2015 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results

[expandyourmind]

Oh man.. good for you for applying to so many but I don't think that I can handle any more applications (i have 11). Personalizing my SOP for each school has taken so much time. There were 3 more schools that are great research fits that I may have applied to if I could handle any more applications. Juggling 30ish hours a week with my current research, applications, and classes though has been really rough. You must be much better at managing your time than I am!

 

 

Oh boy, yeah it took so much time. I started applying in October until December. I was on a frenzy, but now its been nice to "relax" and wait for interview invites. It was a really stressful few months but I'm glad its over!! I worked on my SOP and sent it to as many of my lab mentors as I could, I generally didn't personalize it to the school other than mentioning the people I wanted to work with. But there are so many ways to writing the SOP you can do so much with it

[ghostoverground]

Holy crap...I didn't notice you applied to 20 schools, ghost! You must be exhausted (and will continue to be exhausted if you keep getting interviews    )

 

Yeah... the main reason I applied to so many schools is basically a lack of advising. I go to a small school, so none of my professors are in the field and none really knew what my chances were of getting in anywhere, and further no one from my school had ever applied to this type of program before. So my main advisor said it might be a good idea to apply to a variety of places since he just wasn't sure what to expect. Now that I have gotten interviews, it seems like it was probably unnecessary, but oh well. I'd been saving up the money for a while, so that part wasn't terrible. Since I was so unsure about the process, I figured it was a win-win to apply to so many schools (except for the money)--either I'd be a "successful" applicant and end up with the good problem of having to make some tough choices, or I'd be unsuccessful and the choice would be made for me. 

[Vene]

I'm a little stunned that so many people are applying to 10+ schools. If you apply to 10 schools and get invited for all of their interview weekends, you'll have to cancel, but then again, you got 10 interviews, so chances of getting in are a lot higher. I know my university told us to apply to 4-8 schools and to be realistic about our choice of programs.

I think there's a bit of selection bias here. Those who are more likely to apply for a large number of programs are likely the same type of person who will sign up for a graduate student forum. Personally, when I applied the cost scared me off. Hell, I applied to 4 universities because that's the number of free scores I could send when I did the GRE.

[Chrischigta]

Woohoo, just got an invitation for a preliminary Skype interview (due to my international status) next week for Columbia CMBS.. However, I will be on vacation next week, so I hope they will ok with postponing it for a few days.. I will be in the mountains for some snowboarding and we won't have internet in our room..

[glow_gene]

From the attending student's perspective: 

 

We just got e-mails about signing up for interview-weekend duties! I'm so excited to meet everyone and good luck to those with busy weekends over the next few months

 

 

~glow

[tuckbro]

From the attending student's perspective: 

 

We just got e-mails about signing up for interview-weekend duties! I'm so excited to meet everyone and good luck to those with busy weekends over the next few months

 

 

~glow

It's so exciting, I see my program sent out their invites. Can't wait to entertain the new candidates in March!

[Dubblebubble898]

It's so exciting, I see my program sent out their invites. Can't wait to entertain the new candidates in March!

You are in MIT bioengineering correct?  I applied but I didn't get an email yet today .  Do you think they will send out more emails later or should I probably give up hope?

 

Thanks!

[tuckbro]

You are in MIT bioengineering correct?  I applied but I didn't get an email yet today .  Do you think they will send out more emails later or should I probably give up hope?

 

Thanks!

Not sure about this year, but sorry to say that last year we all got then at the same time.

[expandyourmind]

Any attending at the Columbia university medical center? Would like some advice regarding the program and campus!

[Appsitude]

From the attending student's perspective: 

 

We just got e-mails about signing up for interview-weekend duties! I'm so excited to meet everyone and good luck to those with busy weekends over the next few months

 

 

~glow

 

Organizing recruitment has been a blast. We just got the list of students to assign student hosts to and it's crazy thinking we were just in that position one or two years ago. How time flies.

[ReallyRiley]

I have a fear that I aimed too high. I haven't gotten any interview offers. 

 

Just  a question, if you don't get an interview at a school, is that equivalent to a rejection? How do waitlists work in respect to interviews?

I do have experience applying when I applied for a masters, but it was in a different department which doesn't do interviews, so I'm not incredibly knowledgeable on the process. Ugh!

[lab ratta-tat-tat]

@ReallyRiley- Not all schools have sent out invites yet. A lot of schools resume on January 5th and adcoms may meet right after the return from the holidays. Keep checking the results page to see if other people from the schools you applied to got invites, that should give you some insight on the timetable in the application process.

