jwa1920

They might be holding off until after they do their first round of interviews to send out rejects / further invites.. stay strong and keep your hopes up

hey man, Sounds like your GPA is a little low for any top Bioeng/BME master's programs. 3.5 tends to be a cut-off line for the top programs, and then everyone with above a 3.5 is looked at more closely for research experience, etc. Everyone's trying to get into the top-10 BME programs, even at the master's level where no funding is provided, so programs can afford to be selective. Have you gotten any publications? It doesn't have to be as first author (as this is very rare) but having some sort of publication history is almost a must for top programs. I can't comment on Econ programs, as I'm only applying to Bioengineering / BME programs. I also applied and was accepted to the MEM program at Dartmouth, which is a great degree if you plan on getting into industry and want a leg up over people coming straight out of undergrad. The pay bump is pretty substantial as well as giving you more options career wise. Your chances at getting into a top MEM program are better but I would really shoot to get a higher Quant score on the GRE's as it seems you have a bit of time. An excellent Quant score + a strong personal statement can help offset your GPA, especially if you can get some stellar rec letters. Hope that helps.

Hey Banana_panda, I might take you up on that! Have you had any experience doing research with the faculty in Bioengineering? JAMS_89 Looks like you and I are going to the same recruitment weekend! GL!

Update. I think I've gotten all the interviews I'm getting, except maybe Northwestern. U Penn - Interview 2/23-2/25 UCSD - Interview 3/2-3/4 Stanford - Rejected via official email Duke - ?? (Probably a reject, interview invites already sent) Northwestern - ?? My first choice is UCSD, so thank god for the invite. Going to brush up on the pub history of my POI there before intervews. Good luck all..

Anyone applying to Northwestern heard back yet? I'm wondering if they send out the acceptances all at once or if it's rolling acceptances. I saw one person post their acceptance, looks like they heard back on the 25th... so I wonder if that means all the acceptances are out?

I called Stanford BioE this week, and they said invites should be all sent out by the end of the week. The grad coordinator invited me to call next week if I don't hear anything to make sure nothing was missed, but it's 99% if you don't hear this week, you didn't get an invite. I haven't gotten an invite yet, and seeing how it's Thursday.. well.. who knows. At least I still have my top-choice interview to hold on to

I got an interview to UCSD Bioengineering. I'm pretty sure it's because I established a rapport with the POI well before applications started coming in. His research area is exactly what I want to be studying, and this school and lab is my first choice. I'm wondering how my other applications will turn out. Penn said they'd be sending out interview requests first week of Feb, and similar timelines were given by the other programs I applied to. The difference with these programs is that I hadn't really established a real rapport with any POIs at those schools, though I gave it a shot. So given my middling GPA - (3.55 overall, but 4.0 my last two years) we'll see. I have great LORs (or so I was told by the writers of the LORs) and good research experience both in industry and academia. Plus I have a unique background where I worked in an unrelated field for three years to save money for school, which hopefully speaks to my work ethic and motivations. So I hope I still look like a good candidate in POIs' eyes. UCSD is my top choice so given that I've gotten an interview I just have to make the best of it and then hopefully get admitted.. I plan on spending the month of Feb reading all my POI's recent pubs, and then self-educating to talk intelligently about my chosen field of research, and then (hopefully) knowing enough to put together a rough idea of a thesis proposal which properly combines my interests with the theme of current research going on in the POI's lab. I won't be caught unprepared for that interview! Duke would be a second, but I think they've already sent out a lot of their interview requests, so I'm not sure what the deal will be there.. Still waiting on official news from Duke BME, Penn BioE, Stanford BioE, Northwestern BME PhDs, and two MEM programs (Duke, Dartmouth) I must continue to be patient and hope for the best - easier said than done some days, haha. Good luck to all my fellow BioE / BME PhD applicants...

So it looks like Duke has sent out interview invites, and UCSD will be sending them out until Tuesday. Nothing from duke.. i shouldn't be surprised.. nothing from UCSD either.. the lowest-ranked program I applied to was Northwestern, we'll see how that all goes. >< Fingers crossed.. by the end of the month if I haven't received any invites I'll have to wait to hear back from master's programs, as well as starting the job hunt..