prospectivegrad1
-
Posts
33 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by prospectivegrad1
-
-
Has anyone gotten a response email from NSERC after emailing them to accept the award? @Jibster @jakeopolis
-
1 hour ago, jakeopolis said:
Congratulations! I accepted, and got the "we're super busy" automatic reply. It's a long weekend so I wouldn't expect anything until next week.
Okay same! Good to know I'm not the only one
-
Also got PGSD3! Has anyone officially accepted the award yet by emailing NSERC? If yes, should we expect a response email from them? I emailed them on Tuesday but no response yet!
-
2 minutes ago, inadequate said:
Significantly? Or just a little?
Probably just a little bit. I don't like talking about prestige but I believe the ranking of prestige is: Stanford > UCSF > Berkeley. Again, I would go where ever you are happiest but, all else equal, Stanford will give you a slight lead in terms of marketability. Will this slight lead make the difference between landing an industry job and not? I don't know because I'm not in industry but it could.
-
1 hour ago, inadequate said:
They're pretty similar. And unfortunately in a bad way. I'm not as excited about any of the labs as I was in the past. But that's another discussion.
In this thread, I'm just hoping I can get a feel for how significantly each school's name/prestige will affect my marketability.
Okay, if you are equally as happy at all 3 schools, then I think Stanford will give you an advantage in terms of marketability.
-
Which school has more PIs you are interested in rotating with?
-
If you're very certain that all 3 schools are a great scientific fit for you, then I would personally recommend Baltimore. I think the experience of moving out is invaluable, which eliminates SF. I think your interactions with other graduate students and how you fit in the cohort is important, so if the community at UPenn is not the right fit for you, I would eliminate UPenn. Baltimore is probably not as dangerous as people think it is; I also interviewed at Hopkins and all the students over there were very happy and seemed to not think that safety is a huge concern.
-
-
13 minutes ago, Epigenetics said:
Also like genuinely curious if anyone has had an interview so far that you genuinely thought would be useful to someone in deciding to admit you or not. Not one of my interviews so far has resembled anything remotely as useful to admitting me as my application did. I have trouble seeing how those could/would be used as a deciding factor in admissions decisions.
Once you get an interview invite, you've defeated 70% of the battle, and I think interviews fill in the remaining 30%. Your interview experience is highly dependent on your interviewer. I think the few people who don't get accepted post-interview are the ones who got unlucky and got interviewers who would continuously grill them.
I think interviewers are looking for 3 things from you: knowledge of your own research project (based on your ability to answer the questions they ask you about your research), ability to communicate your research project, and enthusiasm/ability to ask good questions about their research. I've attended 5 interviews so far, and I think all my interviewers try their best to gauge these 3 variables.
- Cervello and fitzgradschool
-
2
-
Has anyone heard back from Stanford Biosciences (Developmental Biology)? I just heard that this program does not take a lot of students each year...
-
6 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:
That depends on the school, I think. In my program, the program pays for your tuition and stipend during the first two years. After that, your PI starts paying for your stipend. Getting an NIH grant will usually increase your stipend.
Who pays what doesn't really matter because it's the university's responsibility to maintain your funding. You should never be in a spot where you have to pay or get a pay decrease.
Would a grant ever cover my tuition?
-
4 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:
That depends on the school, I think. In my program, the program pays for your tuition and stipend during the first two years. After that, your PI starts paying for your stipend. Getting an NIH grant will usually increase your stipend.
Who pays what doesn't really matter because it's the university's responsibility to maintain your funding. You should never be in a spot where you have to pay or get a pay decrease.
Cool! Thanks for the speedy response.
-
Hey all,
Hope everybody's application cycle is going well so far! I wanted to step aside from the interview frenzy and bring up some questions about external funding in the US/funding in general in the US. I'm Canadian so I'm not particularly knowledgeable about how this stuff works.
i) As far as I know, my stipend will be paid by my PI; my tuition is paid by the department. True?
ii) If I secure external funding some time during graduate studies (from NIH or other funding agencies), will this money go towards covering the stipend paid by my PI? Will it go towards covering my tuition? Will it increase my stipend, if it's a big grant?
-
59 minutes ago, spiffscience said:
I got an email interview invite from the specific umbrella program director (Stem Cell/Regen Medicine) before the New Year and he explicitly said, and I quote:
"The 14 Home Program Admissions Committees all operate on their own timelines, so your friends and coworkers may or may not have heard from another Biosciences Program. Please understand that "no news does not mean bad news", as many Programs do not complete their admission process until the 2nd week of January. So, please keep this in mind when sharing your good news with others."
1 hour ago, jumanji5a said:I think I saw somewhere that the different programs under the umbrella of biosciences process their applications separately - so someone receiving an invite from one program hopefully doesn't mean all the invites for other subprograms are out (at least that's what I'm hoping!)
