loans at another bank or a personal loan. How hard is it to qualify for those student loans? What would you do? I was planning on needing a good chunk of money since I'll be trying to get a single apartment to prepare for my fiance to move at the end of the first semester. Like ~$5000? My parents won't help but are helping with moving costs.

Hey me too! I think my inner, "wow I do not like this place omg please let me go home" probably was visible. Good luck to anyone on the waitlist who wants to go there!

If every up and coming applicant could see this, I would be so happy. I just think so much gets lost in the name game! I just gave a presentation to the Biochem club tonight about summer research, graduate applications, and life and feel like so many people forget that a name isn't even the half of it.

I'm so happy! I've been dying to write the email to them and accept!!!! Thank you guys! I'm so happy. Me a year ago couldn't even imagine feeling like I would want to turn down names like Princeton and Rockefeller for Vanderbilt, but I have no reservations. funding, fit, research, location, atmosphere, connections... for me, Vanderbilt has it all!

It's so weird, it happened so quickly. I got the text and next thing I knew, I was canceling the entire trip. I don't want to go to Rockefeller and I can tell by how relieved I am that I don't have to go and deal with it and try to seem interested. They are a great school but I just feel so comfortable about Vanderbilt and Nashville. AHHHHHHHHHH

So... American canceled my flights to Rockefeller and rebooked me on a flight that left today... at 2:15 pm. So I called them and I literally couldn't get a flight into New York without paying $300 more. I cancelled my flights and got a refund and am not going to Rockefeller. Weirdly enough, I feel relieved. I knew I didn't want to live in NYC. And now, I get to email Vanderbilt tomorrow morning to accept!

But it's also good to get more reasons why that is your first choice! Every time I went somewhere else, I found more reasons to fall in love with Vanderbilt. Especially my other top choice, UW. It was really a great experience getting to compare the two. Future grad students, only go on four or five interviews. For your sake! I got suuuuuper sick from all the traveling and ended up in Seattle feeling (and acting) like a snot-filled, sinus infected, congested zombie. Successive weekends sounds great but can actually be exhausting.

So I'm going to put this on here before this thread before the new cycle of people get here... THIS IS TOTALLY 100% TRUE. You, before you apply and even begin to look at programs, need to sit down with yourself and decide what are your priorities. Do you want a med school attached? Do you want a highly independent program where you are left to your own devices? Do you want a program with mostly famous PIs? What type of location do you want? What is your personal life like and how will this affect where you live, work expectations, etc? How do you want to handle your finances? Do you want to commute or live next to campus? Once you get done with priorities, you need to decide where you'll be competitive. I think either people have no idea (and therefore apply to like 12-15 schools) or overshoot and apply to too many top programs for their profile. Your most important aspect of your profile is your research experience. Was it long-term? Did you get results? Did you do conferences/papers/poster sessions/presentations? NO COURSEWORK WILL BE APPLICABLE HERE. I've sometimes seen people try to pass a class-based project off but it doesn't count, unfortunately. Not unless you wrote a grant or paper or something that then got accepted by the NSF/NIH or a journal. Now, we've talked before about if GPA is important. Simply put, it is, but it isn't the end-all, be-all. If you're going for Harvard/MIT/UCSF/Caltech/Rockefeller, you're going to need a great GPA. Although adcoms do know that personal situations, course difficulty, and other things can affect it. Generally speaking *FOR TOP PROGRAMS*, over a 3.5 is good, 3.75 and up is great, and 3.9+ is fantastic. However, if your science/major GPA is higher than your overall, make sure you point that out on your CV. Mine was, and significantly. (3.76 cGPA/3.86 science GPA) GPA matters, but if you have a low one, get great recommendations! It'll go a long way. Actually, just have great recommendations in general. 3 from your supervising research mentors would actually be ideal. Grad school is much less about classwork than research and your GPA can demonstrate your academic success. It's really important to be honest with yourself about where you're competitive. If you're not, you could end up with a disappointing cycle. But the most crucial part is to combine your priorities with institutions where you'll be competitive. Myself, I applied to 7 places and I actually should not have applied to UCSF and Stanford based on my priorities... I wanted to live with relatively low financial debt during this time with a relatively high quality of life in an interesting area. Based on my knowledge of the Bay Area, that would have been difficult to do with the cost of living there. But all in all, I think that I chose schools at which I was relatively competitive and was fairly successful. If you narrow it down like this, you will have an easier time deciding on where you want to go. I have had a really clear vision of how I want to live for the next five years. I want to have a supportive environment with a PI that is around to help mentor me through this. I want to be able to live near a city center to be close to the excitement of city life. I don't mind having to have a car. I want to be able to afford to live where I live without huge credit card bills. I want an institution with a good name/reputation so I can go to a good post-doc. I also want an institution with a high degree of collaboration and dynamic research in molecular signaling in disease. It actually hasn't been a difficult decision thus far and I only have the final interview which is in NYC (and I'm like 90% sure I'm not a NYC girl :P). And I would NOT want to do more than the 4 interviews I have so far. Good luck, young padawans. (Oh and feel free to PM me if you want. I'm just going to be relaxing all summer anyway)

