pitchfork

At the end of the day, I'm glad to see even if I can't stay in academia I'll have an alum network to make the transition into other career paths smoother. That 50% might only apply to some small elitist (probably not in a good way, if you know what I mean) programs in certain fields. Also, I've seen some schools putting their alums who are currently postdocs in the same group as those who are PIs, so you're right that the actual percentage that the two of use are interested in may very likely be less than 50%.

I don't know about your experience during interviews but when I was asked that question I've always answered that I wanted to become a PI. The thing is, my interviewers seemed genuinely happy and some of them even every excited about it. Three of them gave me really good advice on the pros and cons of being a PI at different types of institutions (traditional academia, research institute, pharma, or hard money). One of them told me he was relieved to see there are still talented young scientists who wanted to fight to stay in academia despite how hard it is to do so now. I have never heard of cases where people were looked down upon because they said they wanted to stay in academia. It's usually the exact opposite and there is still a lot of stigma associated with going anywhere outside academia after getting a PhD. Unless a student is clearly not suited for the job as a PI for whatever reason, I can't imagine how an interviewer would think the student is arrogant for wanting to pursue a career in research. I can see where you're coming from in regards to schools maybe over-advertising non-traditional career tracks. I was a bit disappointed when some schools don't even bother mentioning their alums who did end up in academia because that is an aspect crucial to me when deciding where I want to go. However, schools do have a very good reason for emphasizing the non-academia careers since even in top institutions, only ~50% of their recent graduates end up becoming a PI. To me, it is completely reasonable to not give all the attention to only one group of people and make the rest feel as if they're failures for not wanting something the other group wants.

Oh I see. Totally just missed your point there.

Just out of curiosity, how do you learn about this type of information? I know for a few schools it's really obvious that they're just trying to convince people to come over the interview weekend, but that's not the case across the board. How did you know that admission decisions get made before the interviews?

I'm in the same boat here. Started looking for fellowships/grants for international students a month ago after I got interview invites and unsurprisingly there're very few options (even fewer than previous years since HHMI suspended their international student fellowship indefinitely). I haven't looked too much into CSC but I think I've seen one for self-funded studies from them that doesn't seem to have much restrictions for what you do after grad school. That being said, the money from that grant is not even enough to cover housing alone, and I think you can only apply in your 2nd or 3rd year of grad school. Also, I'm sure you already know this, but wherever you decide to go, definitely make sure the program can support you for the entire duration of your studies. I know a fellow international student getting into a grad program that didn't help him out when his PI ran out of funding and he ended up having to drop out. Fingers crossed for your interviews and hope you have lots of good options!

Wait, the whole CAMB had a quota for 3 international students? Not just CAMB cancer bio?

Email

I just did

I haven't either. Emailed the contact person last week but she was out of the office. Guess that could have been why we're not hearing anything from them.

Anybody heard anything from Stanford Biosciences about travel arrangements/interview weekend schedule? I got an interview invite around Dec.22nd from the immunology track and haven't heard back since...

Albert Einstein Biomedical sciences: Jan 25-27 Berkeley Comp Bio: Feb 14-16 Berkeley IB: Jan 27-28 Berkeley Cell Molecular Bio: Feb 12-14, Feb 26-28 CMU-Pitt Comp bio: Feb 23-25, March 2-4 Columbia Biological Sciences: Jan 22-23, Mar 2-4 Columbia Biomedical Informatics: Jan 27-29th Cornell Tri Institutional computational biology: Feb 26-27. University of Chicago Molecular Biosciences: Jan 19-21, Feb 9-11, Feb 23-25 Duke Biochemistry: Feb 9-12 or Feb 23-26 Duke CMB: February 2-4 or February 16-18 Duke Immunology: February 9 – 12 or February 23 – 26 Harvard BIG (I asked and then asked a contact I have and all I could get was late January or early February) Havard BBS: Jan 26-29, Feb 9-12 Harvard MCO: Jan 25-28, Feb 1-4 Icahn SOM at Mount Sinai (Neuro only): January 9-10 Icahn SOM at Mount Sinai (non-neuro): January 12-13 or January 19-20 Johns Hopkins CMM: January 19-20 or February 23-24 UMichigan PIBS: Jan 26-28, Feb 2-4, Feb 9-11 MIT Biology: Feb 11-14, Feb 25-28, March 11-14 MIT CSBi: Feb 3 & 10 MIT HST: march 2-4 (strange those two overlap as they are 2 of the top comp bio programs) Northwestern DGP: Jan 12-14, Jan 26-28, Feb 9-11 NIH OxCam: February 15-17 NYU GSAS: Feb 2-3, Feb 16-17 Princeton QCB: Feb 9-11 Rockefeller: Feb 23-24, March 2-3 Sanger 4-year program: Jan 23rd Sloan Kettering: Jan 10-12 Stanford BI: march 1-5 Stanford Biosciences: March 1-5 UConn Health Biomedical Sciences: Feb 10-11 University of Washington Biology: Jan 26-28 University of Washington Genome Sciences: Feb 12-14, Feb 26-28 UC Irvine CMB: Jan 26-27, Feb 9-10 UCSD BMS: Feb 2-5, Feb 23-26 UCSF BMS: Jan 26-28, Feb 9-11 UCSF bioinformatics: Feb 9-10, Feb 16-17 UCSF TETRAD: Feb 2-5, Feb 24-27 UNC Chapel Hill BBSP: Feb 2-4, Feb 16-18, March 2-4 UMass Medical School BBS: January 26-27 or February 2-3 UPenn CAMB: Jan 19-21, Feb 2-4 UT Austin Cell and Molecular Biology: Jan 19-22, Feb 9-12 Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) Biochemistry DBBS February 2-4 and February 16-1 Yale BBS Immunology: Feb 16-19 Yale BBS MMPP: Feb 16-19 Yale CBB/MCGD: Feb 3-5

Official rejection from UCSF BMS and interview invite to Duke Immunology.

