Jump to content

TAGC

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    109

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by TAGC

  1. TAGC
    @GCStudent Any insights into when interview invites are going out and dates of interviews?
  2. TAGC
    Got an e-mail from Manitoba offering me an interview! So relieved to finally have heard from a program. They offered 4 interview dates: March 6th, March 13th, March 20th, and March 27th.
  3. TAGC
    Wow that's a really quick turn around time. I had all of my documents in to them before Christmas, but one of my references didn't send in his recommendation until January 9th.
  4. TAGC
    Only two people on the results page have heard from Rutgers, so I haven't lost hope yet. I think we need a new category besides accepted/rejected called "limbo", meaning "others have interviews, but I don't have an official rejection yet"
  5. TAGC
    I think Colorado had some technical difficulties this year, so applications were delayed. That could explain why no one has heard anything yet.
  6. TAGC
    I actually completely ignored the letter, thinking I'd only bother with it if I got an interview. Maybe I should go back and read it more thoroughly :-s
  7. TAGC
    @Sunshine99 I'm also a fifth time applicant. I applied straight out of my undergrad with a really weak application, because I didn't realize how competitive it was and didn't know much about the career yet. I got a different Master's degree and started working in that field when I decided to apply again. I only applied to UofT that time because my serious boyfriend (now husband) was in grad school and couldn't move. When they rejected me I asked for feedback and they told me I hadn't volunteered since my undergrad and that my personal statement wasn't very strong. The next year I applied to all 3 Canadian schools and didn't get any interviews, but the overwhelming consensus was that I needed shadowing experience. I got that experience and when I reapplied to the 4 Canadian schools I got 2 interviews. I was wait-listed to one of the schools and the other school gave me some solid interview feedback, which I've been working on this year. The 2 schools that didn't interview me said that my application was really strong, but that when they can only interview so few it's hard to make that cut. I finally wrote the GRE this year so that I could expand my applications to the American schools as well. I also did more shadowing and took a course through USC called "Genetic Counseling: Career for the Future." I'm really hoping this is finally my year, because I don't know if I have another application cycle in me. Sorry for the long biography, but I thought people would like to know what some of my feedback was along the way and why I'm a fifth time applicant. I don't think I had a particularly strong application until last year, which explains why I've done this so many times.
  8. TAGC
    I submitted my initial application to Rutgers on November 17th, but slowly uploaded my supplementary documents throughout December. On December 20th I got an e-mail from them asking if I could please attach my last two documents so that they could get my application to a faculty member before Christmas. I think that means they're doing rolling admissions, since they were looking at the application almost a month before the due date. I haven't received a call from them though, so getting my stuff in before Christmas may not have helped.
  9. TAGC
    I'm not the person you were asking the question to, but for me class size was a really important factor in picking which school to go to. SLC accepts 25-30 students per year while Mt Sinnai accepts 8-12. That would definitely be a deciding factor for me in where to go. I didn't apply to either due to location, but that's a different issue.
  10. TAGC
    UBC and Manitoba. I only applied to Canadian schools last year because I hadn't taken the GRE. I more than doubled my applications this year by adding American schools to the mix. @Gadgette I'm also really surprised that everyone's getting invites so early. Last year I received my first interview offer on February 3rd and my last rejection on February 28th.
  11. TAGC
    I had two interviews last year and they were completely different from each other. One was a one hour long panel interview that was very geared towards me and my background. They asked some questions about "what would you do if you were a genetic counselor and a patient came in asking x?" but they also asked me how I got into the field I'm in now and why I was choosing to change fields and questions very specific to my past volunteer work. They also asked off-the-cuff follow up questions based on the answers I gave. The other school was a full-day with multi-mini interviews. Each mini interview had a specific set of questions/activities/scenarios that they went through with no variation. Then at the end of the day they had a more personal interview, where they asked about what I was looking for in a program, why I wanted to be a genetic counselor, and where I saw myself in the field, etc. Even though this portion was more personal, it was still a specific set of questions with no variation between applicants.
  12. TAGC
    I took a course about genetic counseling with the University of South Carolina and I'm slowing trying to work through the book list the instructor gave us. So far I've read: The spirit catches you and you fall down by Anne Fadiman (about cultural diversity and a Hmong girl with epilepsy living in America), Give me one wish by Jacquie Gordon (about a teenage girl with cystic fibrosis), Anna: A daughter's life by William Loizeaux (a father's memoirs about his grief after the loss of his daughter who had VATER syndrome), and Expecting Adam by Martha Beck (about a woman who decides to not terminate her pregnancy after a Down syndrome diagnosis, despite everyone pressuring her to). I've really enjoyed all of them so far and can't really pick a favourite because they're all on very different topics related to genetic counseling. The rest of the book list is: Choosing Naia by Mitchel Zuckoff, Babyface by Jeanne McDermott, Waiting with Gabriel by Amy Kuebelbeck, Spelling Love with an X by Clare Dunsford, Before and After Zachariah by Fern Kupfer, Old Before my Time by Hayley Okines, and Pretty is What Changes by Jessica Queller. I also read a fictional novel called Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genova about a family that carries the gene for Huntington's.
