HopefulPHD14

Just confirmed Emory MMG (+ fellowship)! Definitely the best fit for my research interests (bacteriology and antibiotic resistance). Good luck to everyone making decisions!

Well it's official, I am going to MIT in the fall!  I was really going back and forth between MIT and Wisconsin MDTP, but overall decided MIT was the one.  Anybody else on here going to MIT microbiology??

Just found out I got into UNC-CH BBSP!!!!!! 
 
Ah. 3 weeks of waiting over since the interview and I'm through the moon.

I would totally ask.  I find that most programs are pretty transparent about your chances.

For the schools that you can accept/decline offers online - is everyone following up with an email to the program coordinator for the programs you're declining? Or should we just decline online and leave it be?

I have one place that told me they I need to tell them and they were serious.  When I called they said they would never remove my offer, but that they could only guarantee it until a certain date.  They only can take on x number of students and after the date they gave me they would offer other students my spot.  If I got back to them they would place me on the waiting list and I would have priority once a spot became available (meaning someone else didn't accept).  Apparently this is common practice for schools not on the list of schools that waits until April 15th.  

It's official. I'm going to Penn!! (Cancer Biology)

@sraiders
Check out MCDB at UCSB.  I interviewed there this cycle and really liked the environment and people...I just am not interested in doing stuff with flies (unlike you!).
They have some cool labs doing developmental stuff in a bunch of organisms.  They have a few cool fly labs (the Montell labs come to mind).  They also have some awesome labs that do developmental in other models (like tunicates and other marine animals).  

In terms of competitiveness, I think you have a good list going.  Some of those will be reach schools but not unobtainable.  Good luck!

Rejected from 6 schools.... and one acceptance. I can't stop smiling!
good luck to the rest of you! 

As of last weekend, I'm officially done with interviews! It feels pretty good to not have to stress about having to travel and balance interviews with my studies. I'm also incredibly satisfied with the results (4/7 acceptances)! I wish the best of luck to those that are still interviewing/ have yet to hear back from some places.
Now to decide where I want to spend the next 4+ years of my life lol

I don't think it makes that big of a difference whether or not you send them. I chose to send them to faculty I interviewed with because their responses can often be used as an informal gauge regarding how you stood out in their eyes. 

I think I'm leaning towards UCSF since they have a more disease/translational focus as opposed to the more basic science focus of Berkeley. 

I had a program do this.

They probably will not rescend their offer, but they also may not offer you an extension.  The school I applied to ended up calling me and talking through my situation with me.  They said they wouldn't offer an extension of my offer guarantee, but they said that they would be happy to accept me after the deadline as long as funding was still available.  Honestly I really have no clue what they meant by that.   But after lots of thinking I decided that I knew I would be happy with that program and accepted the offer.  I was 60-40 between that school and the other school and for me it was worth it to accept.  I haven't regretted my decision.

Hopefully they will be understanding of your need for an extension.  I think usually schools are.

Also, I just got accepted into OHSU's PMCB program.
Feeling quite happy with myself as I loved the campus, city, program, and faculty when I visited. 

I have one place that told me they I need to tell them and they were serious.  When I called they said they would never remove my offer, but that they could only guarantee it until a certain date.  They only can take on x number of students and after the date they gave me they would offer other students my spot.  If I got back to them they would place me on the waiting list and I would have priority once a spot became available (meaning someone else didn't accept).  Apparently this is common practice for schools not on the list of schools that waits until April 15th.  

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.... 

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

No.

I got my first acceptance  UGA Microbiology!!! 

Just got an offer from UCSD BMS!

Honestly, I think you made a mistake. You should not have deferred admissions and also applied to other programs. Of course, I don't know the details of the deferment policy at this school, so maybe it's fine, but usually deferring means committing yourself to this program. 
It sounds like this school is about to make offers to the next cohort and they want to know if they need to save you a spot. You have not heard back from other schools because generally, schools need to figure out their deferred students decisions first so in general, I think this process happens before most of the admission decisions.
I think you have two ethical choices at this point:
1. Be honest with the school and tell them that you have also applied to other programs. Maybe the program is big enough that +/- 1 spot is not a big deal, so they can give you a few more weeks to decide. Or, maybe they did not expect that accepting the deferment last year means you are committed to them so this is not a problem at all. This could also backfire though, and they might decide that you were dishonest or did not keep within the deferment policy and rescind your admission. Or, maybe they will allow it but it means you will be re-evaluated amongst all the new applicants.
2. Tell the school that you will be attending this fall. Then, withdraw all of your other applications.
You asked if telling the school that you're interested and then taking another offer would be really bad. Yes, this would be extremely bad. In addition to being very unethical, this will burn all your bridges at that program, and although I don't know what field you're in, some fields are really small. Also, if the other schools you've applied to know about what you did, it would probably hurt you there too. Don't do this. 
In my opinion, you cannot ethically use the current offer you have as a backup plan while you pursue other offers. You either take it, or you risk it for the other applications. It's not right to fake interest in one school only because it's a backup to others. (Note: It's perfectly fine though, to have interest in one school as a "safety school" but at least be honest about it).

Call me a pessimist, but I think it would be detrimental to your chances unless you can come up with a really great reason as to why you can't do Monday morning- unfortunately, I don't think telling the committee that you have a test and a paper counts as one.  It's likely that you're not the only one who was asked for a Monday interview, which means that you'd be asking them to make an exception for you.  Sounds like a tough situation, but I think you should try your best to be ready for Monday.  Good luck!

I was sitting at the Philadelphia airport a few hours back, waiting for the connecting flight to New Haven, when I hear two girls behind me talking about mol bio research in Yale BBS labs. I turn around and ask them, are you going to Yale for the recruitment weekend, and they're like yeah, you too? I say me too, and I hear 8 other me too's from around me. 
Turns out there were 11 students for the recruitment weekend at Yale, and 2 Yale professors in a SUPER SMALL charter plane of 15 people  It was almost like Yale sent a private jet to Philadelphia to pick up its people.

All of my professors and people I know with PhDs are telling me to wear a suit for the interview day and business casual for the rest of the weekend (maybe jeans and a nice shirt if its just with grad students).  Do you guys really think a suit is too overdressed?  Does it depend on the school/program?  I would rather be overdressed than underdressed, but I also don't want to be way overdressed.  I need some help planning for this weekend.  I guess worst case scenerio I can bring the suit and play it by ear....

Let's not freak out over clothing, AGAIN.  Okay guys, business casual is the way to go for your interviews.  This means your most versatile outfit (for either sex) will be a pair of dress pants or trousers, a shirt that is nice and put together (nice dress blouse for a girl, a collared shirt for a guy -- A guy could wear a less dressy collared dress shirt than the ones that go with suits... based on material or patterns), a girl could wear a small dress scarf, a guy could wear a tie.  Both sexes could wear blazers (or sport coats for men) to the interview.  Both should also wear comfortable dress shoes.  Nothing too shiny or fancy, but COMFORTABLE.
Casual days you could wear a dark pair of jeans or knit trouser pants or colored pants with a nice shirt, scarf, and jacket (for a girl).  A guy could wear a pair of colored chinos with a sweater with a collared shirt.  Boot-type shoes or less fancy actual shoes would work.
I'm putting up these descriptions because I know that we all have limited clothing options for carrying and for buying new outfits.  Really, don't stress.  I've included some pictures so people can see what I mean.
EDIT: these are ALL things seen on interviews.  And everyone pretty much matched this code.  It's obvious which are the casual outfits to me, but the last female picture is what seemed to be a "casual" outfit, and the same with the male pictures.