extramaniac

lol just "received" my "rejection" from penn after being "invited" to a "chat" yesterday despite the deadline to choose a school on monday. worst graduate admissions office of any school I applied to. wait till after the deadline to "give" a decision and be completely unreceptive to any sort of emails. fuck them

I set up a meeting with a POI at a conference we both are attending next week. I haven't heard anything from the school (although they have sent invites out). Any advice on how I should approach this? Is it kind of a pseudo-interview for me?

Just found out a 1st author abstract of mine was accepted to a conference. Anyone know the best way to update schools about this?

I'm quite surprised at the people saying not to contact current students and/or alum. Unless the website specifically says not to contact them, it doesn't hurt to try. Just be direct in your email. At one school I applied to, the website straight up encourages applicants to contact graduate students, postdocs, and professors. All of my conversations with people at this school and others have been nothing but informative and courteous.

ill PM you

Thanks. I'll also wait for the email from the program coordinator. I feel like i'm in some sort a conundrum. I got an interview (northwestern) which surprised me because theres really only one PI i'm interested in working with so he's the only person I put in my application. I figured if he wasn't interested, I wouldn't waste too much effort. NW isn't my first choice, but the PI is doing exactly what I'm interested in. I didn't get an interview at my first choice (most likely, haven't heard officially) but that school has multiple PIs doing close to what I like albeit not 100% like this NW guy. I'm just paranoid that the one PI might not live up to expectations or something goes wrong. Then I'd be stuck. But since I have no other interview options its like...what else do i do.

Does anyone know the general interview attire? Is it formal (eg suit and tie for guys)?

thats awesome! do you know many interviews they've given/how many they have left to give? sorry for the questions just trying to glean some info. congrats again though!

congrats! did a POI contact you?

either of you (or anyone else) heard anything from northwestern? i also applied there and I saw 2 interviews on the results page.

yeah i'm pretty interested in this as well since i'm very interested in their imaging based research. feel free to PM me also.

i just heard back from a school today for the first time. it seems a lot of places are behind this year compared to last, especially for bioe

penns my #2 so same. hopefully we meet each other there thanks. you seem to have a great profile. good luck on your interviews

do you mind sharing your profile?

for those of you applying to stanford BioE, I noticed on their bioengineering phd website, it says that we should expect to hear by "early March for interviews for the PhD program". Seems like they recently changed this...because it previously stated we'd hear for interviews "late January/early feb" wonder what it means or if its real.

i just got an email from penn and i literally had a mini heart attack only to see its for a student chat

do you have any insight into what type of applicant stanford bioe takes?

hey, so i worked on organ-on-a-chip models using stem cells to accurately model human organs (e.g. heart, liver, fat). its actually a supremely cool field which requires intimate knowledge of materials science and molecular biology. i'll say that using stem cells is just kind of a pain in the ass. they are so finnicky and getting them to model adult cells is not trivial at all. TBH, my interest in it started to wane when I realized that getting these stem cells to mature was a big hinderance to getting this type of technology to be used for clinical needs. and they need to be mature in a variety of ways: gene expression profile, metabollically, electrophysiology (for neuromusclar joints or cardiac systems), mechanically, etc. the aim is to really use these systems as a way to model human physiology and pathophysiology. rodent models are not great at this because they can not take into account differences between individual humans. tissue engineering technologies, however do, and with advances like CRISPR in the biological realm, the possibilities to model disease for individual patients to discover new drug therapies in endless. the field, however is very young and my main interests lie more in EE and more direct applications to the clinic. i personally like imaging more, and this interest dates back to middle school when i was obsessed with building computers with high end graphics.

i'm the opposite of you guys. took no classes but have decent experience doing research in this area. happy to answer any questions if i can

Hey! thanks for the kind words. Yeah I'm trying to bring up that MCB background as a positive haha. I'll check out this schools thanks for the recommendation. BTW, I saw on your post that your research interests are in biomaterials/tissue engineering/regenerative medicine. I have a decent experience in this area so if you have any questions about it feel free to PM me. Thanks for the response and the recommendations! Calms my nerves a little.

