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I am a fully funded PhD in engineering, so I was not funded as a teaching assistant, but as a research assistant. Even though I was funded as a research assistant, my program required all PhD's to TA 2 classes. I basically spent the minimum amount of time TA'ing, but because of that, I'm getting my PhD in 4.5 years (graduating this December). Another person in my lab has been here for 3 years, and accomplished pretty much nothing (because of spending too much time doing course prep, beyond what was required by the program). Unless you want to teach in your future career, I would recommend not spending much time on teaching.

All journals require payments for accepted papers (for example, PNAS requires $1000 for accepted papers, and something like $1000 extra for open access). I've never come across a reputable journal where it's free to publish (maybe it's free for low impact journals, free website, etc). I would not include that paper on your resume as a published paper . Employers/application reviewers might think you're fabricating your resume. I think it would be safer to put "submitted to journal x." Although, if that journal has a really low impact factor (lower than 3-4), I would not even put it on there.

In my experience, professors/PIs are less likely to hire MS candidates because they know they'll be gone after 2 years. In my program, one student entered as a MS candidate (non-funded), switched to PhD (to get funding), then graduated with MS because PhD wasn't what that student wanted in the end. Another student entered as a PhD candidate, failed quals twice and graduated with MS. Although, I would say that MS/ME is much easier to get in, because most of the time, you have to pay yourself. Engineering PhD candidates are all fully funded (tuition, stipend, and health insurance). If you have no money problems, maybe you can apply to the MS program and see if you want to stay longer for PhD. I don't think it's hard to switch over, especially if the PI likes you.

It depends. Do you have publications? That will help a lot. Like what the others said, I would say apply anyway and see what happens. As a current BME PhD graduating this year, I would not go for PhD again if I were to do it all over again. Nowadays, you cannot get a job in industry without several years of postdoc experience. Also you have to know people to get hired. Academia is even worse. In my program, we recently hired an assistant professor. For this 1 assistant professor position, we got something like 600-700 applications. I don't know what your career goals are, but do not apply to PhD programs just because that's what everyone else does, etc. PhD program is long and hard and you will need a lot of self motivation to finish. Best wishes on your future career endeavors.

In most BME programs, it is more important who your advisor/PI is rather than the school. But Duke's ranking is in the top 10 (maybe top 5), so it's much better than a school that's ranked somewhere in the 30's. Is it MS? Because sometimes they fund you for Master of Science degree, but not Master of Engineering. My school funds MS people at least.

Happy birthday!

Which number are you guys calling? There are 3 numbers on the contact list. CONTACTS GRF Operations Center help@nsfgrfp.org (866) 673-4737 William J. Hahn whahn@nsf.gov (703) 292-8545 Gisele Muller-Parker gtmuller@nsf.gov (703) 292-7468 I wonder if calling those 703 numbers will be different than the 866 number...

I'm in the same situation... I hope a week and a half is enough time to contact those schools and get some feedback from them?

I got accepted to a PhD program with full tuition, health insurance, and stipend until I graduate. But the stipend is $25,000 per year. Actually, all PhD programs in BME fund their grad students (I think...).

You might find this website helpful... esp math people. http://math.berkeley.edu/~brownda/nsf/ It has 3 rating sheets, 3 essays, and a CV of someone who won the fellowship (click on "this" link in check this out and the link to CV is at the bottom)

What happens if I accept an offer from a school that I already got in w/ funding (before knowing the NSF fellowship result), and then later find out that I got the NSF fellowship (if I got lucky)... Can I still contact my top choice schools that rejected me to reconsider my application? And if they do happen to accept me after that, what happens to the school I already accepted the offer?

I guess it's low for them... but then, she also went to a very competitive school (acceptance rate is like 15%). :S She's in the engineering field, so her quantitative was good, but verbal wasn't as good.

Instead of emailing, I think you should call.

My friend received the NSF fellowship in 2004, and she told me that her rating sheets said "low GRE" and "low GPA" but "excellent, organized research plan" (or something like that). So I don't think GPAs and GREs are that important. I think she said her GPA was around 3.65 and GRE was around 500V and 770Q.

I applied for PhD programs in biomedical engineering. I got offers from Columbia, UVA, Penn State, and RPI. I already rejected offer for Penn State and RPI. I made a comparison chart and it's been really difficult for me to decide which one would be better for me. Undergrad institution: UVA (major: biomedical engineering) Undergrad research: bone tissue engineering Columbia Stipend, etc: $29,000/yr, full tuition, health insurance Apt rent: ~$850-1300/mo (current Columbia grad student told me) Advisor status: associate Yrs to complete PhD: ~6 yrs Advisor research: bone interface tissue engineering, biomaterials, dental tissue engineering Advisor personality: kind of strict, well known in the field, interested more in the end result of experiments than making sure that grad students learn things, up for tenure (may move to another institution if rejected tenure), doesn't talk much, lots of publications Funding: the professor has lots of money Min GPA required to graduate: 3.2 Degree: MS to PhD School reputation: Ivy league 2008 US News Ranking: 18th Working hours: most grad students work from 9am~10pm everyday People in the lab: 4 grad student (excluding me), 2 post doc UVA Stipend, etc: $25,000/yr, full tuition, health insurance Apt rent: ~$500/mo Advisor status: assistant Yrs to complete PhD: ~4 to 5 yrs Advisor research: Nano-medicine, early detection of diseases (e.g., atherosclerosis, cancer) using MRI, PET, SPECT & biomarkers, therapeutic evaluation Advisor personality: funny, outgoing, was just recruited from Harvard med school last year, easy to talk to, has publications in high-impact journals Funding: just got an R01 grant last yr Min GPA required to graduate: 3.0 Degree: direct PhD School reputation: best school in Virginia, #2 best public undergrad... 2008 US News Ranking: 15th Working hours: kinda laid back, most ppl work from 9 to 5 People in the lab: 1 grad student (excluding me), 1 lab tech, 1 post doc I have been doing research in bone tissue engineering for the past 2.5 yrs now, but I find the UVA professor's research really interesting (although I've never really done that kind of research yet). Plus, it seems that the UVA professor's research has more potential to grow and is more translation compared to the Columbia professor's research (bone interface tissue engineering). I'm leaning more towards UVA, but I'm conerned because people tell me that it's better to go somewhere else for grad school (in other words, it's bad to stay the same school for both undergrad and grad, but than,,,, UVA BME program is better than Columbia according to the professors I've talked to and the US News ranking). Please help!! Can you please give me some advice? (sorry this post is really long)