biochemgirl67

Here's how I did it.  I only had room to talk about one professor in depth so I chose one I really liked and talked about why, including a connection to a recent publication to show that I read the paper.  However, I only had room to discuss one professor in depth so if I mentioned others it was through a list.  I'm not saying what I did was the best, but just that it's an option.
 
Maybe you can mesh taking about your personal connection to the prof and his work to balance it.  But you should mention him if you're communication has been meaningful to you.

As some have said before, your energy should not even be focused on graduate school right now. What you should be focused on is maintaining your high GPA, figuring out what subfield (or two) you might want to get into, and studying for the GRE. You have wayyy more than enough research exp. Put that aside and focus on what I mentioned above. Since youre entering senior year, youll be taking a lot of bio electives that can help you realize specific interests a lot.

From Petersons.com for Watson School of Biological Sciences, CSHL, no info for # of invites:
7% of applicants are admitted. Acceptance Rate Applied276 Accepted22 Acceptance Rate7 Enrolled9

I don't think you need to know exactly what question you want to research when you apply. My daughter is applying this cycle. She knows she wants to do genetics/genomics research in a lab, in academia or industry, and definitely not field research. She mentioned some general types of broad questions in her SoP, but nothing very specific. She was very honest that her interests are broad, and she is applying to umbrella programs so she can experience lab rotations and get a better feel for narrowing down the research she wants to do. 
She has a 3.98 GPA; 167 Q, 162 V, 5.0 W on the GRE; 3 years lab research at university; 2 summers research in industry at a genetics incubator; 4 different field research trips; won the major research award at her university; 3 first-author posters; one middle-author paper in review for a major publication. She has received first-round invites for 5 top-tier schools so far; waiting to hear from Stanford and Rockefeller in January.
She was able to put together a solid package indicating she knows what research is and exactly why she wants to do it for the rest of her life, even though she does not yet know exactly what she wants to research. She knows enough to know there's a lot she doesn't know and won't be able to learn until she's actually in grad school. 
I think it's okay not to know exactly what you want to research when you apply, if you put your application together directly.
 

I forgot to say my daughter didn't pick her schools because they were top-tier. She picked them because she found professors there doing research in areas that intrigue her, as well as because the schools are in areas/cities where she could see herself being happy for the next 5-6 years.

She contacted several different professors at each school before submitting her applications. They were all interested in working with her and wanted to meet with her if she was offered an interview. Now she just needs to meet them in person to see how well she meshes with them. I guess she'll find out at the interview if they actually have funding and want to take on another student and if their personalities are a good fit. Or after rotations and meeting people during her first year, she could end up in some other lab altogether.

For the people who got WUSTL, what were the circumstances of your invite? Call from POI or email? 

You also have to be really careful in how you describe success. 
Working at a top-10 program that has money to throw at every problem really only prepares you for work at another top-10 program, and only if you will be successful enough to have money to throw at every problem. 
If you want to expand your faculty search to lower ranked schools, lots will appreciate you being able to be productive without piles of money to throw at problems, either through creative solutions or being able to build/repair instruments on your own. 
Similarly, while top institutions have a ton of funding, they also focus more on post-docs and PIs research progress then developing you as a grad student into an independent scientist. It can be really easily (relatively) to be lost in the shuffle, or be only valued for your use as a pair of extra hands in the lab with no particular interest in what the work is doing for your career. 

Money, facilities, collaboration.  I don't go to a prestigious undergrad.  It's a good school and the faculty were all educated at top 10 schools, but my department and university and not top 10.  This compares easily to Harvard.  There was so much more money there.  The department I worked for had excess money so they bought everybody a backpack.  If you wanted testing of any sort you just did it.  You could buy the fancy equipment for ease of use.  Our flow cytometer broke and a part was ordered that day.  At my home institution, we are greatly limited to the testing we can do due to expenses.  I have to engineer set ups rather than just buy the expensive plastic pieces.  It's made me an inventive scientist, but it was also nice to be somewhere where the money and funding wasn't such an issue.  Elite institutions foster great science at a high rate of speed in part due to the money, I think.

I think we know the answer to the question already; indeed, prestige has an impact on success.  It's why we're all reaching for the stars on our applications.  However, I think it's worth noting that in this age of limited funding, incoming grad students are probably more concerned with a department's prestige or the quality of work coming out of a particular program than the overall institution.  For example, the University of Tennessee is not prestigious.  It just isn't.  However, their microbiology department plays host to some of the national experts in marine microbiology.  If you were an aspiring scientist interested in those things, you may choose UTK over some other more canonically prestigious place because the program has better research coming out of it.
 
The elite institutions are elite for a reason.  I think we can all agree that it's important to go to a good school but that the definition of "good" can actually vary.  And finally, a name of an institution will not help to get you published.  It's all about the validity of your work.  Well, weird sporadic politics aside.

