[Bioengineering at Berkeley: What are my chances?]

Hey, I nailed TOEFL iBT at 112. I just found out my scores and I'm very happy

I'm going to take GRE in a couple of months. It will be definitely harder for me since I'm not a native speaker. To be honest, GRE looks to me quite ridiculous. What are they testing? My IQ? If it was in my mothers tongue it would be a piece of cake, but now it turns into a really tough English exam (I mean the Verbal part, Math should be OK). Anyway, don't want to complain:) Just gonna study hard and see what happens.

Who are you interested in working with? Sjolander? Ian Holmes? Someone at UCSF? Or do you want to branch out to other areas?

[NSF GRFP 2008]

Does anyone get official email from NSF with login ID to look at the rating sheets? By the way, I'm not getting the NSF this year (which is my second time applying, and I am a first year graduate student this year). Does anyone know if I still have a chance to apply again next year?

Yeah, you should be able to apply at the very beginning of your 2nd year.

[NSF GRFP 2008]

According to the advice that I read before I started on my app, they take broader impacts very seriously. This is separate from the impacts of your research.

[NSF GRFP 2008]

Where are people getting the honorable mention list?

I was HM last year and this is the last year I can apply. Unfortunately, right after I applied, I found out I have two publications in review/in press. Bah... You can be at the top of your field without one, yes? Someone please agree with me!

of course. My PI (MD/PhD UCSD, harvard postdoc) hadn't even heard of the NSF GRFP before this year when I applied.

[NSF GRFP 2008]

just confirming that the awardees list is legit, my name is on there

For those who got the award, have you ever published anything yet when you were undergrad?

i am an extreme case. i had 2 coauthor papers in high school and 1 first author paper in college...

like i said, extreme. i know several people on the list who didn't have any publications in ugrad.

[NSF GRFP 2008]

i submitted to bioengineering

[NSF GRFP 2008]

Fellows Task List

Accept/Decline Award

(March 22, 2008 - August 13, 2008)

she is not foolsing... i logged in to find this!

[Harvard SEAS]

She got accepted. Preview weekend is sometime in March.

[Harvard SEAS]

I have a friend who has already heard back from the Harvard bioengineering dept.

[A calling to all BME FALL 2008 Applicants:):)]

yea, i posted those results for stanford, they informed me via email on feb 6, all travel arrangements had to be made before feb 11... sorry to be the bearer of bad news

berkeley/UCSF, duke, cornell are also very good "brand names" too. of course, it all comes down to who has the PIs you want to work with...

Given the choice of boston vs bay area, which would you guys choose (assuming the PIs at both institutions were equally good)? boston is colder, but the bay area is more expensive... also boston is more compact and imho tends to support cross-institutional collaborations better, but i haven't really spent a lot of time in the bay area. Any thoughts?

[Prestige of undergrad school?]

I think it does, but not in the "name brand" way that you are implying.

I got a 3.6 from a top 20 school. But I think the most important thing was that my school offered me a lot of opportunities to do research with really excellent PIs. In my mind, that access to good researchers is what helped out the most, not the "school name" + "3.6" statistic.

[A calling to all BME FALL 2008 Applicants:):)]

Here's my status so far

Interview: UCSF/UCB, Stanford

Presumably rejected: MIT (I haven't heard anything from them)