I got the invite, too! Congrats!!

Albert Einstein Biomedical sciences: Jan 25-27 Berkeley Comp Bio: Feb 14-16 Berkeley IB: Jan 27-28 Berkeley Cell Molecular Bio: Feb 12-14, Feb 26-28 CMU-Pitt Comp bio: Feb 23-25, March 2-4 Columbia Biological Sciences: Jan 22-23, Mar 2-4 Columbia Biomedical Informatics: Jan 27-29th Cornell Tri Institutional computational biology: Feb 26-27. Duke Biochemistry: Feb 9-12 or Feb 23-26 Duke CMB: February 2-4 or February 16-18 Harvard BIG (I asked and then asked a contact I have and all I could get was late January or early February) Havard BBS: Jan 26-29, Feb 9-12 Harvard MCO: Jan 25-28, Feb 1-4 Icahn SOM at Mount Sinai (Neuro only): January 9-10 Icahn SOM at Mount Sinai (non-neuro): January 12-13 or January 19-20 Johns Hopkins CMM: January 19-20 or February 23-24 UMichigan PIBS: Jan 26-28, Feb 2-4, Feb 9-11 MIT Biology: Feb 11-14, Feb 25-28, March 11-14 MIT CSBi: Feb 3 & 10 MIT HST: march 2-4 (strange those two overlap as they are 2 of the top comp bio programs) Northwestern DGP: Jan 12-14, Jan 26-28, Feb 9-11 NIH OxCam: February 15-17 NYU GSAS: Feb 2-3, Feb 16-17 Princeton QCB: Feb 9-11 Rockefeller: Feb 23-24, March 2-3 Sanger 4-year program: Jan 23rd Sloan Kettering: January (Jan 12-15 once appeared on their website but they removed it for some reason) Stanford BI: march 1-5 Stanford Biosciences: March 1-5 UConn Health Biomedical Sciences: Feb 10-11 University of Washington Biology: Jan 26-28 University of Washington Genome Sciences: Feb 12-14, Feb 26-28 UC Irvine CMB: Jan 26-27, Feb 9-10 UCSD BMS: Feb 2-5, Feb 23-26 UCSF bioinformatics: Feb 9-10, Feb 16-17 UCSF TETRAD: Feb 2-5, Feb 24-27 UNC Chapel Hill BBSP: Feb 2-4, Feb 16-18, March 2-4 UMass Medical School BBS: January 26-27 or February 2-3 UPenn CAMB: Jan 19-21, Feb 2-4 UT Austin Cell and Molecular Biology: Jan 19-22, Feb 9-12 Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) Biochemistry DBBS February 2-4 and February 16-18 Yale BBS Immunology: Feb 16-19 Yale BBS MMPP: Feb 24-26 Yale CBB/MCGD: Feb 3-5

I'm waiting to hear back from UCSF BMS also. Havn't seen any post regarding their invites in this thread or the result search.

Just got my UPenn CAMB MVP invite!!

Definitely do that if it will make you less anxious! Even if you don't get an invite right now, I heard that for some tracks the Penn adcoms will meet every Monday once the interview starts and send out more invites until mid-February.

Let's hope we hear something tomorrow! Or have you heard back already?

I went for MVP. It looks like no one has heard back from the MVP coordinator yet... More waiting then

Congrats! Did you apply to the cancer bio track?

Hey, fellow international student here. I've done a bit of digging when I was finalizing my program list to figure out which schools have more spots open for international students. I looked at mostly immunology programs but the situation might be similar for cancer bio programs, especially if both are tracks under an umbrella program. Here's what I found. Keep in mind that usually about 30% of all applicants are international. Harvard BBS says they have about 30% international students in their program, so they might review internationals and Americans at the same time. Yale BBS says they admit 5-7% of international students who apply, which probably sounds worse than it actually is if you think about the number of students who apply there. UPenn CAMB has about 12% of international students in the program. I was told that they review international students separately, but again, 12% is better than most places. I didn't look at MSK, but based on what I know about Rockefeller, Weill Cornell, NYU and New York schools in general, they're very international student friendly. WUSTL DBBS has about 30% international in their program, if I remember correctly. Might be wrong about this one. Emory immunology does not have a whole lot of international students, if I remember correctly. It might be different for cancer bio if their programs are offered through the department. Hope this is helpful and good luck!

I just heard back, too! Congrats!!

I applied to CAMB MVP as well. I was going through older posts in this thread and noticed we had near identical lists of programs. Let's use this to our advantage to soothe our anxiety and keep each other sane.

The only part I could think of was when they asked for phrases describing research interest and I indicated immunology as well. It could be that the review committee for certain tracks haven't met yet. A grad student in my lab who got into Pitts IGP three years ago told me the first interview invite she got was from Penn so maybe the invites for that are not out yet.

I applied to Pittsburgh IBGP and haven't heard back either. It seemed like they sent out invitations on the 23rd and 30th of November. So I thought with their rolling admission they were probably sending out invites every Wednesday, but then Wednesday rolls around and it seems like not a single person heard from them... Which of their tracks did you apply to/indicate interest in?