Born-to-pipette

Great fit = ~5-6 faculty working in cancer immunology whose labs I would be interested in joining. Decent fit = less than that but with some potential cancer bio (non immunology) PIs. Since my initial post, I did find other faculty at Harvard whose work are quite intriguing. Also drawn to the academic freedom Harvard seems to offer -- being able to choose my own curriculum sounds AMAZING. And I'd already looked through some of the course options and there are quite a few that are appealing. Getting to tailor coursework according to my interests and future goals...that's a rare find. So, it looks like I'll be attempting an application... Your point re: too many applications is well taken. When I told one of my previous PI's that I was applying to 10 schools, she was like "ain't no one has time for that many interviews." HOWEVER, that is contingent on actually getting interview offers from that many schools... And since one is applying to quite competitive programs, one feels the need to increase her N But there are a few schools where the research fit is just okay, and I can knock 1-2 off my list.

Thank you -- this is definitely a helpful perspective! I'm trying not to stress terribly much about how well I know the schools -- just trying to get the basics and waiting for the interviews to get to know the programs in more depth

Y'all -- a tad late to the game, but I just caught up with all the messages discussing fit/prestige/etc. It seems to me that fit, while incredibly important, seems like a rather nebulous concept. Any chance someone might be able to chime in on a more concrete breakdown of "fit"? My understanding is mainly: 1) research fit - interests aligned with multiple PIs. however, like blc previously mentioned, interests can also shift, so I've tried not to be too restrictive 2) location - place you would be happy living for 5-7 years 3) structure of program - e.g., clinical orientation, umbrella vs specific program admission I, however, still have 3 schools too many. Namely, I'm on the fence re: Harvard, UCSF, Hopkins, partially because research fit is just okay (although they are excellent in cancer and immunology at large) and partially because $300/lots of time on applying to THREE MORE extremely competitive schools when I have plenty of schools on my list that are already super competitive. The fact that I have 10 schools on my list (even without the aforementioned 3) makes me think that I'm potentially not evaluating enough factors when considering "fit." What are other factors that others have considered? What are these nebulous "things we need to succeed"? Student support for conferences, etc.? Opportunities for teaching (also, opportunities to avoid TA requirements)? Are these even things I should consider this prior to applying or after I gain admission to a few schools?

Oh, lovely. My dilemma/thought process when selecting immunology vs cancer bio for non-umbrella programs: 1. My primary research interest lies in cancer immunology; however, I hesitate to apply to immunology programs over cancer programs because of points 2, 3 & 4 below. 2. I'm predominantly interested in immunology within the context of cancer. I have limited interest (at least developed thus far) in other aspects of immunology research (i.e., infectious disease, etc.) 3. I'm still quite interested (albeit to a lesser extent) in other aspects of cancer research -- mainly drug resistance, metastasis, tumor microenvironmental interactions. 4. I believe I am more competitive for cancer programs than immunology programs -- both in terms of previous research experience as well as my existing grasp on the field-at-large 5. Immunology program curriculi are more appealing. 6. Some cancer/immunology programs have substantial overlap between cancer immunology faculty. For these schools, if there are additional cancer bio faculty whose work I'm interested in, I will likely apply to the cancer program. 7. In some institutions, cancer immunologists are primarily in the immunology department and not in the cell/mol bio program. In this scenario, I will likely apply to the immunology program -- although I am a little nervous about the increased stringency of admissions... Is this a good way of approaching it?

Y'all I'm getting the impression that immunology programs are more competitive than cell/molecular bio programs, based on admissions rates. Has anyone else experienced / observed this trend? Or is this because I just so happen to be looking at schools with stronger immunology departments?

Thank you for the feedback! I agree 100% that my list needs to be reduced. And, yes, I absolutely struggled with figuring out how to categorize schools - and I think I may have overthought the whole process. Essentially, for sanity's sake, I wanted to include - other than the crazy reach schools - programs that I would be competitive for, along with back-up schools that I would also be happy to attend. Totally understand that the end-product of my ranking turned out kinda funky. Any advice for how to better gauge / rank schools? Would it be better to just split the schools into 5 reach and 3 back-ups, as opposed to attempting a 3-tiered thing? Definitely still trying to figure out a good way to comfortably call a particular institution a back-up school. Thanks for bringing up the point about fit! Thus far, I hope to make a strong case in terms of faculty I'm interested in working with, but I've seen suggestions in this forum to keep the POI section to just a few sentences. I've found, however, that most schools have generic information about the programs themselves. They indicate a value for mentorship, accessibility of PI's, good student publications, etc. -- all of which seem a little handwavey and surface-level to include in a SOP. Any recommendations for getting to know the schools/programs better, especially prior to an interview visit? What did you personally highlight in your applications?

Hi all! Would really appreciate some feedback on my chances of admission to the schools on my list, along with any suggestions for back-up schools that would be a good fit for cancer / cancer immunology interests Undergrad Institution: small liberal arts school, relatively unknown Major(s): Bio, molecular emphasis Minor(s): psychology GPA in Major: 4.0 Overall GPA: 3.99 Position in Class: top Type of Student: Domestic asian female GRE Scores (revised/old version): Q: 164 (88%) V: 166 (97%) W: 5 (93%) B: 99%/99%/90% on each bio subsection respectively Research Experience: Undergrad: Lab 1 - targeted drug discovery for cancer - evaluated panel of novel compounds in various biological assays - 2.5 years Lab 2 - genetic engineering - cancer immunology (CAR stuff) - 1 year Post-grad Tech for 1 year+ at well regarded (but not Ivy-level) cancer hospital. will be 2 years by the time I start grad school. cancer immunology. been hopped around various projects -- nothing has really come to fruition thus far, but learned a bunch of skills. No publications but 9 presentations thus far. both poster & oral. one poster at AACR annual meeting. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: University undergrad research grant (part of the inaugural group of students selected) Beta Beta Beta research grant Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges Research scholar award (undergrad) Dean's list AACR member Honors college President's scholarship awards for 6 of 9 poster/oral presentations Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Peer assisted learning leader (hosted sessions where groups of 4 through 30+ showed up to learn/review class material) - one semester Tutor - one semester Lab TA - 2 years Shadowed an oncologist for a few months volunteered at hospital for 1.5 years (not sure if pertinent enough to include in application) Any Miscellaneous Accomplishments that Might Help: taught children's sunday school for 5.5 years - 100% a daily test of resilience/perseverance Special Bonus Points: none that I can think of Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: Applying to Where: REACH Sloan Kettering Harvard or Yale? Johns Hopkins: biochem/cellular/mol bio, cellular medicine, and/or immunology programs UCSF? Stanford biomed program (cancer or immunology home area) Rockefeller? HOPEFULLY COMPETITIVE FOR UWashington Immunology and/or mol/cell bio Scripps (San Diego) UCLA UPenn CAMB or Immunology UCSD biomed program BACK-UP ?? (any feedback on how to gauge this classification would be great!) Oregon Health & Sciences University Northwestern biomed (Driskill) Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai or Albert Einstein SOM?