2017 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results

[Shero]

11 hours ago, hihello742 said:

Thank you for letting us know! Awaiting Davis here too

Yea. I wonder which program you applied because both my friend and I already heard from Davis. My friend got her Dec 4. I hope you can interview soon!

[sqxz]

On 12/18/2016 at 3:43 PM, Epigenetics said:

As far as I've seen the interviews are casual wear, I haven't seen much discussion of needing to dress up for this!

While it varies by program, this is not the case in general. Most people will wear business casual at the least.

Last year, there was a lot of discussion on what was appropriate interview wear and how to make formal wear warm, and those posts can be easily found with a search. For what it's worth, my two cents is that you should wear what is going to put you in the best state of mind for the interview, keeping in mind that some interviewers' perception of you as a candidate will unfortunately be affected by what you wear.

[SysEvo]

@sqxz Hi, I notice that you are in UIUC Biophysics. I'm wondering does this program have interview process at all? Got email after DDL saying the final decision will be made in March...

[hihello742]

18 minutes ago, Shero said:

Yea. I wonder which program you applied because both my friend and I already heard from Davis. My friend got her Dec 4. I hope you can interview soon!

Just heard from Davis too, Immunology just today. Congrats on your interview invites! 

[rockyMicrobe]

1 hour ago, hihello742 said:

Huge Congrats! Do you feel like sharing which interview dates are for UCSF BMS? Thank you. 

They are Jan 26-28 and Feb 9-11.

[spiffscience]

Got an email tonight from the UCSF Dev/Stem Cell Program  

[Blahgirl]

39 minutes ago, spiffscience said:

Got an email tonight from the UCSF Dev/Stem Cell Program  

Omg CONGRATS! At what time did you get it?  I'm so nervous nowww

[lncRNA]

Hello! Is there anyone know if the graduate schools care about the student's senior year GPA once they gave out the offer, as long as the student succesfully finishes the Bachelor degree? I am asking because for some reasons I am expecting a sharp drop in my GPA this semester, but I am pretty sure I could make it back to my normal level next semester (and my previous grades are good enough to hold my GPA around 3.7). Would the graduate schools care in this case? Thank you!

[lncRNA]

On 2016/12/19 at 5:51 AM, Epigenetics said:

I realized I never did my little introduction!

I'm applying to: Harvard (Systems Biology), Harvard (BBS), MIT (Biology), Stanford (Biosciences - Genetics), UCSF (TETRAD), UC Berkeley (MCB), and UWashington (Genome Sciences).

Already heard from UCSF (12/15), Harvard BBS (12/16), and Berkeley (12/16). Still waiting on the rest.

I'm actually a computational biologist in an HMS cancer lab, so if you have any questions about Boston or Harvard PhD programs I'm well-versed, about half my lab is BBS and the other half is Chem Bio. Happy waiting to all!

Hi! I have a question about the Harvard BBS program. Do you know what range of labs could BBS students choose for their PhD projects? I would really like to know if Harvard BBS student can join the labs of Broad or Whitehead institute as their thesis labs. There are about three hundreds faculties on the website but I remember I heard something like the actual range of choice is much larger than that. Thank you!

[sqxz]

6 hours ago, SysEvo said:

@sqxz Hi, I notice that you are in UIUC Biophysics. I'm wondering does this program have interview process at all? Got email after DDL saying the final decision will be made in March...

In my year, there was no interview. I was accepted in January and invited to visit with the rest of the accepted students in March. The past two years, there has been an interview before acceptance. We got a new director/admissions head last year, and he made some last-minute cosmetic changes to the interview weekend last year. It could be that more changes are being planned for this year, but I'm pretty sure there will still be an interview because of this excerpt from our website (http://biophysics.illinois.edu/program/admissions#interviews):

Interviews

Only applicants residing in the contiguous United States will be invited to the campus for on-site interviews. Applicants living outside the US will be contacted for phone/Skype interviews in March-April.

Biophysics on-campus recruiting interviews for Fa17 will be held on March 9-11, 2017.  

[BasicBinImmunology]

9 hours ago, hihello742 said:

Huge Congrats! Do you feel like sharing which interview dates are for UCSF BMS? Thank you. 

Thank you!  They are the same as UW MCB and Harvard BBS (why would they do that) January 26-28 and February 9-11.

[Bioenchilada]

2 hours ago, lncRNA said:

Hello! Is there anyone know if the graduate schools care about the student's senior year GPA once they gave out the offer, as long as the student succesfully finishes the Bachelor degree? I am asking because for some reasons I am expecting a sharp drop in my GPA this semester, but I am pretty sure I could make it back to my normal level next semester (and my previous grades are good enough to hold my GPA around 3.7). Would the graduate schools care in this case? Thank you!

Those don't matter unless you don't graduate. Sending a final transcript if a formality. 

