rockyMicrobe

As an senior in undergrad (or as a grad student), you can apply for an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, but the NIH fellowships are restricted to grad students as far as I know. For the NSF GRFP, the grant is paid to the institution as a $34,000 stipend and a $12,000 cost of education allowance for the student, yearly for 3 years. https://www.nsfgrfp.org/general_resources/about
Most of the places I interviewed at stated that if a student receives a fellowship, they get a few thousand added to their stipend as a bonus (so you don't get the entire amount of the fellowship stipend on top of your regular stipend but you're not going to lose anything if your regular stipend is more than the fellowship). In addition to having a nice line on your CV, having your own research funding allows you to be more flexible in the advisor you choose and the research you do since they have to worry less about supporting you financially and can spend that extra money on the research.

I don't really have any advice on your stats/background, but this list is coming along. I applied to UNC BBSP and am going to UW-Madison for biochemistry in the fall. I personally cut UCSF from my list since their app was expensive and they didn't really have anything for me, but your outlook may be different. I would recommend adding Emory - and have you looked at Vanderbilt? Their IGP had a lot of neuro-related stuff and had by-far the nicest program directors/staff! Plus the app is free.  
As far as mentioning the reason for your interest, I think it's a good idea - just don't lay it on thick with the platitudes. If those interactions with people suffering from neurodegenerative disease are what sparked your interest in the field, then you should say that! In many cases, committees are looking for authenticity... they can tell when people are being fake, so don't worry.  One last piece of advice - don't worry too much about the GRE writing sections. I was sweating bullets going into the test, got a slightly above average score and it never caused me a bit of trouble! It's more important to be above the threshold where people will say, "ah, this score is really bad." Beyond that, it doesn't matter. 

It ultimately came down to which school had the whole package of research, mentorship/support and location for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very hard decision. I definitely lost some sleep over it.  
Long story short, the research fit was very good at both schools, and it would be very hard for me to choose solely based on that. 
As for mentorship/support, I got along better with the faculty I interacted with at Penn. This obviously depends on who I happened to interview with/run into, but the gut feeling was there. I decided to listen to it because I got matched with POIs I was really interested in at both places, and simply could see myself working with those at Penn over Harvard. I’ve learned the hard way that personality is something that matters to me. 
I also approached it from the angle of: “If (or maybe when) something goes wrong, who (other than my PI) can I go to for guidance?” At Penn I could name two such people after the visiting weekend, at Harvard it was a bit harder. I think this one is largely because CAMB is broken up into a few sub-groups, and each has a chair and administrator. It’s very different when you’re one of six or seven people, versus one of 65. Both of them at Penn sought the few of us in the sub-group out during the interviews to touch base and get to know us. Does not being sought out during the interview mean there is less support at Harvard? Probably not. But the structures of the programs are undeniably different, and I decided that Penn fit my needs better. 
Also, there is a higher junior faculty turnover at Harvard than at Penn.  To me, this had a higher probability of translating into a high pressure environment that I didn’t feel would fit the type of environment I learn best in. Of course that will differ on specifics labs and it’s probably avoidable; but again, it’s there, and might limit who I get to work with. I tend to gravitate toward smaller labs (which tend to be led by assistant professors) so I did not want to be limited by this fear. 
Finally, I preferred Philly over Boston. I can afford a one bedroom apartment about a 15 minute walk from campus by myself in Philly, in Boston that is nearly impossible. I wanted to have the option to live by myself comfortably. Ruled out NYC because of this one too. 
All in all, I had to go with where I felt I would have the highest probability of being happiest and most successful. So it’s not really one deciding factor, but kind of the context of the whole program, including the location, that just made Penn the better fit for me. It was one hell of a personal decision.

she need sum MILK

I totally disagree that travelling is a waste of the summer! If you have the time and money, do it! It's going to be very difficult to find that chunk of time during your PhD, you've likely worked your butt off to get into programs, and travelling is a wonderful way to grow and mature as a person. Sure, prep too if ya want, can't you do both?  Globally calling it a waste seems a bit closed-minded?

