biochemgirl67

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.

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!

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!

I couldn't agree more! For grad school, I feel like the "name" of the school is definitely not as important as the "fit". I'm primarily looking for programs where I can get great training! Not just learning cool techniques (though there is something to be said about using sexy new techniques), but learning how to think and troubleshoot like a scientist. At least, that's my plan.
 
I'm definitely also considering location and cost of living! 5-7 years is a good portion of my life and I want to enjoy it as much as possible.

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!

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!

I'm in that same boat.  I loved my first interview and was ready to accept as soon as I left.  The problem is I have more interviews.  To make things worse my remaining interview is my fallback school.... 

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)

Just received my unofficial acceptance e-mail to Duke (DSCB).
Apparently the rejections went out a week ago, and they just finished with the acceptances.

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)

Accepted to Scripps!!!! This has been my dream school since I was a freshman in high school, I can't even believe it!!!!!!! So so happy

It particularly sucks if your first choice is your first interview and you get admitted way before you get to the others. hahaha

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)

As general advice, I'd strongly advice against applying to more than 7 schools. It's a lot of money and there's just a limit to how many schools you can ACTUALLY be interested in. If you make it to the interview, they'll be able to tell if you only applied as a safety. Also, interviewing is a very tiresome process, regardless of how much fun you have during these weekends

Whatever makes you feel better - I can assure you I am not the only person who has gotten a phone call with an acceptance. Regardless, I ended up choosing Harvard. 

95% certain it's b.s. Especially given that Stanford has been adamant about only interviewing people during their single interview weekend.

Congratulations!

grats! me too!!

Got an acceptance call from my top choice - UCSF BMS!! So excited!

I can't speak to whether the number of interviewees this year is higher than normal, but I do know that the "graduating class" at UW Immunology right now is one of the biggest they've ever had (9 students) and many of them have either defended or are planning on defending their theses within a matter of months. So I don't think it's strange for them to be interviewing more people as there are likely more openings that they want to fill this year than in the past. Don't lose hope quite yet!!

Nothing better than getting a phone call acceptance from your top choice 10 minutes before a test!
All I need to do now is graduate and I'll be a grad student this fall!
 
Edit: and second acceptance email 1 hour later... Today is a good day (well aside from probably bombing that test)

THIS.  We were talking about getting engaged right between semesters the first year.  However, my partner won't be able to take more than like 2 days off because it will be a new job, so it'll be a small honeymoon.  We were thinking about getting married on like a Friday and being back at work on Tuesday or Wednesday.  From what I've heard, it depends on the lab, but I think you get time off.
EDIT:  This is why I don't do 2 things at once.  My partner and I want to get married between the first two semesters.  Geez why am I so incapable right now.

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

Dartmouth MCB acceptance today with a fellowship!!