2017 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results

[SysEvo]

Got interview invitation from Harvard Systems Biology

[Epigenetics]

3 minutes ago, SysEvo said:

Got interview invitation from Harvard Systems Biology

Ahhhhhh now I'm stressed.

[MCF10A]

17 minutes ago, MeghanSiobhan said:

Thought I'd throw my update out there:

 

UPenn CAMB/Cancer - waiting

Pitt IBGP/Cell and Molecular Pathology - Interview March 3

Tufts Sackler/Biomedical - waiting

UChicago Biomedical/Cancer - waiting

OHSU Cancer Bio - Rejected

UW (Seattle) MCB - waiting

UCSD Biomedical - waiting

UCI Biomedical Gateway Cell and Molecular - Interview Jan 26 (got this offer even before they sent out their "hey, we're reviewing apps" email lol)

Temple - not even due till Feb 15 lol (thinking they won't have interviews? that's why it's at the bottom)

 

Emailed UPenn, Chicago and UW to see if they're done sending invites. I'll update with that when/if I know.

To my knowledge, it's very likely that UPenn Cancer Bio has sent out all invites already. And UChicago Cancer Bio hasn't sent out any invites yet. Good luck!

[Pepperoni]

7 hours ago, CozyEnzymes said:

I applied to UW Madison. I've heard they're having some financial troubles recently and that some faculty are leaving. Personally it was still somewhere I was interested in, so I figured I'd still apply and I was invited for an interview. I'm in biochemistry if it makes a difference. 

Interesting - did not know that - though i'm not sure that applies to cancer, but still disconcerting to hear.

8 hours ago, Katyya said:

OMG You heard from Emory Cancer. When?

just yesterday - got a text, then an e-mail

7 hours ago, cancergirl said:

when did you hear from emory?!

yesterday, around 5pm CST?

A little relieved to hear no one's heard from U Chicago yet. From their apps though, sounded like a very who-do-you-know kind of program

[VoidInColor]

I know Penn CAMB cancer bio is probably done, but is there any hope left for CAMB MVP? And I haven't heard about anyone that applied to comparative biomedical sciences at Cornell (Ithaca). Just getting a bit worried and wondering if I should maybe try to apply to some schools with later deadlines just in case.

[Katyya]

I just received Emory Cancer Bio invite by email! 11 am on Thursday Central Time

[cancergirl]

8 hours ago, PRR said:

For people who got invites to Emory's cancer program, feel free to PM me and ask about any of the professors or labs or other info regarding the program.

I've been working in a cancer lab there for a while now and personally know several professors and have some insights(from classes and grad-student stories) on the others too.

do you know if they are done sending invites tho?

[Katyya]

UPenn CAMB Cancer Bio breaks my heart  I really wanted and expected that interview. Don't really care about UW that much. 

Still hoping to hear back from Weill Cornell, Vanderbilt and Yale. 

[Bioenchilada]

14 minutes ago, Katyya said:

UPenn CAMB Cancer Bio breaks my heart  I really wanted and expected that interview. Don't really care about UW that much. 

Still hoping to hear back from Weill Cornell, Vanderbilt and Yale. 

Wait, why did you expect the interview? 

 

22 minutes ago, VoidInColor said:

I know Penn CAMB cancer bio is probably done, but is there any hope left for CAMB MVP? And I haven't heard about anyone that applied to comparative biomedical sciences at Cornell (Ithaca). Just getting a bit worried and wondering if I should maybe try to apply to some schools with later deadlines just in case.

I applied for that last year. They sent me the invite on the 17th I think.

[Katyya]

1 minute ago, Bioenchilada said:

Wait, why did you expect the interview? 

 

I applied for that last year. They sent me the invite on the 17th I think.

Because 2 admissions chairs from 2 years told me I was very competitive. Because I have 3 years of research experience and 2 first author papers and my GPA and GRE are well above averages and my research experience fits perfectly with faculty at UPenn. I crafted my personal statement for days and made it very specific about why UPenn is my absolute number one school. 

