Application Progress, where are you?

[aberrant]

Cali schools are really tough to get into for people coming from out side of Cali state. I mainly apply to microbiology programs:

That's not entirely true, especially for science PhD programs. If anything, schools from California are tougher to get in nowadays due to the budget cut, such that many programs are shrinking their sizes and accept fewer students, and that includes many science programs.

However, to anyone who is applying UCSF - you might as well applying to other top tier bio programs in the country, considered how competitive it is to be accepted to UCSF.

[bamafan]

Just finished all my applications. Woo!

[LMac]

Just finished all my applications. Woo!

Congrats! I have 8 done and 3 to go. Excited to be done....but then I wait. Ugh

[BambooPanda]

I finished all of my applications!

[piano5115]

Finished all of my apps (12) and currently waiting. Ugg I thought filling out the apps was the hard part >_< but the waiting is horrible! it's so crazy that people are already hearing back from their schools!

Is it true about the UCs tho? I'm currently going to Berkeley and while there's always a budget crunch I definitely don't see it playing a major factor at the graduate school level. Berkeley was one of the best funded schools (I think we tied with MIT for most NIH funding recently?) in the sciences and UCSF has a ridiculous amount of money. It may be true for some of the other UCs but I feel like for the top UC, they have to be competitive to get the best grad students. I know the stipend here is about 28 K, which isn't really great for such an expensive area but definitely on par with the other elite programs

[aberrant]

Is it true about the UCs tho? I'm currently going to Berkeley and while there's always a budget crunch I definitely don't see it playing a major factor at the graduate school level. Berkeley was one of the best funded schools (I think we tied with MIT for most NIH funding recently?) in the sciences and UCSF has a ridiculous amount of money. It may be true for some of the other UCs but I feel like for the top UC, they have to be competitive to get the best grad students. I know the stipend here is about 28 K, which isn't really great for such an expensive area but definitely on par with the other elite programs

If you, somehow, know the number of the Chemistry students admitted and accepted the offer from Cal for Fall 2012, then it may help. In Fall 2009, Cal has 52 (or 53) new PhD students and only ~2 of them are international students (not that it matters). Considered Cal is definitely one of the top programs in Chemistry, if the number drops for Fall 2012, then you know that the budget cut does make a difference, regardless how big / small the impact is.

ps. And I graduated from another UC. Top or not -- that depends on the field of study, not so much about the reputation from the general perception.

Edited December 9, 2012 by aberrant

[budgiepie]

Applying to 4 CSUs/MS programs. For 3 of the schools my application is done but 1 school I still need to send my SoP and GRE off too. Worried about my SoP since the school is a competitive reach compared to the other 3 (well, at least 2) for bio.

[ion_exchanger]

Only 2 more apps to go. Plan on finishing both by the end of the week. I only have to polish the SOP and submit. My problem is that I sent my GRE scores and transcripts to my schools in October, so when I submit the apps I have a mini heart attack while I wait for them to update my app to say that the scores and transcripts were received. I'm already freaking out about the ones that I have already submitted. I've combed the results pages, and I know around the time I should expect to hear from each school. Still haven't decided whether that's a good thing or bad thing.

[piano5115]

If you, somehow, know the number of the Chemistry students admitted and accepted the offer from Cal for Fall 2012, then it may help. In Fall 2009, Cal has 52 (or 53) new PhD students and only ~2 of them are international students (not that it matters). Considered Cal is definitely one of the top programs in Chemistry, if the number drops for Fall 2012, then you know that the budget cut does make a difference, regardless how big / small the impact is.

ps. And I graduated from another UC. Top or not -- that depends on the field of study, not so much about the reputation from the general perception.

I'm not quite sure about chem department since I'm doing bio here but a quick google search yielded that we have 512 doctural students this year with a 5.3 year completion rate. Granted that's probably the number of chem +Chem bio people (which is a smaller department than chem) , I still don't think that the incoming class number size decreased.

Also I realize that the field of study is much more important than the general school reputation but as you mentioned Berkeley has one of the best chem departments. I only mentioned the school reputation because it's correlated with funding (which I double checked and saw that we have the #1 NSF funding, out competing rival schools like Stanford and Harvard) which would obviously impact the financial situation of the department. I don't want to sound argumentative but I just don't think that the budget cuts are impacting the incoming class sizes significantly, at least in the science degrees.

Also congrats to everyone who just finished apps Isn't it such a relief?!?

[Biohopeful]

I have 3 more to go that are due in January. I'm so ecstatic to almost be done!

This wait is killing me, though!