Kaede

Awesome! I'll see you there then! Have y'all committed yet?

Awesome! Do you know whether it will be grad students from all the PhD programs or just the STEM ones?

Is anyone going to be at the Harvard diversity weekend?

It usually says it in the program requirements. For example, taken from UC Irvine CMB's website: "Research Rotations In order to become familiar with the research opportunities available in the program, and to obtain technical training in appropriate areas, students are required to complete two laboratory rotations, each lasting one quarter, in different laboratories during the first year. Three are recommended in order to increase exposure to diverse research topics and experimental approaches. The Program Director provides incoming students with a list of laboratories hosting rotation students, and additional guidance will be provided by the CMB faculty advisors during orientation week."

I will hopefully be meeting them in person in a few weeks, but I'd like to send them an in person email first. There are some PIs I have already set up phone calls with but have no idea how the conversation will go... so thank you so much for the tangible questions you provided!

Yes, Stanford Biosciences - Biology home area.

A potential PI just emailed me congratulating me on getting admitted into Stanford Bio, but I haven't actually heard back yet!

The process has officially begun... I haven't made a decision yet, but I'm pretty sure I know where I want to be, so I have started making a full list of faculty that I'd want to work with. I am about to start sending emails to set up appointments to meet up with these faculty and discuss the possibility of rotating in their lab and potentially becoming a graduate student. I have no experience with this obviously, so I'd love to get information about the best way to approach this conversation. How can I maximize the information I get out of these conversations? What kind of questions would be good to ask?

Rejected by UCLA Molecular and Cellular Biology. Didn't receive an interview so no surprise there.

One thing to keep in mind about rotations at MCO, though, is that they require 2 of those rotations to be with MCO faculty, and that those rotations are fixed at 8 weeks in length. So if rotating in other areas is important to you, MCO is not the best option.

They're both very different! I think they cater to very different students and the reason I applied to both is that I could see myself in either environment - either big or small. I'm happy to continue this conversation through pm. I'm still making my decision but I'm leaning toward one of the two due to my past educational experiences.

Congratulations!

This post is appalling for many reasons, but it bothers me that you think that you don't need a PhD to go into many of these fields. Are you telling me you don't need a solid understanding of how to interpret data in a rigorous scientific context when you're a science journalist conveying to the public whether a study is legitimate or not, or whether its findings are correlative? Well that explains why we have so many popular science posts claiming that "scientists have proved that intelligence comes from the mother" or whatever crap is in the media nowadays. Are you telling me you don't need a rigorous foundation in scientific analysis for science policy, when Trump has now stated that the future of the EPA is dependent on whether politicians (who likely have zero experience with rigorous analysis of scientific data, or any data at all) are able to find the EPA's data conclusive? Sorry not sorry, but we need scientists (WITH PhDs) in these fields more than ever.

lol wrong thread

In that case, let's be real: these exams are just a way for ETS to make money. No need to play into that.

I go to a school that most professors haven't heard of (a very small LAC) and I still didn't take the subject test and got great results. If you have other external evaluations of your achievement (awards or letters of rec from outside your institution) then it really shouldn't be necessary unless you have a low GPA.

Congrats all! We made it!! Was this through email or through mail? Didn't hear specifics about the package yet, though I did get the electronic accept form.

My first program's admit letter (not GSAS) said we'd hear back late Feb to early March, and the second said March. So we should be hearing back soon.

I haven't received the letter itself, but I did get an email saying the decision was available on the portal and they had a mini-letter there saying I was admitted. (I don't know if I was supposed to get this for both programs I applied to...)

I have back problems so this is a no brainer. A backpack hands down. I have a 5+ pound laptop that would be impossible to carry with any other option.

I have been admitted to every program I've interviewed at thus far and I have yet to have a conversation about a professor's work other than them speaking with me about it at the very end. I haven't even really gotten a chance to ask intelligent questions about their work because time runs out by the time we start talking about their research. Are my experiences outliers?

Just got into UCI Cell and Molecular Biosciences!

Accepted to Harvard MCO with fellowship!

Jane the Virgin on the CW.

I disagree. I go to a small liberal arts college that almost no one has ever heard of and have published once (not first author, not a great journal) and I've gotten interviews to top programs. You just have to find some way to stand out to adcoms.