Roo

For the "Community & Volunteer Work" section, would it look like I'm grasping if I wrote activities from late high school? I put in a lot of work over a couple years back then, but I haven't done much in that regard since (unless standing outside and telling people where to vote counts as a volunteer activity).

Is anyone else interested in doing therapeutics research? If so, how are you going about the personal statement? I've heard that the NSF really doesn't like supporting research that could be covered by the NIH, but does this intend to research in the next stage of my career? I'm in a lab doing bioengineering for basic science applications, but my motivation for being here (and in grad school in general) is to learn the techniques and apply them to therapeutics development during a post-doc or later. Is that safe to keep that in my personal statement, or should I stay away from the subject completely?

I've never had a problem amplifying 5kb constructs with Pfu polymerase like virion suggested. I don't think you'll be able to sequence anything close to that length though. If you already have the mRNA sequence, why are you sequencing the DNA? Just a confirmation that it hasn't mutated?

OK, let's be fair here. Grants.NIH.gov is not a user-friendly site for someone who has never filed a grant before. They link you to a thousand forms with no concise explanation of what to do.

I'm in life sciences and I have a question about my application. I'm currently working in a field that has traditionally been involved in alternative energy, but could potentially benefit medicine as well. I've wanted to do medical research since high school and my application to grad schools was based on this desire. I'm now working with a post-doc on the only medicine-related project in the lab. My problem is that my rotation advisor insists that the NSF is loathe to overlap with the NIH and that if I mention therapeutic end goals in my essays they'll pass over me. She says that I should instead talk about developing the field itself. This presents me with a problem because without medicine, I can't really write about my motivation to pursue this research (I don't have any ulterior motive for doing it). I've tried writing about how I want to optimize our techniques but it invariably comes around to "what do I want to optimize it toward?", and the answer is therapeutics. Should I just cave in and write about what I want, or is my advisor correct about this being grounds for tossing my application? Also, is it a bad idea to mention that I want to work in industry?

You should apply very institutions. Applying institutions is very important Kidding about typos aside, if you already got into your top choice, I wouldn't worry about it. That said, if you find another program that you think is interesting, go ahead and apply. I applied to a school that was not really a top destination for me at the start of the season, and ended up loving it so much that I had to start a thread about it earlier today. No reason to close doors for yourself, but don't keep doors open that you don't plan to walk through.

At the risk of identifying myself to browsing admissions staff, I will say that I want to work at a startup doing large molecule therapeutic design. I'm not sure whether reputation or research in the field is of higher value to a potential employer. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure which is of higher value to myself. It's not like the labs at UCSF are boring; it's just that there are only two that do what I want to do. I'm completely torn!

I was just accepted to two grad schools, UCSF and UNC Chapel Hill, on the same day. I'm applying for biophysics and for this field they both seem so good that I can't choose between them! Given the list of pros and cons below, I'd like to hear some input from GradCafe: UCSF Pros: 1: Great, highly ranked biophysics program 2: Seems industry-oriented; there is an entrepreneurship club and incubator space 3: Excellent location; I'm a Midwesterner and I've always pictured myself in California after undergrad 4: Can take classes at both Berkeley and Stanford 5: Has a famous researcher in my desired field 6: 30K stipend Cons: 1. Aforementioned famous researcher's lab is hard to get into; I have no guarantee of getting in. A couple other labs kind of tangentially touch my field of interest, but don't focus on it. 2. Hilarious cost of living UNC Pros: 1. Two professors working in my field of interest, and at least four others who touch on it significantly 2. One of above professors has been working actively to recruit me, and I genuinely appreciate his effort 3. Has "biophysics training program" that seems to be the most rigorous of the programs I've seen 4. Lower cost of living 5. 27.5K stipend with guarantee that increases for incoming students will be matched for previous students Cons: 1. Not as highly ranked or well known as UCSF; in the words of my PI (paraphrased), "I don't know much about it. Of the ones you applied to I like UCSF" 2. Chapel Hill itself doesn't seem nearly as interesting as San Francisco; is there anything fun to do there? All of the grad students were saying "Yeah, there's this and that to do within a 2 hour drive". 2 hours is a long drive.. 3. Doesn't seem as "business/startup-oriented" as UCSF I think that's it. UCSF seems like a amazing place with great industry opportunities, but maybe not exactly the kind of research I want to pursue with the exception of one lab. Chapel Hill, on the other hand, seems to have more of the research that I'm interested in, but I would have to sacrifice both the name/reputation and location of UCSF. What would you guys suggest?

A bit late to the party, but I wanted to give my input about what I don't like in some graduate program emails. I've applied to, and have been accepted/invited to interview at, a variety of schools with varying reputations. The schools with the best reputations state why I should choose their program, and give interesting facts and figures regarding tuition, stipend, research opportunities, and other statistics aimed at encouraging me to apply. Some of the other schools with slightly lesser reputations have done the same thing, and I applied to them with an equal desire to interview. Other schools, however, have followed this up with "Because our program is extremely competitive, you must apply soon", or something along those lines. Every time I see that, it turns me off. I usually think, "look buddy, you're not Stanford. I know exactly how competitive you are. Just give me the facts and let me decide". I don't mean to be arrogant, and I realize reputation shouldn't be the biggest factor in selecting a program, but something about that line really gets to me. Also, I barely paid attention to recruiting emails to begin with. I selected my grad programs based almost exclusively on a massive perusal of web sites. A good web site should have faculty pages with updated research and publication lists. Furthermore, it should be very easy to tell which department you're looking at. I actually applied to the wrong department at a Florida school because they had a massive cluster of departments, and the online application didn't have them all on the list. Finally, the ideal faculty list should be sortable based on research topic. It's a colossal pain in the butt to click on the name of every professor, hoping that at least a couple will share your interests. It is much better when you have a set of lists, possibly with duplicate names, under headers such as "signalling in cancer" or "crystallography" or "drug design" or "HIV".

I have an interview at Caltech coming up, and I'm wondering if I should do anything special to prepare, other than the usual (know my research, know what my personal statement said, know the school's research, know my interviewer's research). I have a few interviews, including some that I've already done, but I haven't felt this concerned about any of them. It may be that Caltech does what I think is the coolest research (except for maybe another program that I'm interviewing at this weekend), but it also could be the reputation of the school. Do I need to brush up on my physics/dif eq/etc.? I'm applying for the biochem/molecular biophys degree. Should I expect to be grilled about previous coursework? Sorry if I'm being overanxious... I really want this interview to go well