Some violinist

Interview at Harvard BBS!!! Via email! First response of the season, very excited!

@krafael Huh, had no idea! Good to know, thanks!

@Adelaide9216 Nice! Paris is an amazing city, been living here the last few months. Enjoy it!

@krafael I don't think it'd be any different in terms of timing, or at least, any differences shouldn't be because of being international. No updates here, for what it's worth.

I think the "overcoming barriers to access higher education" part is in order for you to show your commitment to your studies. In that sense, it would be exemplifying your motivation for study in general, including graduate study. I know friends who mention how they had to work part-time to finance their studies, or defied stereotypes and stigma in their area of work or social context, or handled physical disability or severe anxiety. I've been fortunate enough to not have had to deal with things like these myself, but we all overcome challenges along the way: in my own Personal History Statement, I talk about how I've had to make DIY lab equipment due to lack of research budget, for example. The point, I think, is to show that you're committed to your goals and will continue to be so in grad school.

Sambrook's Molecular Cloning can be a regular bible!

This thread is everything I needed to hear today y’all are great.

On the bench, I do synthetic biology applied to infectious disease (bacterial resistance and malaria, so far), but I also do computational and mathematical modeling of gene networks, cell communities, and eco-social systems in healthcare–another big fan of interdisciplinary research. @ScienceGeek, your work sounds pretty cool! I had a professor from U. Wisconsin-Whitewater who's working on applying quantum mechanics to epidemiological modeling with some pretty interesting results, but I checked and he hasn't put up a preprint yet.

@factanonverba Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think applications at these programs are judged differently on when they're submitted. I think I'll be submitting mid-November, I'm basically waiting for my official GRE scores to come in.

I like @TakeruK's notes on structure and paragraph form. I'm still going through rereads and edits, but I think I've settled on something that looks like this: An introduction paragraph with my view of science, how that shapes my research interests and goals A paragraph on one of my interests and motivations, with relevant research experiences A paragraph on a related research experience deserving special attention A paragraph on a different, complementary research interest, with relevant research experiences A paragraph on my teaching/mentoring experience and how that informs my vision and goals A paragraph on my fit with the department's faculty and research A conclusion paragraph with how I fit with the program's spirit and my future career goals It amounts to two full pages at 1074 words. This may be on the longer side, but it's still well under the 1500 word limit set by the specs of one of my programs, so I assume 1000-ish words is not terrible. I might trim it some more, but it spins a coherent story from start to finish, so I think I'm happy for now.

I'd agree with GreenEyedTrombonist on the 12 point max. The general consensus for what I've seen around the web is 1.5–2 pages. One of the programs I'm applying to explicitly states a maximum of 1500 words, although that definitely seems a bit too much. I'm aiming (or struggling to keep under) the 1000 word limit, spread across two pages with 1.15 linespace. Regarding format or content, I find this presentation to be helpful: https://grad.ucla.edu/asis/agep/advsopstem.pdf

Webcomics? Prague Race (praguerace.com), Mare Internum (marecomic.com, though I quit after it turned too sad), Cassiopeia Quinn (cassiopeiaquinn.com)... too bad that magnum opus, Templar, AZ, was taken down (you can still waybackmachine it though: http://web.archive.org/web/20150214034056/http://templaraz.com/2005/05/26/chapter-1-the-great-outdoors-cover)

That course sounds awesooooome. Definitely add Fahrenheit 451 to your list then.

If you're enjoying 1984 and are still feeling dystopian-ey, Brave New World is the way to go, like IoneMacaroni said. I remember thinking it was a lot closer to where I felt the world was going when I read it, kind of scary. As far as dystopias go, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 would be my favorite, I think. As for classics, don't know if Moby Dick can stand up to Gilgamesh if being a classic is about age, but I would definitely recommend it.

I guess I should post myself up as well. Undergrad Institution: Universidad de Los Andes. Top school in my country, not that it makes much of a difference on the international level. Major(s): Microbiology Minor(s): Biomedical Engineering, Bioinformatics (didn't figure out I'd completed that one until after submitting, dang), Jazz Performance GPA in Major: ?/4.00 (my school doesn't do this either) Overall GPA: 3.81/4.00 Demographics/Background: Latin American, lived in the US a few years. GRE Scores: Q: 164 (87%) V: 170 (99%) W: 5.0 (93%) LOR: Three professors, two of them MIT PhD graduates, one of those MIT faculty (the other two are at my university). Each one a different area: Synthetic Biology, Biophysics, Mathematical Modeling (trying to buff up my low quant GRE score and Microbiology major). Took courses with two of them, been TA to one of them, conducted research with all of them. Hope they're strong letters, never got to know. Research Experience: iGEM/Synthetic biology team at my university (3 years, both dry and wet lab), Summer Undergraduate Research Program at my school held with Arizona State University on mathematical modeling (2 months), SUR program at MIT BE lab (2 months), paid undergraduate researcher at Los Andes-Max Planck Computational Biology Tandem Group (6 months). Publications/Abstracts/Presentations: No peer-reviewed publications. Two articles in O'Reilly Synthetic Biology magazine, three posters in international conferences (London and Buenos Aires; one first author and two second author), one oral presentation in Latin American symposium, one more poster in Latin American workshop. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Distinctions awarded by my school for best GPA in the Biology, Microbiology and Biomedical Engineering programs (I've switched majors a lot, heh). Distinction awarded to my university's top applicants upon entering undergrad. Fellowships/Funding: I'll take RA, TA positions? Serve coffees? Play fiddle on the subway? Didn't apply to anything Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Paid RA in Comp. Bio. lab, TA for Parasitology, Social Practice and Quantitative Human Physiology courses. Volunteer academic tutor for low-income high school students in Bogotá? Other Miscellaneous Accomplishments: Won a couple smallish creative writing awards? Been in classical, jazz, and metal groups? Research Interests: Synthetic Biology, Mathematical/Computational Modeling, Infectious Disease. Institutions/Programs: MIT BE. Comments: I wasn't planning on applying this season... I was gonna finish my Biomedical Engineering double major (I'm a senior undergrad) and apply everywhere I could next year. But the professor I worked with at MIT suggested I give it a shot, so I did the whole thing sort of last minute, knowing it was a huge moon shot. Now I'm kicking myself for not preparing my GRE more carefully and not applying to more, less competitive places. Oh well. Good luck to everyone!

Cool. Keep us posted

Nothing yet. From what I see from previous years in the results section, they seem to be spread out through January. Keeping some hope :/