thelilypad

Just got invited for the PhD interview at Stanford BMI! So excited!

I just got invited to Stanford BMI Phd interview!

Hiya, Probably a newb question but I don't have much academic formal research experience. I've so far received invites for BISB at UCSD and QCB at USC, and I'm slated to go to the interviews on Feb 7 and Feb 3 respectively. There's a few professors I have significant interest in working with, so I'm wondering would it be good form to contact them pre-interview day? If so, what should I try to discuss with them? Thanks!

I just contacted them and received this response (from BMI) "Regarding your application status: In the coming week, we will start to contact those applicants who have been selected for an interview (sorry this is taking a while, but we appreciate your continued patience and interest in BMI). The selected applicants will be invited to interview, at our expense, arriving on Wednesday, March 4 and departing on Sunday, March 8, 2020. This is our only interview session. Applicants who are not selected for an interview will receive a letter which states that no further action will be taken on their application by the Committee on Graduate Admissions and Policy."

Hey all, Did anyone get a notification from Stanford BMI for interviews yet? They said the week of Jan 6th...

Same! I asked and it's a separate pathway from the Ph.D., so if you get in it means your PhD app is still under consideration!

Hey everyone, I'm applying for a Bioinformatics/Computational Biology PhD starting fall 2020, and so far I've received interviews from USC QCB and UCSD BISB. I come from a strong computer science background (I work currently at a big tech company as a senior software engineer, and my bachelors is in CS and Business), and a substantially weaker biology background (I've completed Bio I/Chem I so far, taking Bio II/O Chem/Genetics this spring). That being said, I do have prior work experience that borders on bioinformatics - I founded a startup in the digital health space and through it had a formal research partnership with the CS department at Cal Poly Pomona. It's experience related to what my research interest is (autism, etiology and precision medicine). Although I've done tons of industry interviews, having worked in big tech since sophomore year of college, I've never formally worked in a lab nor done an academic interview (I did some materials science/computational chemistry research in freshman year but it didn't pan out/produce pubs). What should I expect for my interview days, and what questions should I expect/ask? - POI at USC I'm interested in works mostly in the epigenetiics space, but he has germane fertility research and we've briefly corresponded on a rough project proposal (using Raman spectroscopy to help determine sperm methylation quality pre-implantation for IVF/ICSI), I also mentioned similar in my statement of purpose, and namedropped him, so I assume he's also read my SoP. - Top POI at UCSD is focused mostly on copy number variation and its implications for autism etiology. Haven't talked to him, but it's heavy genetics, and I'm worried that my lack of genetics formal education thus far would make me a weak candidate. That said, my genetics course is online and I hope to have almost the full semester done before going to UCSD.

Jan 27 and Feb 3 are the spots, I'm going Feb 3!

I just got invited to USC for the interview!

Anyone know about CMU and USC? I assume I got rejected from UCLA given I never received the invite. And I know Stanford at least doesn't come out til next week.

If that's the case it's nearly 100% acceptance then, because their own stats say 30 people were accepted and 13 elected to attend (so the yield is around 50%).

Do you know what the predicted admissions rate is from the interview? I've seen random numbers from various programs in a lot of other threads, like from nearly-100% to 20% or less.

I posted mine I think on page 2 in the thread. I'm a unique candidate in many ways so I had no idea how to even predict my chances until now.

Just got an invite for the interview to UCSD! Good luck everyone and hopefully this is a good sign for the rest of my grad admissions season

Thanks! I'm not too hopeful on the PhDs, but we'll see. My worst case plan is reaching out to professors in my intended field and seeing if I could volunteer to research with them. Alternatively, I might leave my current job and try to stake it out in biotech, given my growing biology background. I do have a significant work history in software engineering, so I figure I should at least make the interviews. Hopefully I have some edge at USC given my formal research experience under a professor is from there, I was a CS student, and two of my letter writers are current professors in CS there. I also talked to the professor I'm interested in doing research with, and he mentioned I might be a strong candidate. But it's definitely kind of scary since most of my research-y experience is under the table so to speak (aka doing it not formally but in the context of my startup). I'm sad that this year of all years like half the programs stopped counting the GRE.

Undergrad Institution: USCMajor(s): Computer Science/Business AdministrationMinor(s): None, unofficially MarketingGPA in Major: 3.83Overall GPA: 3.79 Type of Student: White female US, 24 GRE Scores: 170 V/169 Q/5.5 WResearch Experience: Debatable. I used to run a company that I founded which well, I basically did bioinformatics for that. We actually were research partners formally with Cal Poly Pomona's Computer Science department, and I technically employed one of their masters students and build our AI model to find correlations in autism data. So we did research there, and I actually was a stakeholder for two of their graduate classes (where the teams built projects for us and I directed them). I also did some short research in freshie year, but not too much. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Trustee (full tuition merit scholarship for undergrad) USC Scholarship, Dean's List (not much for me here), graduated Magna Cum Laude - not much else eitherApplying to Where: USC C-Bio PhD, also MS Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine UCLA PhD Bioinformatics UCSD BISB Carnegie Mellon PhD C-bio & Masters too Stanford PhD Biomedical Informatics (+ MS too) UCB Masters Harvard MS in Epidemiology & Quantitative Genetics I'm interested in studying the etiology of autism and how genetic factors can be used to personalize treatment plans. I feel my app is strong in GPA, quant background, and GRE (but lots of schools don't care about GRE anymore, which sucks in my case). I feel I'm weak in research potentially (I don't have any papers, and the bulk of my research is informal/in the role of CTO of my company). I'm hoping that work + my story (my brother is autistic so I made the company to help people like him, got into an accelerator, etc.) might help my case. Also my Bio background is a bit peculiar too - as in I started formally taking classes (Bio I lec/lab + Chem 1 lec) this quarter. However, pre-matriculation I should have the gen bio sequence (bio 2, chem 2, ochem 2, + cell biology and genetics) complete. I also am predicted to get all or mostly As this quarter (I'm taking it through Berkeley Extension). I also have about 3 years of full time experience at a FAANG-level company as a senior software engineer, but I don't know how much that matters. I'm... probably an unconventional candidate. I think if I don't get into any of the PhD positions I want I'll probably wait another year, move to bioinformatics at some biotech company, and then reapply.