 

 

[ReallyRiley]

Yeah about half of them other people have heard back from them on them. Those are the ones I'm more interested in. If one of my school sends out invites and I'm not on the list, (and I'm talking a couple weeks ago even), is this equivalent to a rejection?

[expandyourmind]

Yeah about half of them other people have heard back from them on them. Those are the ones I'm more interested in. If one of my school sends out invites and I'm not on the list, (and I'm talking a couple weeks ago even), is this equivalent to a rejection?

possibly, this could mean that you're rejected or there could (hopefully) be another wave of invites being sent out.

 

I didn't hear back from Harvard when everyone already heard back, so I just e-mailed to confirm the rejection (womp womp) 

So it could be bad or it could be good! 

[wickie]

Does anyone know of any programs that still have not had their application deadlines pass?

[future.grad.student]

Does anyone know of any programs that still have not had their application deadlines pass?

 

Vanderbilt's Biological Sciences application will be due on January 15, although they began looking at apps since December 15. Rutger's Biomedical Sciences program app is due February 2.

[PeterPanComplex]

So, one of the programs I applied to called me around the holidays to inform me they would like a Skype Pre-interview with me, which means I had not yet been officially invited to their interview weekend. They had been a bit M.I.A. and I assumed it was because of the holidays. The director of the grad program did respond to an email I sent less than a week ago and apologized for the delay setting up the Skype pre-interview. This morning I received a "Welcome Letter" which included the details of the interview weekend (???). I think it was probably a mistake and will email the director of the grad program about it. Anybody else have some thoughts on the matter? I was extremely motivated by this program when I first applied, but it now seems like they are having me jump through hoops (?) I'm not sure what to make of it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[gliaful]

So, one of the programs I applied to called me around the holidays to inform me they would like a Skype Pre-interview with me, which means I had not yet been officially invited to their interview weekend. They had been a bit M.I.A. and I assumed it was because of the holidays. The director of the grad program did respond to an email I sent less than a week ago and apologized for the delay setting up the Skype pre-interview. This morning I received a "Welcome Letter" which included the details of the interview weekend (???). I think it was probably a mistake and will email the director of the grad program about it. Anybody else have some thoughts on the matter? I was extremely motivated by this program when I first applied, but it now seems like they are having me jump through hoops (?) I'm not sure what to make of it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Maybe they were going to Skype interview you, but someone dropped the ball (hence the delay), and now they're just going to let you attend the real interview as if the Skype interview went fine. 

 

I think that Skype/phone "interviews" vary a lot in their degree of interviewiness. It seems like some of them, on the less interviewy side of the spectrum, are really just informational phone calls. So perhaps the pre-interview that didn't happen would have contained the same information as the Welcome Letter.

 

If it were me, I would respond to anything asked of you in the Welcome Letter (if you indeed want to attend), and just let the pre-interview stuff go. I'm sure if they really need to pre-interview you, they'll stop you and ensure it happens. Otherwise, it sounds like a hoop was removed. Congrats!

[cocomo]

Does anyone know of any programs that still have not had their application deadlines pass?

I know some of University of Maryland-Baltimore department's application deadlines were not until January 15 so I would check their website!

[ilovelab]

Does anyone know of any programs that still have not had their application deadlines pass?

I think the programs at University of Kansas have deadlines in feb or march. University of Kansas Medical Centers Umbrella Program is due Today.

[nutellarain]

Emailed Berkeley, I guess all of the MCB invites have been sent out. Bummer

[beyoncepadthai]

Does anyone know of any programs that still have not had their application deadlines pass?

 

Stony Brook University also has a January 15 deadline for some/most(?) of their programs!

[inyourgenes]

Vanderbilt's Biological Sciences application will be due on January 15, although they began looking at apps since December 15. Rutger's Biomedical Sciences program app is due February 2.

 

Do you know if the Vanderbilt application is free?

[VLSB4Life]

Do you know if the Vanderbilt application is free?

Yep, it is free.

[ilovelab]

I am in a very similar situation. I had a Skype interview with University of Arizona and the admissions committee said they would get back to me shortly after Christmas. However, I know that the entire college community in the US was on holiday break, possibly until today. I still haven't heard back from them, and I had emailed the coordinator last week, and I she hasn't responded yet. I am not happy with the situation, but there is nothing I can do at this point. There are probably tons of people calling and I'll just have to wait even though the interview is in about 3 weeks

Arizona is on the semester system so they might not even be back from break right now. I know Berkeley gets back the jan 13th. I would stress too much. Most likely the admissions coordinator is still on break.