WanderingNomad

I got an offer from MIT! Currently feeling the strangest blend of shock/excitement/happiness right now, and I want to thank everyone on this forum who has provided their support and ridden along on this emotional rollercoaster with me for the past six months.

Congrats, that's a great school! Good luck with your other prospective schools as well!

For anyone who applied, it looks like Washington just sent out their acceptances.

I couldn't find a reply-by deadline in the e-mail; there were only deadlines to provide them with some related information (like the list of preferred faculty, etc.).

Congrats! Was the e-mail from the school or from one of the professors? Just wondering if I should start worrying lol

I think all the decisions for UC Berkeley/UCSF have officially been released now. I just got a rejection e-mail ~30 minutes ago, and according to Gradcafe results, a LOT of other people did around the same time.

Wow, congrats! To your question, I don't have experience with this, but what I would do in this situation is e-mail the program coordinator about your conflict (I'm assuming those conflict with interview weekends at other schools?). Tell them you've already committed to other interviews during those time periods, and ask if they're going to have an alternate weekend/day that you could come in and visit separately from everyone else (if it's not too far past the time that you got the invitation, you can also ask the other schools this). If one or both schools have an alternate weekend that works, great. If not, then ask for a video interview. If that's also not an option, then you'll probably have to choose between them.

Never mind on this, I just checked and it looks like they send their invitations around early February? I must've seen an acceptance for a different Engineering program. Anyways, edited the original post to remove this.

Traditionally, I think Stanford sends out their interview invites late in January (as in, 1.5-2 weeks from now, if I were to guess). JHU has been around mid-January, actually around this time. The same scenario applies to UC Berkeley, and from the Results page it looks like they send out a bunch of rejections at almost exactly the same time. There'll probably be closure, at least. So from JHU and UCB/UCSF, we might hear back later this week!

Hope everyone had a happy holiday! Probably a little late to do one of these, but I'm jumping into the in-group before this place inevitably blows up in a month or two haha. Undergrad Institution (approx. rank/reputation in STEM): R2 state school, prob. ~150 overall for Engineering Major(s): Molecular Biology and Electrical Engineering Minor(s): Honors Program GPA in Major: 3.91/4.00 Overall GPA: 3.94/4.00 Demographics/Background: East Asian male, American citizen GRE Scores: Q: 167 (90%) V: 166 (97%) W: 5.5 (98%) LOR: Two research advisors, one from professor I have taken several courses with. Research Experience: ~Two years (and counting) combined in cell biology labs at my university, one summer REU in a bioengineering lab, five months and counting in a Chemical Engineering/microfluidics lab at my university, currently working on EE senior project. Publications/Abstracts/Presentations: Publications: One manuscript (second author) currently under peer review in fairly large journal (IF ~10). This had only been "submitted" at the time of most applications. Presentations: One poster convocation at summer REU. Other: Contributed to the design of a poster that was presented at three other symposiums/conferences. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Full-ride scholarship to undergraduate university Tau Beta Pi scholarship INBRE fellow Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honor Society) Mortar Board (Senior Honor Society) Phi Kappa Phi (Academic Honor Society) Gamma Sigma Delta (Agriculture Honor Society- for some reason MOLB is in the Ag college lol) President's List (4.0 GPA) x4 Dean's List (3.5-3.99 GPA) x5 Fellowships/Funding: Applied to Ford Foundation Predoctoral fellowship, will apply for Tau Beta Pi fellowship. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: "Research Intern" (misleading official job title) for an EE department program at home university. Built electronic modules to supplement middle/high school teachers' lesson plans, demonstrated modules to interested audiences, heavily involved in Engineering outreach. I don't think this mattered at all, but I hold/have held several leadership positions in various student organizations on campus (IEEE president, TBP secretary, etc.) and a LOT of volunteering & tutoring work within the community and college through these same organizations. Other Miscellaneous Accomplishments: None application related, but got to LE in CS:GO three years ago ; ) Anything else in your application that might matter (faculty connections, etc.): None of the faculty I got my letters from are too well-known, and don't really have a solid connection to my chosen subfield. Research Interests: Pretty broad for now, but I want to specialize in computational biology and systems biology, using a combination of wet lab and programming techniques to study the regulation and dysregulation of cells, especially pertaining to disease states. Institutions/Programs: Biological Engineering/BME/BioE: MIT, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley/UCSF, Duke, UW, UPenn, Boston University, UIUC Comments: I really tried to highlight all of the interdisciplinary things that I've learned from this mosaic of a background, and really hope that shines through in my app. Good luck to everyone in this thread; I'll try to be here celebrating with you all in March/April!