greenertea

Done with my UCSF Tetrad interview and starting to worry about my acceptance chances. Guess it's back to the waiting game. If anyone has any info, I'd be glad to hear it, although I will probably contact the department on Monday.

As to what program/professor or what this professor told me?

Anyone on here know anything about UCSF Tetrad acceptance rates post interview? I'm going there this weekend and though I'm hoping they'll tell me there, I'd be nice to know ahead of time.

I've had a somewhat varied experience so far with interviews. I've interviewed with 11 faculty thus far and I've had mostly positive experiences. For the most part I talk a little bit about my past experience (usually just my most intensive research experience while I was in undergrad). Sometimes they have some questions about it but my field is generally obscure so they don't really require very detailed answers. They usually spend a large amount of time talking about their research and I spent the rest of the time shooting questions at them (if there is any time left). I would say I've only had one interview that has gone poorly. I won't name names but I got the strong impression that this professor really did not want to talk to me and wasn't convinced about the contributions I had made to my projects nor that his research at all fit into my interests. I was a bit taken aback and when it came time to ask questions, I mostly forgot what I was going to ask and could only come up with a couple. He asked if I had any more and I said no, which I think is the biggest mistake you can make. I think if nothing else, you at least need to keep the conversation going until the end of the interview time regardless of how you think you're doing.

Definitely go to the interviews as others would say. I would focus your energy now in going through faculty at the schools you have interviews and looking for professors you could potentially rotate with. From the interviews I've gone to, the general consensus between professors is that the quality of your adviser is going to determine your success better than the rank of the school. Go to the interviews, ask questions about professors you're interested with (I think the grad students will have the best feedback in terms of this), look at the publications for those professors and see if grad students get to be authors on them. If you find a school with a good number of professors you'd be interested in working with, I wouldn't hesitate to go there. It's better to be at a "safety school" with an adviser that will really commit to your graduate training than be at a top ranking school and be stuck with a professor who couldn't care less about you and only focuses on their post docs.

Of the three interviews I've gone to, two of have been very upfront about how many people will get offers. UPenn said 90%, Columbia around 50%. UT didn't say anything specific, but professors hinted they were basically going to take anyone. Generally it seems that professors will be candid with you if you ask and will not take offense. A professor on the admissions committee at one of the schools I was at (I won't name names) spoke very freely on how they were going to evaluate students, how many would get acceptances and what you could do to increase your chances for admission.

I applied to 9 schools, all sort of broad programs in the molecular bio/cell bio/biochemistry/biomedical fields. It was very hard to narrow it down to just 9, honestly, and it took me months of research before making a decision. I did not go into it without thought. It seems to me people who apply to evolution/ecology/environmental/field research type programs apply to fewer programs. I'm not in this field so obviously I don't know, but it seems like they expect you to create contacts with potential advisors beforehand in order to be admitted. Given this takes a lot of time and you can only contact so many professors, it seems like this would be a big limitation and I wouldn't apply to so many schools if I had done this. For my field, it seems this is not the expectation. I was invited for interview for all of the schools I applied to and did not send out any emails nor did I mention professors in my personal statement. I think the people who applied to upwards of 15 schools are likely in my field. But in general, I don't feel like I made a bad decision applying to the schools I did. I've gone to two interviews so far and I can see myself going to both of these schools. I wouldn't say I have a number one school in mind, but maybe a top 5 for which I have no particular order. The last school I went to had an acceptance rate of 50% POST interview, so if I had applied to that one school, I'd be breaking a sweat right now. Everyone at the interview was a strong candidate and the program is large enough that I'm sure everyone there could find an advisor that they like. If you have a very specialized field of research that you're absolutely sure you MUST go into and there is only one school on the planet that is good at it PLUS you are a very strong applicant, then I can see the logic in applying to only one school. However, I think most applicants are more flexible in their interests and for biomed type research, you will likely need to change fields anyway after graduation in order to get postdoctoral funding. 15 programs is a bit overkill as there's only so many interview weekends and you're bound to run into conflicts. My 9 may have been too much as I've had to turn down a school already because of a conflict, but again I genuinely like all the programs and researched their faculty pretty thoroughly. But whatever works for you and if you get into a program you end up liking, you've no reason to regret anything.

Thanks all for the advice. I think I'll stick with a quick email after acceptance. I still feel semi-awkward, since I know they're busy people and I don't want to clutter up their inboxes with a thank you email that probably means little to nothing to them and will only take up extra time in their day to read. My new question is, do you thank them if you get rejected? I'm not trying to get out of being a "decent human being", but I haven't heard of sending thank you notes until recently and don't want to create an awkward situation.

Question for all (might as well ask here as well as the college confidential forum), are you really supposed to send thank you letters/emails to professors you interviewed with? That seems a bit unnecessary to me.

I think maybe in fact they're somewhat flexible. I emailed them before applying to see if it'd be okay to apply without it and they said I'd need to take but it'd be okay if the scores came in later (i.e. later in December). However, looking back at the most recent email they sent to everyone w/o subject scores, those who already took the test but were waiting for scores were instructed to not respond to the email while those who didn't end up taking the test were told to email back with their reasons and that the application would be reviewed in it's incomplete status. However, they did make it clear that the omission of scores would be taken into consideration as a negative by the committee. Also, I think your app gets look at later in the review process along with everyone who submitted scores late. Either way, it didn't seem to matter since I didn't get an invite anyhow, lol.

