alleycat393

Congratulations! How did you get notified and when did was your application complete?

I really don't think the typos would be a deal breaker but I'm sure the AdComm will get irritated with the memos and the ammendments.

Congratualtions! I'm just about received 'application complete' emails...wish they wld hurry up!

Yeah I am a bit worried about the GRE score...have heard so many mixed views on how important it is compared to the other parts of the application but I thought I would give the application cycle a shot without re-taking it to see if my SOP, research experience and LORs will carry me past the GRE block!

I can help if you'd like?

I completely agree with you about names...I've applied to the big names in the US but only because there are people doing research I'm interested in and I'm very focussed on what I want to do. There are some big names I haven't applied to because they weren't doing what I'm interested in researching. Also I'd probably take an offer from a less know institute if it interested me more than what a big name offered me.

I would think that they approve only 1-2 preapps out of 400 and then choose to either admit one both or none. They took so long to review the preapps when they were approving American preapps within a fews days of submission so I think they were looking at international preapps more closely.

Thanks for that. I chose schools purely on the basis of where there were people I wanted to work with. Most of the smaller programs don't have people working on the sub-field of immunology I'm interested in-it's not 'popular' if that makes sense. My research experience amounts for 1.5 years which is what most people have straight out of undergrad and my degree is equivalent of a masters in the UK. I couldn't publish any of my work at GSK because it was so confidential so they gave me a research excellence award instead! I probably won't get a paper out of the half a year's worth of research in my final year because I'm laying ground for a post-doc that's coming into the lab soon but I'm not too worried because established scientists do know that all research is not publishable but that doesn't mean it's not of good quality. Besides, the US is not the only place I've applied to so my 'backups', though not really, are elsewhere. I kinda have a priority list based on research interests which people who worry about rankings would probably laugh at

Definitely upload it (or at least the abstract) but make it clear that it's been submitted and not yet accepted and of course to where.

Oh I'm Indian though not British....not that my nationality should make a difference more than where my degree is from-either which way I'm international in the US

My stats are posted here: Sadly no one had any input...would still love some though!

Hello, I'm applying to: UCSF UPenn Harvard MIT Yale Rockefeller and 3 other places-1 in the UK, 1 in Switzerland and 1 in Singapore. I'm based in the UK...hope we don't have to wait ages for decisions!

Me too...apparently they're only taking 1 or 2 students this year The big F word gets in the way again

1. I have a BA in History from Cambridge- I've tried to convert my degree classification to a GPA but got wildly differing results. I got a very high 2:1 if that means anything. By the end of this year I'll also have an MLitt in Security Studies from St Andrews, and I hope to do pretty well. Would this be the kind of background that you need for, say, the top 20ish PhD programs? (I understand that letters of recommendation etc are more important- but wondered if I'd be laughed out the door immediately.) Don't even try to convert your grades into the GPA system-the British and the GPA systems are completely incompatible. Most unis will not ask you to convert but if they do google something called WES and that'll give you a righ estimate. I would only suggest your using it if your uni give you no choice. 2. I'm reasonably confident that, given some time to relearn maths, I could score well on the GREs. Has anyone used a good study guide thing for the GRE (esp the maths) that they'd recommend? I used Barron's book. The PowerPrep software is also supposed to be very good but I couldn't use it because it was not compatible with Windows 7 64 bit which is what my computer has. I also used a bunch ofrandom resources I found using google extensively 3. I've only got basic maths- I gave it up after my GCSEs when I was 16. I was quite good at it, but have no advanced maths. Is this likely to really sink my app? I'm not averse to quantitive methods, but I hear there are some very quantitive schools- if anyone could suggest schools to maybe avoid based on this, that would be great. GCSE level math is just fine for the GRE. Cracking the GRE is all about test taking strategy-the math is not very difficult at all. Practise loads and make sure you know excatly what to expect from the test and you'll be fine. 4. As an international student with zero cash, I'll need funding. Is it therefore sensible to apply to more private schools for a greater chance of getting $$$? You might wanna read up really well on what your individual unis say about funding because it can vary quite a lot from one to the next. Thanks for any help/advice at all! Good luck! Ps:- I'm also studying in the UK (not British though!) at the moment. Finishing my undergrad in July 2011 and applying for September 2011 start PhDs. PM if need anything else

Preparing to apply: surprisingly I found writing my SOP the easiest part because it turned out that I knew excatly what I wanted to say and just had to write it all out. I did not enjoy preparing for or taking the GRE one bit and spent about a year deciding on where to apply. Waiting for replies: I submitted all my applications by mid-October and I'm an international applicant so I might have extended my waiting time longer than it could have been. Moving where you got in: have moved every two years for the last 6 (halfway across the country and halfway across the world!) so this is not too much of a problem. Deciding where to go: easy because I've applied to 9 places all of which I'd be happy to go to though I do have priorities. Sending in the application: I had all my materials ready in about August so just had to send them off when the application process opened.