Coming from someone who is currently waitlisted at Columbia, I'll try to be unbiased.
Looking at your previous posts, it looks like you may be overthinking your decision. They both have great programs, but you will only get out what you put in to the program. My best advice would be to go with your gut feeling. It is difficult to rank a program based on others view of the program.

So, this is what I have heard through the grapevine....
As an NSF GRFP awardee, you are highly desired. 
Email the PhD programs you were rejected from, better yet, call them. Tell them you were awarded the NSF GRFP. I am willing to bet they will happily bend the rules and let you in. Not only does the NSF save them money, but it also makes the program more distinguished. You have absolutely nothing to lose!
You might even be able to contact programs you are interested in but did not apply for.

I think they were just trying to tell you that the applicant pool was competitive and nothing personal.

Anyone notice there is maintenance scheduled for Thursday night and Friday night? Could this mean individual results Friday and then the list of recipients will be uploaded for Saturday? They've had "scheduled maintenance" now 3 times in a week so maybe results soon?
03/15/17  -  FastLane will be unavailable from 10:00PM ET, Thursday, March 16 to 5:00AM ET, Friday, March 17 for scheduled maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience. 03/15/17  -  FastLane will be unavailable from 10:00PM ET, Friday, March 17 to 10:00AM ET, Saturday, March 18 for scheduled maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Echoing the sentiments above, I have a ~3.3 cumulative GPA (largely influenced by hardships my first few years in school) and slightly above average GRE scores, but I had good research experience, thoughtful statements, and great letters of recommendation. This allowed me to get into PhD programs at schools like Berkeley and UCSF even though some of my stats weren't ideal. Play your strengths and make it clear that you didn't give up on your goal while going through a hard time. Perseverance and resilience are traits that will help you survive in grad school. I think if you can demonstrate that you've continued working toward your PhD, even if that means being a tech for more experience or doing a masters, you have the opportunity to tell your story in a way that makes you a really appealing, dedicated candidate.
Also, if you can afford it or qualify for application waivers, go ahead and apply to a couple of PhD programs you'd like to attend. I applied to top tier, medium tier schools, and lower tier schools. I got some rejections from all three tiers, but am genuinely happy with the opportunities I have. However, if I didn't take a chance I wouldn't be in this position. I highly suggest giving it a go, you never know what the admissions committee is looking for.

Accepted to NYU with a 2.6 uGPA. Miracles happen. 

OP your username is annoying AF, your posts always make me cringe. Does GRE matter when you consider yourself a "FailedScientist" good luck in your future, I'd suggest choosing a different career path if you've fucked up on interviews so many times. Peace dawg

Well thanks for the honesty I suppose. I'm going to be blunt with you, so try to not take offense, but you seem awfully arrogant. Some of your points are valid and I agree with; there are currently too many PhDs being trained. At this rate it's not sustainable, it's simply not. But to say a PhD is not worthwhile unless you stay in academia is silly and myopic, and should someone choose industry over academia that does not make them any less of a scientist. Many PhDs are choosing industry and alternative careers simply because they find academia is not an attractive option. Being on an entirely soft money salary fighting tooth and nail for grants in order to feed your family isn't exactly everyone's idea of a stable career, and if you can't see that then perhaps you should reflect on the current climate of academia a bit more. You know what percentage of PhD graduates end up in tenure track positions? It's low. While academia was once the default path, it's quickly becoming just the opposite and schools are changing to reflect that. 
You are exactly the the type of person I am looking to avoid for rotations. I hope during the course of your training you take off your blinders, because your narrow mindedness is something that is not a great character trait. 