[Katyya]

Also since they interview and accept such a large cohort of people and have tons of funding it's not like oh sorry you're a great candidate but this year we are looking for people with different research interests because only that PI is recruiting. Like I was surprised I got an invite from Emory because they accept 5-10 people and I fit less there with my research interests. UPenn accepts more than 100. If you don't get an interview they probably didn't like something in your application and I honestly can't think what that could be. 
I have 4 amazing letters from the director of my external research funding agency, chair of the biology department who taught my journal club type seminar, professor that taught my cell biology and saw me give an oral presentation at the conference and my PI who is a chair of the department and a huge name in cancer research. 
And it could totally be regional bias because I go to UChicago it's more 'expected' that I stay in the midwest. I've heard that from many people in admissions. 

Edited December 23, 2016 by Katyya

[AGradStudentHasNoName]

4 minutes ago, Katyya said:

Also since they interview and accept such a large cohort of people and have tons of funding it's not like oh sorry you're a great candidate but this year we are looking for people with different research interests because only that PI is recruiting. Like I was surprised I got an invite from Emory because they accept 5-10 people and I fit less there with my research interests. UPenn accepts more than 100. If you don't get an interview they probably didn't like something in your application and I honestly can't think what that could be. 
I have 4 amazing letters from the director of my external research funding agency, chair of the biology department who taught my journal club type seminar, professor that taught my cell biology and saw me give an oral presentation at the conference and my PI who is a chair of the department and a huge name in cancer research. 
And it could totally be regional bias because I go to UChicago it's more 'expected' that I stay in the midwest. I've heard that from many people in admissions. 

Sorry. Feels bad. I hope something good works out for you.

[VoidInColor]

12 minutes ago, Bioenchilada said:

I applied for that last year. They sent me the invite on the 17th I think.

 

Ah, nevermind. Just checked my email and I got an official rejection from Cornell yesterday :(.

[MCF10A]

27 minutes ago, Katyya said:

Because 2 admissions chairs from 2 years told me I was very competitive. Because I have 3 years of research experience and 2 first author papers and my GPA and GRE are well above averages and my research experience fits perfectly with faculty at UPenn. I crafted my personal statement for days and made it very specific about why UPenn is my absolute number one school. 

There are a lot of factors that we can't control in the admission process, especially as fella international applicants.

Many specific cancer biology graduate programs (versus big umbrella programs) heavily rely on NIH T32 grant to recruit students, but they couldn't use T32 to support intl students. Which means that these programs have to secure other funding sources (institutional, private foundation, etc) if they want to recruit intl students, but these funding might not be available every year. That explains why many great cancer bio programs (Stanford Cancer Bio, UPenn Cancer Bio, UChicago Cancer Bio, to name a few) have a very small portion of intl students in their student body. 

If you take a closer look at the student body of UPenn Cancer Bio each year (current student, 20XX metrics, Ctrl+F CB), you can notice that there are very few intl students in at least the 2016 and 2015 class (I use educated guess, @Bioenchilada please correct me if I'm wrong on this). And there are hardly any UPenn Cancer Bio interviews/offers in the grad cafe database labeled as "I" or "U" in recent years. So when I got the assumed silent rej from UPenn Cancer Bio, I'm of course sad but somehow anticipated that, because I'm like gambling on whether they will have the funding to support intl student or not. 

I know that you're a very strong applicant and UPenn is your top choice. But sometimes being an international applicant just kick yourself out of many games. We all know this part, right? Hope this will help you feel better. 

Edited December 23, 2016 by MCF10A
grammar

[Flux2]

Hello do you guys know what percent of applicants receive interview invitations for Harvard HILS(BBS, system biology) and what percent of those who received invitations gets accepted?

 

Thank you!

[Katyya]

6 minutes ago, MCF10A said:

There are a lot of factors that we can't control in the admission process, especially as fella international applicants.

Many specific cancer biology graduate programs (versus big umbrella programs) heavily rely on NIH T32 grant to recruit students, but they couldn't use T32 to support intl students. Which means that these programs have to secure other funding sources (institutional, private foundation, etc) if they want to recruit intl students, but these funding might not be available every year. That explains why many great cancer bio programs (Stanford Cancer Bio, UPenn Cancer Bio, UChicago Cancer Bio, to name a few) have a very small portion of intl students in their student body. 

