JacquelineY

An acceptance and a rejection on the same day (last Friday) My school email system literally decided that the rejection letter from Columbia was junk so I had to fish it out of the bin. But I feel good enough about my interview experience and subsequent acceptance at DGP and kinda expected a rejection from Columbia (since I hadn't heard from them) so that doesn't hurt at all ;P

You are very welcome! I'm sure you'll get better at the interviews every time:) Best of luck to you too!!!

I forgot to mention in my previous post, do avoid wearing very nice shoes to your UChicago interview if it's coming up soon. There was a heavy snow last weekend and another is projected at the beginning of next week. Now the ground is covered in salt, slush, or knee-deep snow depending on where you go, and nice dress shoes probably won't fare very well.

Hi! I'm another Chinese out there. I didn't apply to Tufts or look up statistics on post-interview acceptance rate of international students, but I guess it wouldn't make sense for them to fly you in if you are "automatically out" due to funding reasons. From what I learned we international students are less likely to bring money to the program since we aren't eligible to apply for most NIH grants, which means the program has to be prepared to pay you out of their own pocket and therefore admission could be more selective. But, without meaning to get your hopes up, I don't think it rules you out from being considered for acceptance as long as they didn't explicitly state that they wouldn't accept international students for the incoming class, especially post-interivew. I also saw your previous post. Just get prepared to answer why you want to do a PhD (maybe why do it in the US in your case) and to explain your research clearly. Sometimes they want to know how you are prepared to face/how you faced challenges in your academic life, and answers with an example of how you overcame a difficult time in life or a hobbit you believe would relieve your stress (classical music/reading/having cats) would usually do. My American PI once told me that it's important to project yourself as confident and passionate about research during interviews, which I found myself coming from a Chinese background taking some time to adjust to. I can't think of any topics to avoid (maybe don't get too politicized?) as long as your conversation stays around research and the academic life. I don't really know what sort of person gets rejected after an interview as most people I know from interviews are accepted. However, I did know one guy who was rejected by two programs where he didn't write post-interview thank you notes to his interviewers. So maybe do try and remember writing thank you notes...?

So far I received admissions from all three places that I've interviewed and got into my one of my top choices. I'm already so content about my application season but also wish the future interviews would go well (I plan to turn down offers in the middle of March as by then all the interviews and open house are done. Hope it won't be too late for people on the waitlist.)

Fair point. I just felt two days are a short amount of time to prepare for an interview, especially if you were in the middle of another interview when they finally gave you the notice like I was... I guess know your stuff well and quickly catch up on the interviewers' research after you get the list would be a good strategy. I also wish they could just tell us earlier.

You're welcome! And good luck!

I heard nothing. Let me know if you end up "bothering them" and what they say:)

I was interviewed at the previous session and didn't receive the list of interviewers until two days prior. I would suggest starting preparing according to the list you gave them as I got all of my interviewers from that list.

Yes, three hours ago.

Sure! You are very welcome

And Rockefeller invites are out!

I'm an undergrad at UChicago and my lab knows I'm applying, so they'd tell me if invites were out, and so far I'm not aware of any. But in any case you're right that the cancer program has their own admission committee and so on, so in that sense they are pretty separate. Also unsolicited information: so far as I heard on last Friday, the invites for immunology at UChicago also didn't seem to have gone out. I guess this year the biomedical cluster are just starting late...

I believe they haven't started yet. The interview weekend is Feb.22-24 so there's still time. Sit tight

As mentioned above, I heard from the graduate program coordinator that the interviews will be sent out in these two weeks. And their interview weekends are Feb.22-23 and Mar.1-2, as said somewhere on their website (can't remember where). Fingers crossed:)