Does it bother anyone else that schools like to start out the career path options presentations without mentioning going for a career in academia?
Why the heck would you go to grad school for your PhD if that is not your goal. I'm sick and tired of that shit, you don't need a PhD for consulting, you don't need a PhD to become a science writer, you don't need a PhD for an industry job..
Schools are letting in too many people, at every interview I've been to, I've met tons of smart people, alternatively, I've also met people that make me think "Why are you here?". I hear stuff like: "I'll be picking a mentor and doing rotations with people whose personalities mesh with mine" are you kidding me? -- I'll be doing rotations with people who are going to challenge me and push me to the edge - I'll be going with my gut feelings on who I choose to work with and it will purely be based off of their science. 
There are TOO many PhD's awarded, have you seen the statistics on PhDs on welfare (not just Biology PhDs to be fair but all in the USA) something like 30 percent on welfare. 50 years ago there were about 600,000 Bio researchers, now there are 6-7 million, it's not sustainable.
Schools need to clean up their acts, Masters degrees need to be funded not paid for by students - that can solve two problems: replicability as MS degrees can be focused on reproducing data and not novel data generation; it can also give an avenue for all the people who want to do what I would call "soft" stuff with their degrees. PhDs should only be given and encouraged for those who have raw talent and can become peers with professors not every person who applies.
If science does not keep you awake a night and doesn't wake you up in the morning... good luck.
When I'm a PI one day, I will not even let a student who does not want to become a SCIENTIST anywhere near my lab, not even for a rotation. Some of the people on this website and IRL just make me cringe, somebody needs to scientifically slap them with the truth.
What are your thoughts? Are you getting your PhD without the intent of at least trying to become a PI or Lecturer? Why? 

I've been mostly holding off on commenting until I saw my pal @Bioenchilada post, so I figured I'd chime in as well.
Pretty much everything that Bioenchilada said was on point. Having gone to an Ivy League for undergrad myself, and knowing that prestige of school and overall funding =/= grad school experience or funding, I only applied to like 1 Ivy only for their program during my application round.
That being said, I'm now at UCSF and had some misconceptions before I even got here, so let me address some parts in the section I quoted above.
1. UCSF is TWO campuses - Parnassus and Mission Bay. There is literally a Biophysics program, there's TETRAD for more pure sciences research, not to mention powerhouses like QB3, etc. There isn't necessarily an engineering department besides the joint program with Berkeley, but I'm actually rotating in a bioengineering lab next quarter. So many innovations come out from UCSF because engineering research is being conducted here (with applications to medicine, obviously, but that are generalizable). 
2. On the money issue:
You're not going to graduate school to get rich while you're there. Whether it be NYC or SF, the cost of living in these desirable places is pretty much the price of admission to be in the theme park. I did originally have qualms about this, as I even calculated that at some other schools I might be able to save up about $20K across 5 years or mortgage a house, but is that the point of graduate school? Also, if I'm going to be somewhat destitute, I'd rather do it in graduate school, not when I'm doing a post doc (note, loads of post docs love being here, and they get paid even less than graduate students due to the UC-wide post doc union). As someone from a low income background, with no family to support me, it's not as bad as you think. Once you get over the mental barrier, you realize that even here people can live fine on our salary. I won't say it's necessarily comfortable or thriving, but it's enough to survive. You forgot 4 other important things that UCSF does to offset the cost. a. You get two years in heavily subsidized student housing. b. You get a $4K relocation-allowance which you can use for anything before coming to UCSF (helps to offset costs of moving). c. Some programs provide you with a laptop and other goodies for matriculating (some have additional housing funds). d. There is a cost-of-living allowance given to people that live off campus, and even then you can find off-campus housing for under $1000/mo. It might mean not having a single studio, but that's just the way it is. Final point: anywhere you go, fellowships do not supplement your income directly. Some programs might give you extra money, but this is incredibly rare as your stipend is set by NIH/NSF standards, so usually programs that advertise these bonuses do so because their stipend is on the lower end of the spectrum.  Now, I'm going to flip around some of your pros form Princeton.
3. Quality over Quantity. I'm not sure why you would put that as a pro, as if somehow UCSF's overwhelming amount of faculty is indicative of lower quality? You do realize that UCSF is the number one recipient of NIH funds, right? No school anywhere hires people without their own sources of income, and a scientist's ability to maintain funding is pretty much a straight correlation with the quality of their work or its impact. Obviously UCSF is a purely medical/science university so there will absolutely be an overwhelming amount of faculty to choose from, but that is not a sign of lower quality.
4. Tons of money and funding. Princeton may have a huge endowment, but you'll almost never see any of that money, especially since those endowments tend to be trapped in undergraduate services or things that don't spill over into your science. You may get better career services, free food, and other things, but graduate programs tend to be maintained through training grants, tuition remissions, and funding overhead. At any top program, you're going to see programs tell you that you're covered by the program for X number of years, and then your PI guarantees the rest of your funding; of course, in the case of something catastrophic, like your PI losing funding or leaving, top programs have mechanisms to still support you. So look out for that information from places you're interested in. 
Finally, I'm going to address this since it's so insidious.
Get.Over.School.Prestige.To.Non.Science.People.
I don't know why people feel like they need to somehow boost their egos by thinking that people not in the sciences need to recognize their school - as if that was a metric for anything. If I had listened to my family, I would have gone to Yale or MIT since they didn't know about UCSF; luckily, I know better and have no need to be used by family and friends as some talking point to other people they're trying to impress. I went where I thought I had the best fit with the program and my interviewing cohort, in addition to the science being conducted there and where I would be living for the next 5-6 years. Additionally, UCSF has huge recognition on the West coast in all circles. I also see that you turned down Harvard and MIT interviews; so really, if non-scientific reputation means anything to you, you should have taken those interviews, since while it seems that UCSF doesn't hold a candle to the prestige you desire, Princeton realistically pales in comparison to those other two as well, and even more in the sciences.