If you take a closer look at the student body of UPenn Cancer Bio each year (current student, 20XX metrics, Ctrl+F CB), you can notice that there are very few intl students in at least the 2016 and 2015 class (I use educated guess, @Bioenchilada please correct me if I'm wrong on this). And there are hardly any UPenn Cancer Bio interviews/offers in the grad cafe database labeled as "I" or "U" in recent years. So when I got the assumed silent rej from UPenn Cancer Bio, I'm of course sad but somehow anticipated that, because I'm like gambling on whether they will have the funding to support intl student or not. 

I know that you're a very strong applicant and UPenn is your top choice. But sometimes being an international applicant just kick yourself out of many games. We all know this part, right? Hope this will help you feel better. 

Yeah that all makes sense. I do feel better. It's just really disappointing  

[Kinetic Isotope Defect]

6 hours ago, myhairtiebroke said:

Really? Madison is my top choice right now (Microbiology) so that's disheartening to hear. 

 

6 hours ago, CozyEnzymes said:

Really? Wow, that sucks big time. Good to know though, definitely something that will weigh in my decision.

Yeah, the Wisconsin governor cut state support to the UW system pretty significantly, and has been trying to remove certain tenure protections, so many professors are leaving. It's really unfortunate, UW Madison is such a great research university.

[Epigenetics]

29 minutes ago, Flux1100 said:

Hello do you guys know what percent of applicants receive interview invitations for Harvard HILS(BBS, system biology) and what percent of those who received invitations gets accepted?

 

Thank you!

HILS are very different programs, don't lump them together because they're all separate. My understanding is BBS admits 90-95% of those they interview, the culling happens before interviews.

Edited December 23, 2016 by Epigenetics

[blankens]

Speaking of HILS, is anyone here applying to Chem. Bio? I don't think anything will come out until after the new year, at least from what the results page says, but the wait is killing me.

[cancergirl]

has anyone heard anything from Drexel molecular cell biology and genetics phd ?

[cosiva]

Anyone know the post-interview acceptance rate for Columbia Biological Sciences?

[Bioenchilada]

1 hour ago, Katyya said:

Because 2 admissions chairs from 2 years told me I was very competitive. Because I have 3 years of research experience and 2 first author papers and my GPA and GRE are well above averages and my research experience fits perfectly with faculty at UPenn. I crafted my personal statement for days and made it very specific about why UPenn is my absolute number one school. 

I'm very sorry about your potential UPenn rejection, it can suck; however, you cant really use cohort size as a metric for chance of admission given that you don't really know your credentials. That also doesn't tell you about UPenn cancer bio specifically. There's 8 people in my class with me and I don't know if any of them are international. 

I don't think that regional bias is a factor since I don't think many people from my CAMB class are actually from PA (or the Northeast, there's quite a few from PR and CA). @MCF10A might be right with respect to intl student funding, but I'm unsure.

In the end, There's a lot of good applicants and the competition at Penn is intense for admissions. I hope you get a lot of invites from the other schools you applied to  

Edited December 23, 2016 by Bioenchilada

[SysEvo]

55 minutes ago, Flux1100 said:

Hello do you guys know what percent of applicants receive interview invitations for Harvard HILS(BBS, system biology) and what percent of those who received invitations gets accepted?

 

Thank you!

Two years I was told  the acceptance rate for Systems Biology was around ~66% and roughly 20ish were invited

[Kaede]

15 hours ago, vnatch said:

Does anyone know the status of the Harvard MCO apps? Based on the previous messages I guess the BBS program is done sending invites, but has anyone gotten any MCO invites?

Can't speak for MCO completely, but my friend and I both got interviews yesterday for different weekends.

[Cervello]

1 hour ago, Epigenetics said:

HILS are very different programs, don't lump them together because they're all separate. My understanding is BBS admits 90-95% of those they interview, the culling happens before interviews.

I'd love to know what percent of Harvard PiN applicants got an interview this year and how many will be admitted. They supposedly got a record number of applicants.