To be honest, UCSF, Weill Cornell, and Rockefeller might be stretches based on your GPA. However, that doesn't mean you should not apply to them! But I would add Vanderbilt IGP, Emory, UTSW, and maybe like University of Wisconsin or University of Washington. These have great programs that are really competitive. You may need to apply to 12 to get a good range of interviews especially if you add big names like Harvard later but if you can afford it, go for it! You can see my results below and I have a degree in biochemistry with minors in microbiology, 3.76/3.86 cumulative/major GPA, 30 credits of graduate coursework, two years of a long term project plus two summers at other institutions and 3 letters of rec, 1 from each of my research mentors. I would personally recommend narrowing your application list down to like 7 or 8 that you KNOW are decent fits research wise and that you have a chance of getting into. Because let me tell you, 4 interviews is already a lot. I don't know people do 7+.

Oh no! I wish I hadn't had a conflict and could have gone last weekend. I was going off what they said in their email a while back but certainly the percents will change. I really really hope that everything turns out okay.

I'm not sure about UCSD specifically, but most schools usually extend acceptances expecting about 50% to acccept. Most interviews end early March, so my guess is that accepted applicants will start making official decisions mid-March. Of course this is all speculation as I have no experience with interviews. For what it's worth, UW Immunology has stated they accept ~2/3 of interviewees (so 20/30 people) and 5-7 matriculate. I think this is probably pretty standard given how much the schools sell themselves. At Vanderbilt, they had ~30 people per weekend and in the past have had like 5 interview weekends. They also pretty much guaranteed to everyone on my (first) weekend that we would get an offer, so I think you can count on a high acceptance on the part of the university but students are much lower. And @neuronerd8, based on the results survey, it seems like waitlists can be hard to get off. Not impossible, obviously, but at least at my interviews, there seemed to be a good number of people interested in the program that would be more than enough to fill their numbers. But again, there's a reason why they have waitlists. It might be better to expect a rejection than to be desperate and cultivate another option so as to be surprised when/if you do get off the waiting list.

Congrats! (I didn't know so many first year, university-specific fellowships existed!)

They had one the weekend before me. But I'm not sure if they have any after. The survey seems like they release acceptance about 2 weeks after around February 26th.

The swelling seems to be minor and I can't see bruising yet but it does hurt. After class I'm going to go get some makeup to cover it up if a bruise occurs.

I didn't even know they had those! Yeah, I'll bring them in case the bruising starts to show through later. Thank goodness it's not broken!

So I leave tomorrow for New Jersey and my second interview. But this morning, my boyfriend elbowed me in the face accidentally, right in my nose. There was blood everywhere and it hurts. Now I'm trying to keep the swelling down so I don't look like Rocky going to an academic interview. I'm on the strugglebus so hard right now.

I'm going to try not to be a worshipper... that's not terribly cool. But I can't wait to meet her if she'll be there. Weather in New Jersey (or literally anywhere) will be an improvement on Iowa. So that's totally not an issue. I'm actually looking forward to going somewhere with better weather for the weekend.

"Not sure what to make of it" means that there are a few things that make me take pause and I can't really gauge until I'm there. Lack of medical campus is one of them, as is the cost of living there. I'm excited to see it, but it's so different from the other schools I'm going to it'll be a good comparison. And it's been a dream of mine to see it/have the opportunity to interact with faculty there since I was a sophomore in high school. I mentioned near the beginning of this thread that they are home to my science idol, Bonnie Bassler. Her work first interested me in molecular biology and set me on the path I'm following right now.