Given that I'm seeing a lot of discussion about prestige, I must point out that for your PhD, how people view your school is irrelevant. If the school is known to be incredibly good in your field (biomedical sciences), how your professional peers view the school is what truly matters. Sure, telling random people (or others outside of the field) you go to UCSF might not get the same reaction as if you told people you go to Princeton, but you shouldn't really be concerned by this, at all. This is coming from a person whose school is perpetually confused with Penn State. General people knew (and cared) more about my school when I went to Purdue lol

I 100% agree. My GPA was absolutely horrendous (sub 3.0). Though I explained this in my personal statement, the interview was essential in showing admissions that I was knowledgeable about my science and excited about research.

This whole post makes me sad. It's questionable to get a dog when you know your near future is up in the air and you might not be able to take care of it, but to have a dog and then wonder if it's going to make you miserable? I wish you put more thought into this before you adopted the puppy. I hope if you choose not to keep the dog, then you actively look for a good home for it. 
 
 

I don't think you need that much research experience for a Master's program, so I think you will be okay for getting into a Master's program, but I don't know about UMass Boston specifically (mostly because I know nothing about this school). Diversify your application and apply to a few more schools, and I think you may stand a chance. Also, when looking at stats it is more important to look at what type of applicants the accept rather than how many. They should have the class profile or FAQ with relevant information up on their website, so I recommend taking a look at that seeing what the average GPA is and how many of their accepted applicants have sustained research experience. That will give you a much better estimation of your chances than acceptance rates alone.
Edited To Add:
So I looked at the UMass Biology MS requirements, and it sounds like they don't expect you to have any research experience, just a really strong academic background. You can also contact the department and ask for the information I mentioned.

