Astaroth

Could you mention specific things you think you did wrong (and how they can be avoided)?

http://www.findaphd.com Go to Search Help and look at what the funding images mean. Basically you are looking for anything with a D in it, meaning Directly funded (you can sort your search results by funding type). There are still even some 4-year PhD programs being offered, but there are also lots of directly funded plain old PhDs. I found good ones at some VERY good universities and only one of them has an actual deadline. One of them (at Warwick) is actually funded for non-UK EU students, which is my status. Your success in finding a directly funded PhD obviously depends heavily on what you are looking to study. I'll ask my supervisor for advice as for when to apply for those.. it might be a good idea to do so straight away and if I get an offer I can stall replying to it until I start hearing from the US.

what peculiar distribution... probably the result of people from so many different disciplines voting

I just spent about an hour looking up funded PhDs in the UK, just in case I get no offers from the US. This is, I suppose, my plan B. I'm not sure when to actually apply to these places, I might wait till the end of February or so, they're rolling apps.

My two supervisors at university, who have been very encouraging, helpful, informative and honest, even though one of them isn't even one of my recommenders (I only met him a couple of months ago). Also; this forum

Now THAT'S obsession. Care to do one for biology?

I'm surprised to read about the UC thing. Is this problem of international students being unable to obtain in-state status peculiar to California? I'm pretty certain that in my correspondence with schools in other states I was told that international students can usually obtain in-state status after a year (and are actually urged to do so). I've also spoken to people who have actually studied in america as international students and obtained in-state status after an amount of time, although none from California. My dad studied in California but he was funded by Fulbright so I think he wouldn't have had to do that.

I'm fascinated by molecular biology and genetics. I've taken that angle on biology since the start of my undergrad, which is why I went for a Genetics degree. I'm not really sure what led me to this field. My parents are both bankers although my dad studied mechanical engineering. My first exposure to the world of biology, from what I can recall, was hearing about the cloning of Dolly the sheep on the news. It was the first time that the idea of being a geneticist was elevated to the same status as the proverbial "rocket science" in my mind. I never liked ecology, at least not most of it. I enjoyed some behavioural ecology lectures in my first year undergrad, and enjoyed a course of tutorials on life history evolution, but otherwise I really was doing this for the molecular stuff. My year in industry project was on promoter methylation in cancer which got me really interested in the stuff. I started getting more in depth on things like DNA repair and the cell cycle. In my final year I did a module on cancer which I really enjoyed, so I'm pretty sure I'd like to do something related to cancer. I also enjoyed a virology module so a combination of these two would also be great, although there aren't that many labs taking that angle at the schools I applied to. Finally, and most unexpectedly for me, I have become absolutely fascinated with molecular machines, after doing a module with the same name. Perhaps it stems from my dad's educational background, or my brief flirting with physics during high school, but I am just fascinated by how these bundles of protein and RNA can do amazing things like generate force and do mechanical work. I'm especially interested in the ribosome and the F-type ATPase, although that just stems from what I've been taught. I'm sure there are lots of equally fascinating molecular motors out there to study. My supervisor works on muscle myosin, which I found very interesting when I was taught it, but when delving deeper into the literature around it it seemed like quite a hectic and confusing field to work in so I will probably avoid it. I'm almost regretting applying for general Biology or Cell & Molecular PhDs and not Biophysics, but I can always spin it that way (if I actually get accepted anywhere). As for why I want to do my PhD in America... that's in part thanks to my supervisor urging me to get as much diversity in my career as I can so that by the time I get my own lab, I have many connections with many different parts of the world. He also argues that it's important to experience the different academic climates that exist on either side of the Atlantic, and I would in fact go on to say that it's also important to experience industry and not just academia. I've no doubt that academia is the thing for me, but if I hadn't spent a year in industry I may have had doubts about it. Another thing is that while there are great british universities where you can do really good research and get a great PhD, I think that in terms of employability and how "impressive" it sounds on paper, a PhD from a well known american university is probably better. This isn't really a main reason for me, because I know that the name of the university is nowhere near as important as the name of your PhD mentor, and you don't need to be an Ivy League to have good PIs in your faculty. The other aspect of this is just really wanting a change of scene. England is a great place to live and York is an especially wonderful city (not sure about some other parts of the country...) but America offers such a variety of places to experience, anything from the intensely metropolitan cities to the beautiful small towns in the mountains or the middle of vast forests, all the way to scorching desert and beach life. Not that I will have any sort of interaction with these environments as a PhD student (I'm sure I'll be spending a lot more time having conversations with pipettes and drosophila rather than friends) but I am really looking forward to experiencing these places. It will also be nice to experience more than one season every year (Britain essentially has an annoying fusion of all the seasons throughout the year with very small fluctuations). I also will not miss some aspects of British culture, but let's not get into that. [Oops, I guess I do go on sometimes. That was a bit of an essay, sorry.]

