StemCellFan

Accepted to UIC GEMS!! Still very highly considering UW-Madison's offer!

Congratulations!! I loved visiting Case Western when I was there! I hope you hear from PIBS Neuro soon.

I think it's pretty natural to worry, but I would try not to. It sounds like you did really well at your interviews, so I can't imagine that they would outright reject you. They are going to accept more students than they plan to actually matriculate, and that percentage can range, but once you're at the interview stage, I think they are seriously considering you regardless. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you, but I think you have a really good shot for acceptance!

I've been going with business casual. A blouse, a cardigan or blazer, and nice trousers with booties or flats for footwear. I saw a wide range of suits and even a couple people in jeans with a jacket or sweater. I, personally, would recommend against wearing jeans on interview days, but they are totally fine for the days you aren't interviewing. I would just make sure you look put together. A full suit might be a little overdressed, but I've seen people wearing them and I don't think they look out of place. The people who wore jeans, though, did.

I really don't think taking extra chemistry courses beyond inorganic and organic chemistry (with lab) are going to hurt your chances for admission. What will is if you take up the double major, can't manage it, and then your grades suffer as a result. I would look at the coursework requirements for the programs you are interested in, and if you are unsure, feel free to contact a program administrator/coordinator about it. But you should be fine with the two years of chem. I think it's much better for you to just do the bio major and then use that extra time to get involved in undergraduate research if you haven't already, because that's going to be the most important part of your application to graduate school (along with a recommendation letter from the PI overseeing your research!). Earlier the better! This is just my thoughts though. I would look into doing either a behavioral neuroscience/physiological psychology/neuroscience course if those are available to you.

Congrats on the interview invite! I think as long as you wear comfortable shoes that cover your toes you should be perfectly fine for lab tours. No need to worry about getting steel-toed shoes or anything like that. I've been on a couple interview weekends now and most women I've seen, including myself, wore flats, booties, or loafers in black or dark colors. A couple women wore heels but I would highly recommend against doing that unless you know you can walk in heels all day. I think anything under the category of "business" is appropriate. The program/administrative coordinators planning the interview weekends can also give you pointers. I don't know about civil engineering, since my interviews were in biomedical sciences. But a lot of women wore a nice blouse, blazer, and slacks or skirt for the interviews. Some women I saw wore a button up shirt tucked in with nice pants also. Do not feel like you need to wear a dress/skirt/heels. For me, one of my interview days I wore a button up, nice dress pants, and a matching color cardigan. Another I had matching colored blazer and slacks and a nice blouse. I think if you could get away with a button up and nice trousers one day, and then wear a blazer, blouse, slacks for another day for more interviews, you will be set. Other options are a button up with a sweater underneath or wearing a cardigan.

I got into my top choice in Madison!!!! I'm 99.9% certain I'm going here, but I still want to at least go on the rest of my interviews (at least the ones for which a plane ticket was purchased). Would it be bad if I waited to accept the offer in March after my last interview? Or should I withdraw my application for the places I'm not flying out to? I'm so excited, but I don't know what to do now!

They will want to know about your research and why you want a PhD. Then they will usually go into a discussion of their research and will want to see interest on your end to discuss it with them. Think of it more like a conversation about your research and their research, and less about them asking you questions about your strengths and weaknesses. The only stereotypical, job-interview like question that was asked during each of my interviews (I've been on 3 now) is "why do you want a PhD and what is your plan afterwards?" I would definitely brush up on analysis and methods for your dissertation in case they ask in depth questions about it, because they might be curious!

I sent out emails thanking the coordinators for putting the events together, and if there were any stand out faculty I spoke with, I also thanked them. One faculty had really interesting and engaging research and they were looking for students interested in doing the work I want to do, but the meeting was only 30 minutes and was cut short, so I sent an email follow up with questions and expressed interest in their research. I only did it with that one faculty. While the others were also interesting, I don't know what else I would say other than a generic "thank you" and reiteration of interest in their research. I didn't send a thank you to any faculty post-interview at the school I'm accepted at, so I dunno.

Case Western acceptance!! First one!

I have a quick follow up question for women's interview clothing. I have back to back interviews this weekend (Friday and then Monday) and won't have enough time to wash my blazer. Would wearing a cardigan as a substitute with same color slacks be interview appropriate? I don't remember seeing anyone wearing a cardigan last weekend at the interview.

I saw anywhere between full suits on the dressy end and just a button down shirt with nice slacks on the more casual end. I didn't see any khakis at mine last weekend. There was a healthy mix of sweaters with button-downs also. Most took off their blazers eventually because it was too warm indoors.

I also want to mention that sometimes programs will arrange for faculty on recruitment or admissions committees to interview, even though the prospective student provided a list of faculty they're interested in. And I agree that it's important to be able to communicate with other scientists whose research is outside of your area of interest, even if you don't know much about it. And it's totally alright to be honest and ask simple questions about the research, and to mention that this is outside of your field. I like to think that they would be happy to see you are curious about science in general.

What would you ask them? Did you open up conversation with them before applying? If they don't have a lot of weight in admissions decisions, then I don't see the point in contacting them.

