palyndrone

Be concise and clear--somebody's only looking at this essay for a minute. Always include: what your interests are and why, what makes you qualified, and what you want to get out of a PhD program. Something I did to save time on 8+ essays was tailor my opening and closing to the school, but keep the body (research experience, interests, skills, motivations) the same. Try to nail it in 500 words, longer doesn't mean better. How specific you are about your plans for study is gonna depend on the you and program, but you should definitely follow tm_s's advice and mention faculty members whose labs interest you. Even if those people aren't taking students, it demonstrates that you know enough about the program to make an informed candidate and that your interests do actually fit.

Remember: the goal is to score an interview! The interview is where you can be charming or interesting and share more about your background--but you have to look good enough on paper for them to want to know more.

I would recommend brushing up on your research statement and lines of research you potentially would like to do there. They'll probably not quiz you on your POIs work and ask more about your work to see if you'll be a good fit (personality and all) for the school, department and the labs. all the best!

Small note here: We prefer GRE Writing to be in the "GRE/GMAT/etc" subforum of the Applications section because it allows Writing Samples for schools.

If you're taking the GRE in the normal computer format, you'll be able to download a pdf of your results as soon as you get them (after about a week). So if you need to upload them to your application, you'll be fine. As for the scores being sent, 27 days is probably enough time. If you're worried, you can always check with the grad school admissions office to see if they've received them a bit before the deadline.

I emailed UW and they told me that all interviews have gone out!

Wrong thread, this is biology! I'll second the schools though; anybody heard from UWashington microbiology? I've only seen one person on the results page.

Hi all,
I just wanted to share this in case some of you weren't aware. There is a growing movement, #GRExit, where biology/biomedical programs are no longer requiring the GRE for admission! To me this is fantastic, standardized tests are biased and useless. Not to mention expensive and anxiety provoking. There is a Google docs spreadsheet that is currently maintained by Joshua Hall, PhD who is the director of the school of medicine at UNC. Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MYcxZMhf97H5Uxr2Y7XndHn6eEC5oO8XWQi2PU5jLxQ/edit#gid=0
Good luck to everyone applying in the upcoming application cycle! 

ETS has the practice exams. Go through one to know what you can expect (not saying you have to take the complete thing).
I'd also check how GRE AWA is graded and maybe get one or two practice questions from the ETS website. Other than that, what are your strenghts and weaknesses? If you're good at English, I'd let that go - thats what I did (got 88th percentile in the end). Maths has been my weak point, so I mainly focused on the quant section.