Phew~
-
1 hour ago, inadequate said:
Are you serious.....
Berkeley mcb, UCSF tetrad, and Stanford biosciences all want me and say I was a great candidate, but Caltech rejects me like that?
I am crushed.
When are the interview dates?
Stanford Biosciences sent out their invites already?
-
Thanks guys! I will draft a nice email and send it out today :)
-
Hi all,
In what situations would it be appropriate to ask for an extra lodging night? In my case, a recruitment weekend ends at 6PM on Tuesday but going on a return flight after 6PM would mean that I arrive at home past midnight, which I ideally do not want because I have another interview the day after. Would it be appropriate to ask to stay in the hotel for an extra night, just so I can catch a flight early in the morning the next day?
-
Does anybody have any thoughts on using powerpoint slides, hard-copy figures etc. to explain their research?
-
2 hours ago, zam330 said:
So what exactly determines a strong applicant? This is going to be long because I'm freaking out, but any feedback would be helpful.
I'm currently in a masters program for biology with a focus in micro and have a 4.0 GPA. When I graduate this summer I will have completed my masters in 3 semesters, have at least one conference presentation, and will be submitting my research to be published. My undergrad GPA was bad (3.12), but my last 60 hours of course work which include my masters is a 3.95. I took a summer semester and fall semester off in between undergrad and grad school to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. When I decided to apply to grad school it was in october, so my GRE scores are low because I didn't study for the exam. How strongly do GRE scores affect the application if I have a strong LORs, a high GPA, a masters degree, and research experience? I also have a teaching assistantship with a scholarship award, received a grant over the summer, and received a grant during undergrad research.
From what I've been reading, some schools focus on research experience more than others, but because I'm from a small state school I'm worried. We don't receive much funding so I have to use older methods in my research, for example instead of using a sequencer or sending my stuff to be sequenced, I have to carry out sanger sequencing in house, which is a pain. However, my school has fed a few students to top programs such as UBC immuno and they've mentioned that their research experience is the main reason for their acceptance. I'd really like to get into the University of Washington's microbiology program.
Do I seem like a strong applicant?
I can't answer your overarching question of whether you are a strong applicant or not, but I can pitch in my opinion on the impact of GREs. For sciences, the admissions committee is mainly looking for good quantitative and analytic writing scores and judge less on your verbal score. So in your scenario, it depends on which section of the GRE you scored low on. Moreover, the admissions committee typically will look at your master's GPA more strongly than your undergrad GPA; so even though your undergrad GPA is quite low, it is very possible that your master's GPA will compensate for it.
Even if your quantitative and analytic writing scores are not terrific, I truly believe that the two most important aspects of an application are your LORs and SOP. The admissions committee is looking for students who are competent (based on your LORs) and motivated/enthusiastic/a-good-fit (based on your SOP). If you have letter writers who know you well and are enthusiastic about you, then their letters should mitigate the negative effects of your GREs and carry you into grad school. Don't let numbers (GPA, GREs) affect your confidence level -- your LORs and SOP mean much more. -
I would like to know more about this. Does UC Berkeley MCB bias towards students attending the first recruitment weekend? What other schools might do this? Thoughts?
-
44 minutes ago, LadyScientist said:
I think if you are to decline an interview, you should probably do it as soon as possible. I would either call or respond via email and politely say that you appreciate the program's interest in you, but will not be able to attend the interview, although you thank them for their time and consideration.
I am sure these program coordinators understand that students will not be able to attend all interview offers they receive for one reason or another. But as long as you are polite and respectful (as academia really is a small world, you don't want to step on anyone's toes) I don't see anything wrong with declining an offer or two. But, out of respect for the program that was considering you, I think it would be best to let them know as soon as possible if you really don't feel like you would want to attend the program anyways.
But congratulations on having so many interviews to choose from!
This is great advice -- thank you!
-
Hey all,
I know people have been getting interviews recently--and possibly accepting these interview invites--but would it be appropriate to decline interviews at this time? The thing is, I have interviews at 4 schools, and all the interviews are one week after the other. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about all these schools, and so I'm tempted to decline 2 of them so I wouldn't be so tired from traveling and would have more time to recover and perform well on the interviews at schools I am enthusiastic about. But it seems a little too early to do this, and I am worried about declining too many interviews, screwing up the interviews I want, and being left empty-handed with no grad schools to attend.
Any advice on when to decline interviews? I am definitely expecting more interview invites.
-
Hey all,
Would it be appropriate to write that you are a first generation student when the application requests a statement about how you contribute to the diversity at the school? Is this something that counts as "underrepresented"?
Michael
-
Hey all,
Some schools ask what other schools and programs you are applying for in the application form (although this question is not required). Does anyone know what they use this information for? Would it look "bad" if I listed 9 other schools?
Thanks!
NSERC PGSD 2018-2019
in The Bank
Posted
Okay--same thing happened to me earlier today as well!