2017 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results

[Bubbles_L]

Congrats to your interview invitations!

I just got my first official rej from OHSU... not so sad about it actually.

I am more concerned about not hearing from Weill Cornell, though... Feels like another silent rej, not sure if I could still have some hope……

Edited December 21, 2016 by Bubbles_L

[CozyEnzymes]

5 hours ago, KR Marksmen said:

You got an interview invite at Duke for Biochemistry? What were the interview dates? I wonder if I didn't make the cut to get interviewed

The dates were Feb 9-12 and Feb 23-25 I believe. They may still be sending invites but I don't know anything for sure, sorry.

4 hours ago, Josie817 said:

Same here, they were in my top 3  

Sorry to hear. I'm interested to see how many people here got invitations vs rejections. They may only be taking a really small group this year or something?

[thezonehunk]

2 hours ago, BasicBinImmunology said:

Stanford Immunology sent out invites over email! Interview weekend is March 1-4! They stated in the email that they act completely independently of other biosciences programs so "no news is not bad news."

Do you know if they sent all the Immunology emails out already? Was not expecting a response this early, but am disappointed to not hear anything from them yet.

[DGD4L]

kind of worried I haven't heard back from UChicago Microbiology or Yale BBS Micro  Only see one or two people that heard back today and yesterday so hoping they aren't done! Good luck everyone!

[Katyya]

5 hours ago, MCF10A said:

Invite from Weill Cornell BCMB

Congrats!! 

Hope they aren't done sending invites..

[Kaede]

JUST GOT AN INVITE FROM HARVARD MCO!!!

One of my top choices

[Epigenetics]

1 minute ago, Kaede said:

JUST GOT AN INVITE FROM HARVARD MCO!!!

One of my top choices

wait... like at midnight?

[Kaede]

1 minute ago, Epigenetics said:

wait... like at midnight?

Yes... I'm very surprised about that part.

[VirologyPhDinTraining]

8 hours ago, kokobanana said:

I saw a couple of posts asking about what to wear for interviews. Here's my take on things, based on my interviews last year:

Do's:

Dress for the weather. You'll be miserable if you wear a skirt on the east coast this time of year.
Wear comfortable, but nice shoes. Girls - avoid heels. You'll probably walk around a lot. At Columbia, I was walking blocks between interviews, and there was snow on the ground.
Bring a bag or folder of some kind to hold a note pad or paper / pens in and a water bottle. Some schools give you some, others don't.
Bring water, you'll be talking a lot!

For Women - dress pants and a blouse plus blazer work great. Business suit was not needed at any interview I went to. I would personally avoid skirts - it's one more thing you have to hassle with and I've even heard that dressing too "femininely/sexy" (high heels, skirts) can make some interviewers uncomfortable. So dress like your clothes make you look neat, but aren't the reason why you are remembered (they should remember you for your awesomeness instead).

For Men - dress pants / slacks, a button down shirt, or a nice sweater if it is cold. If you wear a suit, just note that you'll probably be the only one!
 

Don't:
Wear tennis shoes or anything ratty to your interviews.
Wear jeans to interviews (it's business casual, but not that casual).
 

At most, you'll probably need only two "interview outfits" per weekend. Bring some more casual clothes too for recruitment events and traveling. Don't be afraid to re-wear your interview outfits. I bought two and wore them to all my interviews. 

**And for recruitment events, some college town bar don't accept out of state licenses for people under 25, so bring your passport (if you have one).**

And lastly, just remember that you want the interviewers to remember YOU, not what you were wearing that day. So if you think it's not interview appropriate, play it safe.
 

For guys, I wore jeans (brand new, and rather expensive) at all of my interviews (and a nice blazer and a nice button down shirt), and it didn't seem to hamper my results last year. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that I did have a different experience. 

 

I think if you show you take the process seriously that business casual, even jeans and a blazer, can work.

Edited December 21, 2016 by VirologyPhDinTraining

[asdfghjkl1]

If anyone is in the field of immunology or knows a lot about the quality of research done at different programs and schools, could I PM you?

[sqxz]

16 hours 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.

Interview weekends work both ways. They are trying to decide whether they want you, and they are also trying to convince you to choose them. Post-interview acceptance rates vary widely by program, and you definitely shouldn't take for granted an acceptance once you've secured an interview. Most of the programs to which I applied had ~50% post-interview acceptance rates, which resulted in highly competitive interview processes. It was not enough to simply show up to the interview; you really had to work to make a strong impression on your interviewers.

This is why I said that you should wear whatever's going to put you in the best state of mind for your interview. Personally, I would feel extremely uncomfortable being the least formally dressed person at an event, especially when I know the hosts are judging me, so I chose what I wore accordingly. Also, in an ideal world, what you wear wouldn't matter to your interviewers. They would only be concerned with your ability to do good science. However, we live in the real world, and what you wear is likely going to have some sort of effect on your interviewers' perception of you. I chose what I wore with this in mind as well.