  13. TAGC
    None of the schools I've applied to have sent out anything. Not even unrelated e-mails just to tell me about the campus. The silence is deafening. I wasn't expecting to hear anything until February, but seeing everyone else get interview offers for other schools already is making me feel a little antsy.
  14. TAGC
    @FutureGC7 Thanks for putting together that list. I think UBC's interviews are the first week of March, and Toronto sends out their interview invites mid-February. If Manitoba follows the same schedule this year as they did last year then they should be sending out invites mid-February for interviews in March & April.
  15. TAGC
    Just submitted my last application as well! It's a little anti-climactic being done with my submissions. I still have to wait for one of my recommenders to send a few letters, so I won't feel complete until that's those are in.
  16. TAGC
    As far as I know, it doesn't matter unless the school specifies that they have an early application date. If they only have one date listed, then I think it's all the same.
  17. TAGC
    Awesome. That's what I'll do then. Thanks for your help!
  18. TAGC
    Because they have some fill-in boxes that are "For Office Use Only" and because the Signature box is a fill-in box as well. I thought that they maybe wanted us to leave those boxes available for them to fill in. I might just be over thinking it and should probably just print and re-scan.
  19. TAGC
    Those that are applying to Stanislaus State, what did you do about signing the supplementary form? Because of the fill in the blank PDF boxes, I don't think it's appropriate to print and scan it. Did anyone just type your name in or do an electronic signature?
  20. TAGC
    I uploaded a scanned copy of my official transcript, but I think that still counts as an "unofficial transcript" so I think you're probably fine just uploading the unofficials. They don't ask you to have the official transcripts sent to them, only the scan.
  21. TAGC
    @GeneDawg Thanks for the update. The director e-mailed me back as well. What a relief. I thought I was going to have to stay up all last night re-writing it. I feel like I might have also answered the first question differently if I had the correct second question. Because neither of the questions asked about advocacy and volunteer work, I kind of shoe-horned them in to my first essay where it didn't really make sense.
  22. TAGC
    I had the feeling that a lot of people might be in the same boat. I double checked the essay question yesterday at 1pm EST so that I could format my final essay and it was the original question, then when I went to submit it at around 8pm EST the question had changed, so this was definitely done yesterday. When I e-mailed the graduate admissions I got an automatic reply saying that it takes 3-5 days for them to respond, which is after the International deadline. I think I might contact the program director if I don't hear back from them by the end of the day.
  23. TAGC
    Just a heads-up, UC-Denver just changed one of their essay requirements today. Earlier this afternoon the description under the past work tab was "Describe your professional and academic laboratory and/or research experiences from start of undergraduate work to present." I was about to upload my finished application when I noticed that the description was changed to "Describe your preparation and experience relevant to your proposed graduate field of genetic counseling. Please include course and non-course educational experiences, volunteer/advocacy and counseling experiences, teaching, laboratory or clinical research experience (including capstone, thesis, publications), and other relevant employment, scholarly or career exploration activities." For most people the application is due on January 1st, so it might not affect people. I'm an international applicant, so the material is due December 1st. I've just e-mailed them asking if they're giving any lee-way to the deadline considering this change was made 2 days before it was due.
  24. TAGC
    Thank you! I'm a little bit nervous about Colorado because they require international students to submit a month early. I'm feeling less prepared than I had anticipated.
  25. TAGC
    I'm planning to make a road trip out of moving to the new school. That way instead of being nervous about going somewhere new, I'm excited about all of the sites I'm going to see. This also means that I'm going to have my car with me when I get there. There's only one program close to me, so I figure I'm most likely going to end up somewhere far from home. There's no real motivation, just that it's the only way that I can become a Genetic Counselor. It's okay to be worried about things like how safe the program is and how you'll get your car there. Those are definitely good things to consider when deciding which schools to apply to. If you live on the East Coast, then maybe going to a program in California isn't too feasible because that's a really tough road trip. Maybe you don't want to go to a school that's in a big city, because it's not as safe. Those are all great things to consider. It's tough to narrow your choices down, so sometimes you just have to go with your feelings about a particular city. I also looked into how much a plane ticket home would cost. If one school is going to cost me $700 to fly home plus a long train ride, but another is only going to cost me $250 and it's direct, then I probably want to go to the one that's cheaper and more direct.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

  I accept