Hi all, Undergrad Institution (approx. rank/reputation in STEM): top 50 school then transferred to a top UC Major(s): Molecular and Cell Biology Minor(s): Physiology concentration GPA in Major: 3.54/4.00 Overall GPA: 3.58/4.00 Demographics/Background: Asian domestic male Masters Institution: Top UC GPA: 3.68 Biomedical Imaging GRE Scores: Q: 166 (90%) V: 162 (91%) W: 6.0 (99%) LOR: 3 letters: 1 from a senior PI who was in charge of a paper I was 3rd author on. 1 from a post-doc (who is now a professor) who worked with me directly for 4 years. 1 from a PI who's lab I work in now (imaging lab), and who's class I took as a masters student. Research Experience: 3 months in the summer at a hypertension lab measuring tensile strength of aorta in response to different compounds (2nd author paper in review) 4.5 years of tissue engineering research between 2 institutions (was a collaboration) resulting in one 3rd author publication (of 19) in a Nature journal (not super prestigious though), 2 more middle author pubs (one submitted , one in preparation). This academic year, I'm working in an imaging lab with a prof from my masters program. Publications/Abstracts/Presentations: ~7 national poster presentations/abstracts, 2 more submitted by the time applications will be submitted Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Just deans list for my first 4 semesters. GPA dropped when I transferred to the UC (3.8->3.35) Fellowships/Funding: Haven't really applied to any Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Mostly research specialist positions in academic labs Research Interests: quantitative MRI methods for body imaging (specifically cardiac, renal, and tumor applications) Institutions/Programs: (in order of decreasing preference) Stanford BioE Berkeley/UCSF BioE Northwestern BME WashU Imaging Science UCLA BioE Anything else in your application that might matter (faculty connections, etc.): PI I work with now knows majority of the people in the departments I'm applying to at my top 2 programs and I have a pretty good relationship with him. Comments: I've done a lot of tissue engineering research, but after my masters I wanted to do a phd in imaging (related to MRI). I'm worried that my MCB background will result in adcoms not thinking I have the math background. While I never took differential equations/linear algebra, 2 undergrad classes I took, and my Imaging masters program were math heavy in these areas. Any advice on how this will be interpreted? any suggestions of schools to add and my chances? mainly worried about my undergrad GPA (i'm 4 years post undergrad if it means anything) and my lack formal engineering classes taken in undergrad. my imaging masters did have math/cs/engineering-heavy courses. thanks for any feedback

Hi all, I'm looking to applying to graduate schools in biophysics and/or bioengineering this coming cycle. My profile: Academic graduated from top 2 UC with degree in molecular cell biology gpa ~3.55 (the only problem with this is that i transferred to this UC from a top 50 school and i do have somewhat of a downward trend in my gpa once i got to the UC) did a M.S. at another top UC (biomedical imaging) gpa ~3.68 GRE 162V 166Q 6AW Research experience 1 summer in a hypertension lab measuring tensile strength measuring thoracic aorta of rats: one publication in review right now (2nd author) 4+ years doing tissue engineering research at two UCs: one 3rd author (of 19) publication in scientific reports, two middle author publications in review, plethora of regional and national posters (around 7 or so) this coming year i'm working in an MRI imaging lab with a prof from my masters course. I've done a lot of tissue engineering research, but after my masters I wanted to do a phd in imaging (related to MRI). My top two choices, based on their offerings of MRI-based labs are UCSF and Stanford. any suggestions of schools to add and my chances? mainly worried about my undergrad GPA (i'm 4 years post undergrad if it means anything) and my lack formal engineering classes taken in undergrad. my imaging masters did have math/cs/engineering-heavy courses. thanks for your time