I just want to see it.  I didn't like LA when I was there for the symposium but... I've heard good things about the bay area.
 
But I'm like 90% sure it won't be an issue.  My current approach with both Stanford and Rockefeller is to expect nothing and therefore not be disappointed.   (although secretly I really hope Rockefeller comes through)

I low-key don't want to go to the west coast, so I don't know how I feel about Stanford hahaha

I just want to see it.  I didn't like LA when I was there for the symposium but... I've heard good things about the bay area.
 
But I'm like 90% sure it won't be an issue.  My current approach with both Stanford and Rockefeller is to expect nothing and therefore not be disappointed.   (although secretly I really hope Rockefeller comes through)

I've released my angst to the great beyond and am trying not to think about it. 
 
Doesn't help that Stanford starts up again next week.  #firstworldproblems

I think we know the answer to the question already; indeed, prestige has an impact on success.  It's why we're all reaching for the stars on our applications.  However, I think it's worth noting that in this age of limited funding, incoming grad students are probably more concerned with a department's prestige or the quality of work coming out of a particular program than the overall institution.  For example, the University of Tennessee is not prestigious.  It just isn't.  However, their microbiology department plays host to some of the national experts in marine microbiology.  If you were an aspiring scientist interested in those things, you may choose UTK over some other more canonically prestigious place because the program has better research coming out of it.
 
The elite institutions are elite for a reason.  I think we can all agree that it's important to go to a good school but that the definition of "good" can actually vary.  And finally, a name of an institution will not help to get you published.  It's all about the validity of your work.  Well, weird sporadic politics aside.

I've released my angst to the great beyond and am trying not to think about it. 
 
Doesn't help that Stanford starts up again next week.  #firstworldproblems

Lol yeah.  I just like knowing the truth.  It's made my holidays 100% better.  So I'm glad I can help someone else with my rejection! 

Broad interests at this point are okay.  Really, they are.  HOWEVER, you do need to be working towards narrowing your interests.  You cannot honestly be broadly and equally interested in ALL of molecular biology because it's simply too much.  Instead of working on where you want to go, you need to be working on the what you want to do.  And the way to do this is to get on PubMed and start reading papers.  The statement of probably being happy with any project actually can come across as poorly thought out and actually immature in a way.  It means you haven't put enough time or effort to delve sufficiently deep into a given topic to determine whether or not you actually have long-term, late night, and persistent interest in it.
For example, I have decided I am interested in molecular signaling in the context of the both the immune system and the host:pathogen interface/grievous diseases such as cancer.  Now, this is actually really really broad if you think about it.  Am I interested in transcriptional networks interfaced with signaling pathways?  Yes!  Could I study intercellular interactions that change cell behavior on a molecular level?  Yes!  Would I be interested in the way that pathogens perturb the host/immune systems through signaling?  YES!  I underline that interest with my graduate-level classes and diverse research experiences.  My direction will probably change, but my foundation (based on the literature, coursework, and research) allows me to highlight my developing interests and prove that I've given it some thought.  My advice would be to do the same thing; take a highly specialized class, read a bunch of papers, and FORGET ABOUT CHOOSING GRAD PROGRAMS FOR NOW.  You have plenty of time.  You'll make better choices if you really can know what you want before you start choosing.  I would hold off on making that list until at least the end of spring semester.

You should call them.  (Or email)  Because they completely understand the scheduling hell we're going through.  Both places I called were very helpful and did not seem annoyed at all.  However, their offices may be closed now.  (I tried to call University of Tennessee yesterday to ask when their interview dates are and they were closed until next week.)

When I emailed the coordinator, he said all the invites were out and he would send rejections in a couple weeks.  So... Yeah.  Accept NYU.

The director of my program at Cornell nominated me for the Dean's Scholar Fellowship!! ❤️

No!  Remember the invites are slotted to start after January 4th... So I wouldn't assume anything until the end of January.  You never can really tell what's going on behind closed doors.  Plus their offices are closed until then so they are not doing any notifications until after that date.  Don't worry, enjoy your holidays, and join the rest of us trying to forget this whole thing for a bit.

You should call them.  (Or email)  Because they completely understand the scheduling hell we're going through.  Both places I called were very helpful and did not seem annoyed at all.  However, their offices may be closed now.  (I tried to call University of Tennessee yesterday to ask when their interview dates are and they were closed until next week.)

No!  Remember the invites are slotted to start after January 4th... So I wouldn't assume anything until the end of January.  You never can really tell what's going on behind closed doors.  Plus their offices are closed until then so they are not doing any notifications until after that date.  Don't worry, enjoy your holidays, and join the rest of us trying to forget this whole thing for a bit.

I want to say that you probably took my response wrong.  I wasn't accusing you, i was trying to figure out a weird situation. Especially why the prof would stop answering.  He could easily have made the same assumption especially since your family was involved.  I'm sorry you were offended.