[SysEvo]

2 hours ago, sqxz said:

In my year, there was no interview. I was accepted in January and invited to visit with the rest of the accepted students in March. The past two years, there has been an interview before acceptance. We got a new director/admissions head last year, and he made some last-minute cosmetic changes to the interview weekend last year. It could be that more changes are being planned for this year, but I'm pretty sure there will still be an interview because of this excerpt from our website (http://biophysics.illinois.edu/program/admissions#interviews):

Interviews

Only applicants residing in the contiguous United States will be invited to the campus for on-site interviews. Applicants living outside the US will be contacted for phone/Skype interviews in March-April.

Biophysics on-campus recruiting interviews for Fa17 will be held on March 9-11, 2017.  

Thanks a lot! Should have read their website more carefully

[Epigenetics]

4 hours ago, lncRNA said:

Hi! I have a question about the Harvard BBS program. Do you know what range of labs could BBS students choose for their PhD projects? I would really like to know if Harvard BBS student can join the labs of Broad or Whitehead institute as their thesis labs. There are about three hundreds faculties on the website but I remember I heard something like the actual range of choice is much larger than that. Thank you!

You can't join Whitehead labs (that is an MIT institute) and with the Broad the faculty has to be affiliated with Harvard and BBS, so you can't work with MIT professors at the Broad. The website has a list of all the faculty in the program if you're confused.

[Born-to-pipette]

11 hours ago, sqxz said:

While it varies by program, this is not the case in general. Most people will wear business casual at the least.

Last year, there was a lot of discussion on what was appropriate interview wear and how to make formal wear warm, and those posts can be easily found with a search. For what it's worth, my two cents is that you should wear what is going to put you in the best state of mind for the interview, keeping in mind that some interviewers' perception of you as a candidate will unfortunately be affected by what you wear.

Definitely will be looking for those posts! Thanks!

[Epigenetics]

11 hours ago, sqxz said:

While it varies by program, this is not the case in general. Most people will wear business casual at the least.

Last year, there was a lot of discussion on what was appropriate interview wear and how to make formal wear warm, and those posts can be easily found with a search. For what it's worth, my two cents is that you should wear what is going to put you in the best state of mind for the interview, keeping in mind that some interviewers' perception of you as a candidate will unfortunately be affected by what you wear.

Guys, interviews are recruitment weekends. They're going to reject very few people, let's not pretend we need to wear a suit.

[immunoweirdo]

Does anyone remember when Rockefeller's interviews will be? I vaguely remember them telling us in the application. 

[desmond.bo]

6 minutes ago, immunoweirdo said:

Does anyone remember when Rockefeller's interviews will be? I vaguely remember them telling us in the application. 

There is another thread here.

and according to that, Rockefeller: Feb 23-24, March 2-3

[AGradStudentHasNoName]

41 minutes ago, Epigenetics said:

You can't join Whitehead labs (that is an MIT institute) and with the Broad the faculty has to be affiliated with Harvard and BBS, so you can't work with MIT professors at the Broad. The website has a list of all the faculty in the program if you're confused.

I didn't apply to BBS, but BIG. But one of the professors I contacted who had posts in statistics and molecular biology (both fields for which I am not a great candidate for, but our research interests aligned pretty well) said that he could take students from pretty much any scientific harvard program and potentially even from some MIT programs with approval. He said it was it was very open. He did say that for interviews if you want to talk to a given professor outside of the department, you would have to ask and they would have to be available/want to meet.

While I know that many here are more knowledgeable about this than I am, I would say don't make your decisions based on things mentioned in this forum. Ask the program, and ask the program if exceptions can be made with approval. Ask them about specific professors because even that could change the answer.

[Janiejoneswoah]

27 minutes ago, Epigenetics said:

Guys, interviews are recruitment weekends. They're going to reject very few people, let's not pretend we need to wear a suit.

That's not true across the board, some schools have post-interview acceptance rates around 33%...

[desmond.bo]

3 minutes ago, Janiejoneswoah said:

That's not true across the board, some schools have post-interview acceptance rates around 33%...

Like which "some"? Just curious (and freaked out) 

[spiffscience]

8 hours ago, Blahgirl said:

Omg CONGRATS! At what time did you get it?  I'm so nervous nowww

6pm PST -- any luck on your end??

[Lott]

Got my first interview invite! Now I'm freaking out even worse than I was waiting for them. At least I don't have to worry for long - submitted the application Sunday, got the interview offer today, and the Skype interview is tomorrow (I'm applying to schools in Europe, so its a bit of a different process). Gotta have a presentation about my previous research and an analysis of a specific paper done for 9 AM tomorrow - I was NOT prepared for this to move so fast!

And for everyone here worrying they're not going to get interviews - you ALL have better stats than me. If I can get one, you can too!

[coffeenchem]

I just got an email invite to Weill Cornell !!

[anzisigo]

Does anyone know if any of these Immunology graduate program send out their invites to interviews yet? Super anxious right now...  

University of Washington

New York University

Northwestern University

University of Chicago

Vanderbilt University (Tennessee) 

Tufts University