WaliaIbex

Congrats on the GEM Fellowship! Same here. I'm really happy about the school I will be attending, but it was so scary with all of that silence when I thought I wasn't going to get in anywhere this cycle. Let's make the best of it, though. We have a whole 5 (or 6) years of science to do and prove our excellence, and based on your profiles here, I'm sure we'll all do some great stuff! May all of our experiments go perfectly the first time, and all of our papers be accepted to Nature. ?

@TITX I emailed the ones I am waiting on a few weeks back. Most gave no response here either, but the ones who did were direct match programs, and said to directly contact the PIs you are interested in working with rather than the department. What programs are you waiting on, if you don't mind me asking?

Just received an email notifying me of my eligibility for an Associate Fellowship! Anyone else get any updates today?

Congrats on WashU, though! I saw you had an interview with UVA, were you at the 3/1 weekend?

Have UMD, Georgia Tech, and Duke (PhD) sent responses / invites to all of the people they plan to interview/accept? I haven't heard anything back yet from them yet, which I'm thinking is a reject at this point in the cycle. I know Duke sent out MS acceptances today. By the way, congrats to everyone for the excellent results so far in the cycle!

I haven't! There were a few labs that looked like a good fit, thank you for the reccomendation!

Good luck tomorrow!

Undergrad Institution (approx. rank/reputation in STEM): University of California campus. Top 25 BioE/BME, good research reputation. Major(s): Biomedical Engineering Minor(s): Microfluidics && Social Sciences GPA in Major: 3.10/4.00 Overall GPA: 3.0/4.00 Demographics/Background: Black Male. Domestic Applicant. First generation. GRE Scores: Q: 160 (76%) V: 163(93%) W: 5.5 (98%) I think I'm going to retake. LOR: UG Research PI (Excellent relationship), UG Senior Design Project Professor (Good relationship). Last LOR writer is a professor I took a class with last fall. Research Experience: 2 years of undergraduate research in 1 lab. Led other undergraduates on a multidisciplinary project. 1 year senior design project. Microfluidics and POC testing. 1 year post-bacc Research Assistant with same PI as UG research. Mainly systems neuroscience and neuroengineering. Publications/Abstracts/Presentations: Presented at school conferences and symposiums multiple times, working on a paper right now with my PI. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: NIH Post-bacc IRTA Fellowship Multiple Research Fellowships with school for lab and for Fellowships/Funding: Applying to the GEM National Consortium fellowships at most schools. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Internship with major medical device company President of engineering society. Teaching Assistant experience Other Miscellaneous Accomplishments: Co-founded a food pantry on my campus, and have consistently worked over the years to grow it. Anything else in your application that might matter (faculty connections, etc.): Upward trend (~3.6 in upper division coursework) I know my GPA is low -- I had a difficult family situation throughout college. Research Interests: I am interested in a few research topics -- Neuroscience, BioMEMS, and single-cell analysis. Institutions/Programs: UW, USC, JHU, Columbia, WUSTL, UPitt, Berkeley, Berkeley/UCSF, GA Tech, MIT, MIT/Harvard, UCSD, Northwestern, Rice, Stanford. EE at some of these schools depending on the faculty of interest, but mostly Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering. Comments: I am applying to a lot of competitive programs right now. I don't think it's a good idea, typing it out. Does anyone have any suggestions on programs/labs I should be applying to? Which programs should I remove from my list?

Congrats! It's a great program to be a part of.

Oh whoops! Sorry for labeling this wrong. I meant that I would apply in the fall of this year.

Undergrad Institution: A University of California Major(s): Bioengineering / Biomedical Engineering Minor(s): Electrical Engineering and Political Science GPA in Major: 2.60 Overall GPA: 2.54 Length of Degree: 4 years Type of Student: Domestic, Black male. Degrees Applying for: MS in EE (where research interests align) or MS in BioE/BME GRE Scores: Not taken yet Research Experience: Undergraduate Researcher in Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering Lab. I worked on two projects here, one of them analyzing ketamine as an anti-depressant (effectiveness and side-effects) and the other is real time "mind reading" through miniature microscopic imaging and mathematic computation. Two tentative authorships should come out of this. 2 presentations. 15 hrs/week. Took a lot of personal ownership on the projects I had, and felt genuinely very interested in learning more about the more electrical engineering side of this field (Signal Processing, Neuroengineering, and MEMS). By the time applications are in, I will be in this lab for 1.5 years. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Academic scholarships UROP Grants 3 Dean's Lists. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Senior Design Project: Will be related to Microfluidic Health Diagnostic Devices or Embedded Drug Delivery Device. Internship at major medical device and pharmaceutical company. Any Miscellaneous Information that Might Help: Campaigned for and established a food pantry on campus to fight food insecurity. It secured funding for next 10 years. The project started at the end of freshman year, and I will be seeing it through to the end. Have tutored STEM concepts and been a part of many efforts to recruit African-descent, Latino, and women into STEM. (summer camps, tutoring, volunteering, mentoring, etc.) Difficult life circumstances -- had to work 35 hrs/wk. Many family deaths (6+), increased responsibilities at home (tutoring, cooking, picking up brother), and more I'd rather not get into. Because of this, I have a huge upward trend in my more recent grades, and I hope to do well with the 3 remaining quarters before application season ends. I am here to ask two questions: I have two letters of recc in mind already -- one from the PI of my lab and one from a professor I took an upper division class with. The upper division class relied heavily on class I'd done poorly in. The class and research the professor conducts are related to my research interests, and I got an excellent grade in it. For my last one, I could ask the dean of my school, since we've worked together before multiple times doing recruitment, retention, and other events, and he knows me in a professional (but not academic) capacity. The reason I am a little hesitant is that I don't think he knows me as well as the PI for my lab and the upper div professor who's class I did well in. I can also ask my manager for the internship, but again, he only knows me in a professional capacity. Should I try to make a good impression with the 6 more biomedical engineering professors whose classes I will take, and ask one of them? Who should I ask for my third letter of rec? I know my numbers don't stack up against the average applicant. What are some EE MS programs I should be looking at, considering my stats? I want to study EE so I get more classes about signal processing and computation so I could study BCI's, signal processing, and neuro-engineering with a more solid base in coding and data structures. I have a few programs in mind, but I truly don't think I will stack up against the competition with the average applicants at those, honestly. Thanks for your help, and I appreciate the honesty and advice.