I second this. I went to a smaller school myself and had a lot of undergraduate research opportunities in NSF funded laboratories. I managed to publish, graduate with honors, and present my thesis at national and regional conferences. It was nice because I had a lot of opportunities to be mentored by my PI, labs were smaller, and there were no graduate students or post docs. Of course, everyone's mileage may vary! I want to point out the importance of working with a couple different mentors on research projects, especially if your daughter is interested in graduate school right away. Letters of recommendation from multiple people who can vouch for her research abilities is going to be important come application time. So in addition to attending a quality institution for research, I would encourage you to look at programs that have their students apply to REU or other summer research programs so that your daughter is able to get different experiences that way.

For my research, I looked at agonist stimulation through a number of receptors. Do you think it would be ok to bring a quick printed-out diagram of the cell that shows these receptors and their corresponding agonists as a visual tool?

I second the collared shirt under a sweater. If you go with nice jeans, I would go with something that's a dark wash and looks nicer IMO. Boots are a good idea and I would go for something low heel and has good traction underneath. The paths should be clear of ice, but slush can also be slippery. Coat, scarf, hat/ear muffs/headband, mittens are a must if you're going to be outside!

Hmm. This is tricky because different people have different coping mechanisms. From what I've heard, these interviews are very conversational and can range from the PI asking you about your research, to them talking to you about their research or a project they are looking for someone to work on (i.e. they're pitching their lab to you), a mix of both, or even interviews where the PI and interviewee didn't talk about a lot of science but miscellaneous stuff. My first interview is this weekend and my nerves are starting to kick in. I think everyone feels this way at some point.. My worry is that I'm not going to be able to coherently explain my research projects, or succinctly, and they'll lose interest in my research or think I don't know it well (even though I know it like the back of my hand). What's been helping me is explaining my research to my peers, so I'll be more comfortable explaining it to a PI. But being nervous is completely normal and I'm here to commiserate with you!

Oh wow! Congrats! That's great news

So most of my interview invite information has been pretty straightforward. Tours, meet with students, dinners/lunches, meet with faculty (whom you share interests with, some not), and maybe a social event or two. One program has indicated they want their interviewees to give a 4-5 minute research experience presentation in front of a committee. I'm in the fortunate situation that I am 5 years out from undergrad and have been working as a technician in multiple laboratories, and I also have 2 labs I worked in as an undergrad. That's a lot to condense into 4-5 minutes. Does anyone have experience with this? Any advice? I give powerpoint presentations about once a month for lab meeting and a yearly seminar for the whole department, so I'm pretty comfortable talking in front of others, but those are also pretty informal and unrehearsed.

I normally say to go for as many interviews as you think you can manage. This is tricky since I can see from the past and have heard that Stanford is typically late with their invites. Have you contacted the coordinator for Stanford to see where they are in the process? Are you positive there isn't an additional Stanford weekend? If you aren't crazy about Scripps, you could probably still cancel and not purchase the ticket. But it would suck if you did that, didn't get the invite from Stanford, and then you have UNC. Does UNC have another date you could go to? I would contact Stanford to see if they can give you a timeline. If not, evaluate the number of interviews you have currently and cancel Scripps (since you don't seem too interested in the structural stuff) if you really think you'll get the Stanford invite.

Hmm. It's not even mid-January yet. I think there's still time to hear back from programs. I also know there's a set of programs with January 15th deadlines and later February/early March interview weekends. Stay positive and I hope you hear back soon!

I'm not planning on wearing a hat unless it's in the single digits and I'm doing a significant amount of walking outdoors. I'm a long-haired female though and usually my hair is enough to keep myself warm. My husband wears a beanie, but he's bald and kind of has to. I think you would be okay with a beanie, but if you're worried about hair, maybe there's a headband you can wear or earmuffs? I know they make mens headbands, but they're mostly for athletic purposes. Otherwise, I don't know if your coat has a hood or an attachable/detachable one, but you could use that if it has one.

I think that's a good idea. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't apply to any other programs. I do think 3 is enough. For some people, just 1 interview is enough for them, and I know people that only applied to two programs, got interviews at both, and then admitted to both programs. I also know someone who had 3 interviews and didn't get in anywhere (after waitlists), but they also mentioned not feeling like they were engaged in conversation enough when they met with faculty and had okay-ish stats going in. I don't know how much faculty actually go back to GRE/GPA after an interview, but I like to think that person didn't portray their enthusiasm for science enough and that's why they ultimately didn't receive an acceptance. I have heard mixed remarks about that, though... so I'm not completely sure. Maybe someone who knows more about the process can weigh in there. At this point, I would work on communicating your research, reasons for wanting a PhD, and make sure you are able to show your love of science. You should be alright if you're able to do that! Good luck!

That's a tricky question because I don't know what the post-interview acceptance rates for those programs are. I want to say that 3 is still a good number of programs to interview at and putting your best foot forward you should get into any of them. I don't know if programs have a list of candidates they have preference for or whether everyone is more or less equal on interview day. I'd like to think all candidates have an equal chance of a post-interview acceptance once they are there and then everything is contingent on a positive interview and evaluation. But again, I don't know if all three of those programs have a 40% post interview acceptance rate or somewhere closer to 70-80%. If there are programs you are interested in and want to send out a couple more applications that's up to you. The fact that you have interviews at 3 good PhD programs right now, I don't think you need to apply for a Masters unless you really want to do one. If you don't get in this year, I would just look at the parts of your application you can improve on (do you need to retake the GRE? More research experience? Take a graduate level biochemistry course?) and focus on that and apply next year.