Renalee

From your list I interviewed at Emory, NYU and Mount Sinai and was accepted to Emory. Let me know if you have any questions about those schools! I feel Mount Sinai was the most competitive from those three.

I will be at Columbia's medical center campus for their Immunology program!

Any recommendations for which boroughs to look at?

After waiting and waiting, happy to say I got two acceptances today! Guess I'll be going to graduate school this year after all!

I just got accepted to Columbia (Washington Heights area campus) and plan to accept the offer. Any advice on apartments in that area?

Just got my acceptance while I was checking my email at work while waiting for a protocol to finish. I basically flew into my boss's office to tell him (he'd written me a letter of recommendation and has been super supportive through the process) and then texted my friends and boyfriend.

That's not quite true. Most of the interviews I went to they were interviewing 30+ people for ~10 spots. To OP: I think option 3 is your best bet. If you were invited to interviews then your stats are fine and you don't really need a master's to improve them. I think the most valuable thing would be for you to get more research experience and make more connections.

I currently live in Atlanta so I might be able to help a bit! GSU is in downtown Atlanta, which is not the greatest area, and I personally wouldn't advise living there. If you won't have a car you can take MARTA to get around (not the greatest option, but it's not terrible). I would advise living northwest of GSU, towards the Midtown area, and just choosing an apartment by a MARTA stop, but Midtown is definitely a more expensive area to live in. Living east of campus towards Inman Park or the Fourth Ward would also probably be nice, but I'm not sure about the pricing in that area. I can only speak about pricing in Midtown as that's where I've lived, but two bedroom apartments are generally around $2000 (unfurnished). It's definitely way cheaper the farther you go from the city center. I've always used apartments(dot)com for apartment hunting here. You can put in your area of interest and price range and most places have a lot of photos. Just take the reviews of places with a grain of salt, I haven't found a lot of them to be true. Overall I think Atlanta is a nice place to live and the cost of living isn't bad! If you have any specific questions feel free to message me. Good luck!

Worry: Well out of four interviews I've been rejected by two schools, waitlisted by one, and have yet to hear back from the last one (my top choice). I've pretty much resigned myself to another year of working and another application cycle in the fall. I just wish I knew what I did wrong in the interviews.... Excitement: I've planned a big international trip and leave April 18th so if I don't get in anywhere it'll take my mind off of things and if I do it'll be a celebration?

I interviewed for the immunology concentration. Since they said they send out offers until April I'm guessing they have multiple waves based on how many people accept.

I went to the last interview session (Feb 28th - March 1st). They said we will hear back between late this week and the beginning of April.

Which Columbia program? The Integrated program?

If I don't get accepted anywhere I'll just stick with my current job for another year. My boyfriend will be graduating from his PhD program next year anyway so we would be able to live together for another year in our current city and then move wherever.

Worries: I've had three of my four interviews already and have only heard back from the first one (a rejection). I've seen two acceptances so far in the results section for the other two schools and I've just had radio silence. I wish I'd just hear something back! It's very disheartening since I felt like these past two interviews went quite well and I got nice replies from some of the thank you emails I'd sent after the interviews. Excitement: I...still have my job if I don't get in anywhere? It's hard to be excited about anything at the moment.

They still have an interview weekend March 1st, so they're probably waiting.