Scripps is an exception. They definitely will not look at your app until they've received your GRE subject scores. I took the GRE Biochem in November but scores don't come out until December and they emailed all applicants in my position to let us know they would start reviewing our applications AFTER they received the official subject scores.

@alexhll6, I only took the subject test (took Biochem) because one out of nine of the schools I applied to required it. Otherwise, I would have skipped it. I scored 90 percentile, but the one program that required it (Scripps Institute - CA) has not sent me an invite (although I know the've already sent them out). I do have 7 invites from other schools so maybe it helped, maybe it didn't. Hard to say.

In addition to this, does anyone know if admissions are rolling for MIT? Will the people who interview first have more of a chance of admission just because there are more spaces available at the time?

Also got an interview invite for MIT. Does anyone know if there is an advantage to going to the earlier invite weekend over the later interview weekend?

Personally, I wouldn't do either Masters or post-bac and just keep working. If you're working in an academic lab now, maybe try to start networking with the faculty in your department. I know people who have worked as techs with low GPAs and test scores who have been able to get a little nudge into the program because they've worked in the department for a while. I would also have a sit down with your PI now and talk about what you can do to improve your chances at graduate school in the next cycle. They will no better than anyone else. If you're working not working on an independent project now, maybe your professor can give you one and give you a chance to submit a first author paper. You didn't mention your publication history but I think it could make the difference if you don't have any publications currently. Also, I notice all the schools you applied to are top tier. Maybe apply to a few more mid-tier schools if you don't make it in this round. Although the prestige of a school is important, if you work under the right professor you can have just as successful a career as someone who graduated from an Ivy. Where you do your post-doc also makes a big impact on your career so where you go for grad school is not necessarily fate-sealing. This is just my opinion though, take it with a grain of salt. But personally, although I can't imagine a life where I wouldn't want to get a PhD, I wouldn't go into debt for it. The stipend you get as a grad student and your eventual post doc salary will make it very hard to pay off. That's 8 years minimum of carrying around debt, if not more. If I had to choose though between Post-bac and masters, I guess I'd pick masters and fight like hell to get a tuition waiver w/ a teaching or research assistantship. I wouldn't give up hope yet though for this cycle of apps!

I know a friend who also heard from Harvard Immuno. But I've only heard of results from Immuno and Neuro, no other departments, so I think there's no need to worry for everyone else.

Albert Einstein: Jan 12-13, Jan 26-27 Case Western Reserve University (BSTP): Feb 3-4, Mar 2-3 Columbia (Pathobiology & Molecular Medicine): Feb 3-5 Columbia (Integrated CMB): Jan 20-22 Cornell (Weill): February Dartmouth (PEMM) March 2-3 Emory University (neuro): Feb 9-11 or Feb 23-25 Harvard (BBS): Jan 26-29 and Feb 9-12 Harvard (Neuro): Jan 19-22 Harvard (BPH): Jan 26-27 MIT (Biology): Feb 11-14, Feb. 25-28, Mar 10-13 Northwestern (Neuro: NUIN): Jan 19-20, Feb 2-3, Feb 23-24 NYU Sackler: Jan 19-20, Jan 26-27 Princeton (Neuro): Feb 16-18 Rockefeller: March 1-2 and 8-9 Sloan Kettering: 1/17-1/19 Scripps Research Institute-CA campus: Feb 24-25, Mar 2-3 Thomas Jefferson (Neuro): Jan 26-27 UAB (BMS): Jan 19-21 University of Chicago (BSG): Feb 23-25 University of Chicago (Molecular Biosciences): Feb 16-18 UC Berkeley (MCB): Feb 5-7, Feb 26-28 UC Berkeley (MBN): Jan 26-27 UC Davis (GGG): Feb 16-17 UC Irvine (CMB):Jan 26-28,Feb 2-4 UCLA ACCESS (Molecular and Medical Pharmacology): Dec 22 UCSF BMS: Jan 26-28 OR February 9-11 UCSF Tetrad: Feb 2-3 UMASS Worcester: Feb 2-4 and Feb 16-18 U Maryland - Baltimore - Feb 3 UMich (PIBS): Jan 27-28 (Cancer Bio), Feb 3-4 (general) UNC Chapel Hill (BBSP): Feb 2-4, Jan 26-28, Feb 9-11, Feb 23-25 UPenn (Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics): Jan 19-21, Feb 9-11 UPenn (CAMB): Jan 12-14 UPenn (Neuro): Jan 20, Feb 10 UT Austin (CMB): Jan 26-28, Feb 16-18 UVa (BIMS): Jan 12-14 or Feb 2-4 UW-Seattle (Biology): Jan 13 or Jan 20 UW-Seattle (MCB): Jan 25-27,Feb 8-10 UW-Seattle (GS): Feb12-14, Feb 26-28 U Wisconsin - Madison (Biophysics): Mar 1-3 Vanderbilt (IGP): Jan 12-14 Yale (B.B.S.): Feb 2-5