disasterprone Posted February 17, 2015 Author Posted February 17, 2015 I haven't heard anything back from either Berkeley/UCSF or Stanford in terms of the actual interview day itineraries. I did get the Saturday/Sunday pre-interview event schedule from BEAST though.
beserkerolaf Posted February 18, 2015 Posted February 18, 2015 Having spoken to someone at Stanford, apparently we will be interviewing with people who we chose preference with and people that represent Stanford BioE.
madbiochemist Posted February 18, 2015 Posted February 18, 2015 On the note of itineraries. I'm interviewing at a school tomorrow and I still don't know who I'm interviewing with. The schedules aren't done, I guess. I totally understand getting behind, but how am I supposed to give a good interview when I don't know who I'll be speaking to? My game plan: download papers, abstracts, and general information about each of the possible faculty members, read like crazy on the plane, and hope for the best! Good luck to all other interviewees!
RowRowRow Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 Anyone know what the interview process at Columbia is like?
scaredstudent Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 Does anyone have any insight into Harvard's bioengineering program?
commodork Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 Does anyone have any insight into Harvard's bioengineering program? Seems like they've had an acceptance or two. I'm beginning to think it's time to count them out. Historically, they've sent out acceptances Feb 7-16ish, with rejections coming in March. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I've stopped trying to leave space for a visit there. Good luck, I hope they're just being slow.
scaredstudent Posted February 20, 2015 Posted February 20, 2015 Seems like they've had an acceptance or two. I'm beginning to think it's time to count them out. Historically, they've sent out acceptances Feb 7-16ish, with rejections coming in March. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I've stopped trying to leave space for a visit there. Good luck, I hope they're just being slow. Do you know much about their program in general? I know it's more of a non-traditional engineering program so I was curious if anyone had any insight into it. Thanks!
hahn-banach Posted February 23, 2015 Posted February 23, 2015 Do you know much about their program in general? I know it's more of a non-traditional engineering program so I was curious if anyone had any insight into it. Thanks! I think the fact that it's the School of Engineering *and Applied Sciences* is telling. More people on the basic science side than a traditional engineering school, and very very interdisciplinary (no formal subdepartments in engineering, for example). They do let you take engineering classes at MIT if they don't have the equivalent at Harvard, though. And yeah, unfortunately, if you haven't heard by now, it's probably unlikely. Open House for admitted students is last weekend of March. You never know, though!
scaredstudent Posted February 24, 2015 Posted February 24, 2015 Thank you so much for your response! And last question (sorry to monopolize this thread) - does anyone have any insight/advice into interviews? I have my first interview coming up on Thursday and am sort of freaking out. Tips on how to prepare, tough and/or obscure questions, etc. THANK YOU!!
ChineseAmigo Posted February 24, 2015 Posted February 24, 2015 (edited) Thank you so much for your response! And last question (sorry to monopolize this thread) - does anyone have any insight/advice into interviews? I have my first interview coming up on Thursday and am sort of freaking out. Tips on how to prepare, tough and/or obscure questions, etc. THANK YOU!! Just curiosity. By any chance, is your interview with Columbia? I have it on thursday. I am freaking out too Edited February 24, 2015 by ChineseAmigo
hahn-banach Posted February 24, 2015 Posted February 24, 2015 Thank you so much for your response! And last question (sorry to monopolize this thread) - does anyone have any insight/advice into interviews? I have my first interview coming up on Thursday and am sort of freaking out. Tips on how to prepare, tough and/or obscure questions, etc. THANK YOU!! It varies by school. At some schools, almost everyone who gets an interview eventually gets accepted, and they're mostly trying to make sure you're not completely weird/inappropriate, and also trying to sell the school to you. At others, they want to make sure you can talk about your research intelligently and ask good questions. If you know who you're interviewing with, maybe do a little prep by looking at their lab website to familiarize yourself with their work and maybe read a paper or two, although in my experience that hasn't helped that much. Just be confident, understand your research experience, and be genuinely interested in what they do and the program.