[Yeast]

Does applying 2-3 days before the deadline lower your chances of getting accepted?

[fuongngh]

Does anyone know if Duke developmental and Stem cell and UPenn CAMB DSCRB has sent out all interview invites yet? Thank you

[kokobanana]

4 hours ago, VirologyPhDinTraining said:

For guys, I wore jeans (brand new, and rather expensive) at all of my interviews (and a nice blazer and a nice button down shirt), and it didn't seem to hamper my results last year. Not saying you're wrong, just saying that I did have a different experience. 

 

I think if you show you take the process seriously that business casual, even jeans and a blazer, can work.

Thanks for providing perspective as a guy - as a women, I can only give advice about how men dress based on what I saw at interviews. 

I think jeans could work, but I saw slacks / dress pants much more other than jeans. And jeans can range in appearance of  *neatness*.

Sure, a dark pair could probably work (and dressing down probably won't affect your admissions), but from my experience, those that wore jeans were in the minority, and I think it's better to play on the safe side of things. 

[CoffeeFueledAnxiety]

2 hours ago, RachanaDS said:

Does applying 2-3 days before the deadline lower your chances of getting accepted?

Unless the program has a rolling admission system, I don't think that would be the case.

I submitted one of my application few hours before the deadline and would like to know if anyone believe otherwise, though.

[BumbleB]

I lost my cool when I saw Cornell BCMB sent out invites but it turns out BCMB is different from BMCB. We're still in the game boys 

[vnatch]

Any updates on Berkeley MCB? I know official invitations are being sent on January 3rd but I've been praying for an unofficial phonecall!

[Yeast]

1 hour ago, IndoGenic said:

Unless the program has a rolling admission system, I don't think that would be the case.

I submitted one of my application few hours before the deadline and would like to know if anyone believe otherwise, though.

Ok. Thanks! I am just worrried because I don't seem to be getting anything.

[purkinjay]

On 12/21/2016 at 3:31 AM, RachanaDS said:

Does applying 2-3 days before the deadline lower your chances of getting accepted?

I'm not sure about other schools, but I talked to a WashU Neuro program coordinator the day before the deadline and she told me they get a ton of (maybe the most? I forget her wording) applications right before the deadline, in the 3 days leading up to it. So I can't imagine that it would hurt you, although I guess you never know! For the record, I also submitted to two programs that I have interviews for literally hours before the deadline... So I'm hopeful that it doesn't really matter when apps are submitted as long as it's before the deadline.

 

(edit: woops sorry I didn't realize someone had already addressed this!)

[cuteDr22]

Weill Cornell BCMB invite!  

[Bubbles_L]

28 minutes ago, cuteDr22 said:

Weill Cornell BCMB invite!  

congrats!

When did you receive the notification? I noticed some posted the interview invite yesterday, not sure if you received yours yesterday or just now. My mail is still empty, sort of crazy now.

[CoffeeFueledAnxiety]

1 hour ago, RachanaDS said:

Ok. Thanks! I am just worrried because I don't seem to be getting anything.

It is still quite early in the application season. I don't know where are you applying to, but I think only few school have started sending invites. Most of the member here applied to those schools, though, so we see so many people getting invites here. 

I have not got anything yet, either. It seems that none of my programs started sending out their invites anyway.

[Bioenchilada]

5 hours ago, sqxz said:

Interview weekends work both ways. They are trying to decide whether they want you, and they are also trying to convince you to choose them. Post-interview acceptance rates vary widely by program, and you definitely shouldn't take for granted an acceptance once you've secured an interview. Most of the programs to which I applied had ~50% post-interview acceptance rates, which resulted in highly competitive interview processes. It was not enough to simply show up to the interview; you really had to work to make a strong impression on your interviewers.

This is why I said that you should wear whatever's going to put you in the best state of mind for your interview. Personally, I would feel extremely uncomfortable being the least formally dressed person at an event, especially when I know the hosts are judging me, so I chose what I wore accordingly. Also, in an ideal world, what you wear wouldn't matter to your interviewers. They would only be concerned with your ability to do good science. However, we live in the real world, and what you wear is likely going to have some sort of effect on your interviewers' perception of you. I chose what I wore with this in mind as well.

You couldn't have put it better. There were people that definitely stood out in the interview by being the least well dressed. In fact, there was an event to which I thought I could were jeans but then I went back and changed because that was not the case. I wore suits for all my interviews because I felt like it was the best outfit for the occassion. 

[Bioenchilada]

Just putting it out there, but I'm very confident that UPenn CAMB is done sending invites, most were sent out last thursday and friday. 

[KR Marksmen]

21 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:

Just putting it out there, but I'm very confident that UPenn CAMB is done sending invites, most were sent out last thursday and friday. 

I know it's not part of CAMB but do you know if BMB sent out invites? I haven't seen anything on the survey yet but in past years they seemed to have released invites between the 14-18th of December.