reverdy

I would say it depends on your undergrad school. My impression was that the subject test is really only to test the strength of unknown undergrad programs, so if you come from a well-known (and good) undergrad program, I doubt the subject test will be necessary. If your school is unknown, then you should probably take the test.

Their last interview weekend just ended today, so I wouldn't start to worry unless you don't hear anything by next weekend.

Duke University: Feb 4-5 or Feb 18-19 Gerstner Sloan-Kettering: Jan 18-20 Indiana U, IBMG, February 3-5 (2 dates total only offered one) NYU Sackler Institute, Biomedical Sciences, Feb. 3,4 or Feb 10,11 Rockefeller University, March 3-5 or March 10-12 University of Alabama-Birmingham, Jan 13-15 U of Maryland, Baltimore, Neuroscience, January 21st, February 11th or 18th UNC, BBSP, January 27-29 (5 other dates) U of WA, immunology, Feb 17-19, Feb 24-26 Wake Forest, Neuroscience, January 13-15 Washington University in St. Louis Neuroscience (WashU/WUSTL): Jan 27-29 UCLA, ACCESS, January 29-31 UCSD, Biomedical Sciences, February 17-20 The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, February 24-26 or March 3-5

Thanks! Congrats on Princeton! The only people I know of who got Scripps invites applied for Immuno, so I wouldn't lose hope yet.

Congrats everyone! Heard from Scripps California (Immunology Track) and Gerstner Sloan-Kettering today by e-mail. Hopefully I can turn down the crazy now and just enjoy my holiday. Good luck everyone!

The deadline was Dec. 1st and my application was submitted (complete, with transcripts, scores and recs) on Nov. 29th.

Thanks! Good luck to you as well! I received my first interview invite today: UCSD Biomedical Sciences! It's my first choice so I'm really excited.

Just submitted my apps today. And now the wait begins... GPA: 3.5 from top 10 USNWR school GRE General: Q: 790 (91%); V: 690 (94%); Writing: 4.0 (45%) GRE Subject (BMB): 540 (55%) (submitted only to Scripps) 1.5 years in Immunology lab. One 5th author publication in a high-impact journal. Rec from this PI and from my grad student mentor (now a prof). Summer internship at a Japanese company working in R&D. TA'd a chemistry lab for three terms. Applied to: UCSD (Biomedical Sciences) Scripps Research Institute (CA Campus, Immunology) UCLA (ACCESS) MIT (Biology) WUSTL (DBBS) Gerstner Sloan Kettering

Were you nervous during the test? Do you think it affected your performance? Do you have time to study for a retake? I took the GRE twice and did significantly better (+140 points) on the retake. However, I have reasonable test anxiety and most of my problems the first time were due to that. (I studied barely 2 hours for the retake). Having one score already, I was much less worried when I took it the second time. If you think you will be less nervous or if you have time to study I think a retake is worth it. However, take my opinions with a grain of salt, as I am also applying this application cycle.

This is more what I'm worried about. Deciding I want to work in X lab at UCSD or Y lab at Scripps is all well and good, but if both throw out my application I'm in trouble. I'm perfectly capable of finding labs with interesting research, but I'm pretty worried about aiming too high with all of them and ending up with little to no options come next spring. Thank you for your advice.

Hi! I'm currently a Junior at Caltech and I'm beginning to look for graduate programs (PhD). I'll likely apply to graduate schools with a 3.4/3.5 GPA (3.3/3.4 in major). I'm a Chemistry major with a Biochemistry concentration (Caltech doesn't offer a Biochem major for undergrads). My GRE scores will likely be good but not stellar (probably ~80th percentile, but I'm just guessing). I've done one year of research in an immunology lab. We recently submitted a paper (I'm 5th author) to a journal, so I will hopefully have good news on that by the time I apply. I'm spending this summer working in the research department of a company in Tokyo, Japan. I've been a teaching assistant for the freshman chemistry lab for two terms. My recs should hopefully be good and at least one will likely be from a very well-known professor. So... after all of that, do you have any recommendations for programs I should look at? I don't have a good idea of what I should be looking at, and I don't want to find myself with no options next year. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.