Fall 2020 Admission Season Full Profile and Results

[Shadow_Dragon_535]

When I was choosing what graduate schools I would apply to, I wished that people would post full information on their profiles, where they applied, and where they were admitted. However, I found almost no information like that online. I hope that by posting my own information, it will be helpful for other students who were in my situation. 

Going into graduate applications, I knew I wanted to do research and get a Ph.D., but I didn’t have an exact or even general area I was particularly interested in, and instead I had a wide range of interests I thought I would be happy pursuing. However, I was especially interested in studying in a biology related field. The schools I applied to (all Ph.D programs) and my results for the Fall 2022 admission season are listed below. I'm not sure if this is the best place to post since I also applied to several aerospace engineering and physics programs, but I was primarily interested in biology related fields, so I think this is the most appropriate forum.

 

University	Ph.D. Program	Result
Caltech	Space Engineering	Rejected
CU Boulder	Aerospace Engineering Sciences	Waitlisted - I Withdrew
MIT	Health Sciences and Technology	Rejected
Princeton	Quantitative and Computational Biology	Interviewed - Rejected
MIT	Physics	Rejected
UCSD	Biophysics	Accepted - I Chose to Attend
Stanford	Bioengineering	Rejected
MIT	Biological Engineering	Rejected
Duke	Biomedical Engineering	Offered Interview - I Withdrew
Harvard	Bioengineering	Rejected
University of Florida	Biomedical Engineering	Rejected - Accepted to funded M.S.

 

My application profile is listed below:

Degrees: B.S. Aerospace Engineering

B.S. Physics

Cumulative GPA: 3.95 (major GPA slightly higher for Physics, slightly lower for Aero)

School/Background Information: Attended competitive U.S. state school. Low research activity, undergraduate focused and no doctoral programs. I will take five years to complete the degrees, and I applied to Ph.D. programs during Fall of my fifth year.

GRE: 170 Q, 165 V, 4.5 AWS (sent to all schools except MIT, Caltech, and Harvard)

Letters of Recommendation: 2 very strong (research involvement and close interaction over 3+ years for one recommender and 6 months for the other recommender, in addition to being in classes taught by both recommenders), 1 okay (was a TA’s for the recommender).

Statements of Purpose: I think my SoPs were likely average/good. I am not the strongest writer, but I modified my SoPs for each field/school I applied to, and I had students who got into the universities I was applying to review them. I think my biggest weakness was that research areas I was interested in weren’t areas I had prior experience with, so I wasn’t able to directly tie prior research experience into the areas I expressed interest in.

Research Experience:

1. Worked with Physics faculty on astrophysics research project from 1st year until 3rd year. Additionally wrote results into a Senior Thesis during 4th and 5th year. Paid over the summer after 3rd year to work on the project by an NSF grant.

2. Worked at an astronomy research facility over summer after 1st year and winter break 2nd year.

3. Worked in aerospace engineering small satellites research lab during 2nd and 3rd year. Additionally paid to work in the lab and completed a research project affiliated with the lab during the summer after 2nd year. Held two leadership roles, including on a collaboration project with NASA.

4. Held a leadership role for a class-wide aerospace engineering senior capstone project during 4th year.

5. Gained high quality teaching experience during 4th year teaching an upper-division physics class and creating assignments/exams for upper-division aerospace engineering class.

6. Interned at a defense company over the summer after 4th year.

7. Completed an independent computational biology research project during 4th year and early 5th year.

Additional Considerations:

Three poster presentations at research conferences hosted by my school.

1 publication (one of many authors) in a major journal.

2nd “publication” in the form of my physics senior thesis, not really a publication though as it was only published through the school library.

Estimated total equivalent full-time months spent on research to be 14 months.

Awarded two scholarships, each for a year.

Usual GPA-based dean’s list awards.

Given physics department award for community service.

Completed study abroad in Asia over the summer after 1st year.

Took one class incomplete during Covid for personal reasons - showed incomplete on the transcript submitted with graduate applications.

Demographic information - white/hispanic/native american (no tribal affiliation), male, upper-middle class.

 

I hope this information is helpful to anyone looking for specific profiles and results, and please feel free to reach out with any questions about additional details or advice!