ghanada Posted February 24, 2015 Posted February 24, 2015 Regarding the Columbia interview process, here is a snippet of stuff that I have written on these boards in the past... It is COMPLETELY match-based. You will only get an interview offer if at least 1 specific faculty member is interested in you and has funding/space from you in the fall. If not, you won't even get to the interviews. From there, at the interviews you will meet with a handful of faculty you like and also like you and you will prob compete for 1 or 2 spots against 5+ other students. It is pretty intense. Then after the interviews you list the faculty you liked the most, and if that faculty wants you they will sign an agreement saying they will fund you your entire time there. As far as the actual interviews go, I think you get like 30 min per interview which goes by super quickly. Honestly, it is good to be familiar with your POIs' lab and recent projects, but it is not worth reading a dozen articles from their lab to try and squeeze in 1 sentence that makes it sound like you know what you are talking about. And from my own experiences, the POIs never even assume you know anything about their work. They usually just want to hear about your previous experiences and skill sets to see if you would fit in well. They also usually detail out their current/future projects to give you a better idea of what they do. Bottom line, do your homework and investigate a bit into your POIs, but don't kill yourself over it. It is better to focus on presenting yourself well and making yourself desirable and likable. braindump, trustmeimanengineer and ChineseAmigo 3
scaredstudent Posted February 25, 2015 Posted February 25, 2015 Regarding the Columbia interview process, here is a snippet of stuff that I have written on these boards in the past... Thank you so much for this response! Super helpful!
ChineseAmigo Posted February 25, 2015 Posted February 25, 2015 Anybody here visiting Cornell during march 13?
mc738 Posted February 25, 2015 Posted February 25, 2015 Anybody have any awkward experiences cancelling interviews? I just cancelled one in March because I've been accepted to some of my top programs and it was kind of like a bad breakup. I thought they would be pretty understanding, especially since they're a lower ranked school and this is probably not the first time it's happened, but they were pretty upset.
hahn-banach Posted February 25, 2015 Posted February 25, 2015 Anybody have any awkward experiences cancelling interviews? I just cancelled one in March because I've been accepted to some of my top programs and it was kind of like a bad breakup. I thought they would be pretty understanding, especially since they're a lower ranked school and this is probably not the first time it's happened, but they were pretty upset. Out of curiosity, how did you know they were upset? And how did you let them know you were cancelling?
mc738 Posted February 26, 2015 Posted February 26, 2015 I emailed the program director and she emailed me back with a somewhat passive-aggressive email.
lazydreamer24 Posted February 27, 2015 Posted February 27, 2015 (edited) Anyone heard back from UPenn...? nope I haven't heard back. I mailed the office two weeks back.. no reply. I did see one or two interviews on this website. Have you tried to get in touch with anybody from the office? I have two very strong recommendations from this uni itself and i interned at the dept of radiology(Perelman school of medicine) for a year(2013-2014)... i was really hoping to hear back by now Edited February 27, 2015 by lazydreamer24
VentiMochaLatte Posted February 28, 2015 Posted February 28, 2015 nope I haven't heard back. I mailed the office two weeks back.. no reply. I did see one or two interviews on this website. Have you tried to get in touch with anybody from the office? I have two very strong recommendations from this uni itself and i interned at the dept of radiology(Perelman school of medicine) for a year(2013-2014)... i was really hoping to hear back by now Haven't heard anything about this either. Oh well. This is also my first post. I've been lurking around these forums.
tuckbro Posted February 28, 2015 Posted February 28, 2015 (edited) I know last year UPenn interviewed in late Feb, so I'm sorry to say that I think it's a bad sign if you haven't heard anything as of yet. Edited February 28, 2015 by tuckbro
braindump Posted March 2, 2015 Posted March 2, 2015 I do remember a few people from my recent interview weekend (not at UPenn) talking about UPenn interviews, but I can't remember if they'd already gone or if they were about to go. Not sure if that helps at all. At this point, if a program interviews and I haven't heard back, I've assumed that I'm not in. It's already March, so it seems a bit late for interview invites. There's still 3 schools that haven't said a single thing to me, even though I know they've sent out rejections/interview invites/acceptances. Not sure what to make of that, but I guess I'm just going to count those as rejections.
HopefulGrad555 Posted March 2, 2015 Posted March 2, 2015 Yeah...I'm also in an awkward position because I have 6 programs that I've heard NOTHING at all from, so I'm pretty sure I'm just waitlisted or rejected but waiting for that news just kind of sucks.
mrobez Posted March 2, 2015 Posted March 2, 2015 Anybody have any awkward experiences cancelling interviews? I have specifically avoided doing this just because I want to give every school that brings me out for an interview a chance. Plus I am extremely non confrontational by nature. It makes for a busy couple of months.
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