I think there are some things you have to consider. How stable is your relationship? Is marriage (or a longterm commitment you're into) on the horizon, have you discussed where you would like things to go or are you just trying to see how it works out? I would highly suggest having a serious conversation with your boyfriend about what a long distance relationship would mean (it sounds like you may have) and if you think your relationship could withstand that space. 
Additionally, you have to ask yourself if you will feel any resentment after pushing back your plans a year while your boyfriend carries on with the plan as expected. There is always the chance that you will not get acceptances to New York schools next cycle, which I'm sure would be a very uncomfortable situation to be in.
I would say, of course you could turn down your acceptances and apply again next year. Another year at the FDA could be great experience and could make you an even better candidate. However, almost nothing is guaranteed in this application process so I think you have to make sure you are going to be content with all possible outcomes.

Absolutely agreed.
The best piece of advice that I can give you @Pepperoni and anyone else asking this question is that you need to take department rankings with a grain of salt. Even for US News, their rankings are heavily influenced by undergraduate prestige, endowment, etc. This sometimes translates over to the graduate programs, but the correlation isn't strong. Just think of a couple of schools with huge university endowments, and then remember that most of that money is not dedicated towards departments or graduate funding.

Finding out about all these unquantifiable/subjective metrics is the point of interviews. There's noway somebody could give you a definitive 20 school ranking without having interviewed or been to a majority of those schools.

But, I'm going to throw you some helpful information.
Schools receiving large amounts of NIH funding tend to have incredibly strong graduate research programs and infrastructure for those sciences. 
Check out the Tables of NIH Funding to US Schools, which I found compiled at Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research.
For example, the ranked list of schools awarded NIH funding can be found here.
Another great resource to look at would be the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities. They have good breakdowns by broad subjects, which give more weight to graduate level research. Also Phds.org gives you intervals of rankings based on surveys from doctoral recipients from a bunch of schools. The Bio/Integrated Biology and Biomedical Sciences one can be found here. 
Since I can't be unbiased as I am happy at (and attend) UCSF, I'll give you an example of why GradCafe or US Newsweek rankings would suck to be used as a metric. 
For instance, UCSF has been the #1 recipient of NIH funding for many years (as in the table above). Additionally, their Shanghai ranking in Med and Life Science categories puts them in the top 5 overall. However, if you compare them to other rankings, they fall short because they don't have undergraduates, alumni, or a large endowment (which is heavily weighed in other rankings). Yet, almost every scientist and person in the life sciences field, especially on the West Coast, would know what UCSF is, and it's high caliber level of excellence. Despite this, most of my non-science friends and family keep confusing my institution with Berkeley or SF State. So, if you're in it for the layman's prestige , you'll probably be disappointed in a lot of your choices if that's your sole metric, or even something you're considering AT ALL. 
TL;DR: Do your own research, go on interviews. Nobody here can answer your question besides giving a nebulous list of Top Tier Schools (much easier to judge based on top 20 NIH funded schools). Thread should be closed before people get the opportunity to flame.
 

This is a near pointless exercise to involve multiple people on this site. There will be no consensus on what the 20 "best" graduate programs are in a field. If you want the metrics, they are freely available online; otherwise, sites like US News use their own. You will be the best judge when it comes to appraising each program's value based on what you feel is important.
WUSTL, UWM, and Emory are all good schools for MCB. You will probably find that there are other factors much more important to your decision among these high caliber schools than their absolute ranking in some subjectively influenced list.

Hmm...I don't know your situation or stats, but I would really encourage you to wait until you have your offers in hand (and visit the programs on visit daY to stress over making decisions. Funding packages often differ between programs (and even between students in departments), so there are a lot of variables that may come into play. Not only that, the admissions process is often capricious and many solid candidates get rejected from programs that they'd "fit" or that they'd normally get in, depending on the year. Rankings aren't everything, and I'm a big proponent over picking the program where you thrive (holistically, which includes a city where you'd enjoy living over 5+ years). Just be patient and wait and see. 

I'd expand your horizons. Apply to both, when you don't get in, those horizons will help.

Bro please share your profile