Will be interesting to compare how an international student with a 3.3 (me) and an american with a 3.3 do. I think that it probably hampers my application but you should have less of a problem because I'm competing with a lot more people for much fewer places.

Ah, should have suspected it was you Nope, not heard back from any more. I'm not worried though because from what I gather schools tend to sort out US students first and then move on to international students, which is a much bigger task. I don't really expect to hear from any schools till later this month, if not next month. I don't mind that they're delaying a bit, means I won't get caught up in this horrible winter they've been having in the northeast if invited to interviews! (wishful thinking there, see how i assumed i will be getting invitations)

The head of department at one of the schools I applied to has collaborated closely with my main recommender, and they are good friends. Also, it's not a very highly ranked program (although still good, or else I wouldn't have applied). I think these two things make it very likely that I'll be invited for an interview there. If I don't even get that... I will really have to re-evaluate my options. I currently have no Plan B.

Looks like someone has an invitation from MIT. If you are reading this, can you please tell us more? What are your stats, and when is the interview? Oh and congratulations!

I have TWO exams tomorrow. I am seriously losing my mind. I am about halfway through preparing for ONE of the two and it's 8:30 PM.

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Not sure what's usual for the US but here in the UK offers are usually made within a week from interviews. I can't really imagine why they would want to think about it for longer than that.

Haha seriously.. having interviews from Harvard, Princeton and Berkeley, you should be over the moon! Columbia are just embarassing themselves by not inviting you.

2 interviews 1 acceptance without interview 1 no reply (Mayo Grad School) 4 rejections And that's very VERY optimistic.

Although what IvyHope is saying is true for most departments, some do have an early "priority" deadline (sometimes without a later "hard" deadline) which means that if you apply before then, your application will be looked at before others. An example of this is UT. I'm sure it's the minority though.

Oh when did you hear from UVA, and when is the interview? I've applied there too!

Nope, definitely not.

Don't panic, this is not a giant screw up. Much worse things could happen, this is very minor. In any case, as far as i know admissions people aren't allowed to touch material that is already part of an application, because you have signed a declaration on them and they don't have the authority to override that. They can append things to an existing application, but not edit already existing parts of it. So, I think the situation you are in is what would have happened anyway. If you have dated your newer document then perhaps the admissions committee will realise that it's the newer one and ignore the earlier one. Otherwise, worst case scenario is they read the old essay, then wonder why you went to 3 universities as an undergrad, and notice that there is a newer version that has the answer. That is IF they read either essay at all... remember this is an optional essay. They may well make an admissions decision before they get anywhere near it.

I just received an e-mail from UMichigan saying that my application is being considered and that international students will be notified about whether they will be interviewed after March 8th. I think this is encouraging, it probably means I have made it through some sort of first cut. I hope so, anyway.

To be quite honest that formula sounds like bullshit to me. The GPA bit makes no sense, why would you need to multiply it twice? If it was a legit formula then it would have been simply GPA * 80.

Yes, I had problems with one of my referees. He offered to write me a reference of his own volition, I didn't even ask him. When the time came to start filling in applications, I e-mailed him lots of information about what my plan was and what to expect. He didn't reply to my e-mail for about a month, however deadlines were fairly far away so I wasn't too worried. He replied eventually but didn't answer some questions I had asked him and just said that he will keep it in mind. When deadlines got closer and he hadn't yet submitted his reference I would have to send him reminders, and he would still leave it till the last possible minute. For one of my applications he actually missed the deadline by a few hours, and I sent an e-mail to the program asking whether my application was still accepted but they never got back to me... It was perhaps silly of me to put him down for a reference once again last night but this program isn't too hard on parts of the application being a bit late. Frankly, it baffles me that someone would be so irresponsible as to cause so much worrying and stress on a student who already has enough to deal with, let alone actually jeopardise their future and potentially invalidate an application by missing the deadline. It can't be that difficult or time consuming to fill in a reference. I know that some systems don't let referees just send in a document but instead make them fill in a form with different questions, which I understand can be annoying, but honestly... come on. Maybe he will think twice before offering to write people references again.

I'll be moving there from the UK so I definitely won't be bringing one (not that I have one here but I do back home in Cyprus). I guess I'll probably survive on public transport for a while and see how that goes, but ideally i would want either my own car or to carpool with a housemate. Been screwed over by public transport many a time...