Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering - Fall 2017 PhD Application Profiles

[skbts]

10 hours ago, Tecumseh30 said:

Last year, I did nine interview weekends and I agree with Extra Expresso, there is simply not enough time to recover between weekends because by the time you are home and settled for a day, you need to start preparing for the next weekend. Personally, I would filter out places once you find one or two places that seem like a really good fit. I went to all of them because I didn't want to leave any stones un-turned and didn't want to have any regrets about the process. As mentioned above, the weekends are a lot of fun so just enjoy them!

Yeah, I have that same impulse right now because I feel like I don't have any more information now than when I applied, so it's hard to decide which ones to give up on. If you had to pick in retrospect, which ones do you wish you hadn't gone to (more like, how would you decide retrospectively which ones might not have been worth the time?) Do you feel like your feelings and impressions about schools before the interviews mostly turned out to be justified?

[lucy0488]

So I got a skype/phone interview offer with a PI on Monday, and I responded the same day telling them I was interested and asked for times that were convenient, but never got a response. Should I give it a full week and then email again? What is the etiquette here?

[Guest]

On 1/17/2017 at 10:38 AM, Extra Espresso said:

I do know acceptances are done differently for international students. If you don't do the campus interview, I would assume that your acceptance would be 100% on the PI interview. My guess is that, if you decided to come visit, your travel expenses would be covered up to the amount covered for domestic students, but that's complete conjecture and you'd have to talk to Hong Lan for actual answers. I'm sorry I don't have better information about the travel part  

I do know that we offer all international students the option of using a Skype interview in lieu of an in-person interview because of the travel difficulties, and just doing the Skype interview will not hurt your chances at all! There are several international students in the class who all just did the Skype interview. 

There is no difference between the two interview weekends other than there are a minor few professors who may be available only at one weekend or the other, but that should be indicated on the website. The program doesn't make any acceptance decisions until after the second weekend, so your chances of admission will not be affected by the weekend you choose (I attended the later weekend last year). The activities are all the same as well, so, if you decide to come, just pick the weekend that is more convenient for you! 

Thank you, Extra Expresso! I appreciate the thorough answer. I contacted them and I'm looking for tickets. I was planning to stay around a month in the US for this interview period, so I wanted to be as efficient as possible and ask you about your previous experience.

Do you think it's feasible to do a visit in the same week to JHU arriving Wed and leaving Sat and to Berkeley arriving Sat and leaving Wed? Or it's too tiring?

[Neuronophil]

Did anyone get accepted into HST MEMP?

Got my rejection today...

[CleverDisplayName]

Undergrad Institution: Small Private Business School (poor choice, lack of research in engineering)

Major(s): Biomedical Engineering and Biology
Minor(s): 
GPA in Major: 3.7/4.00
Overall GPA: 3.5/4.00
Demographics/Background: 

Masters in Biomedical Engineering from Top 5 Engineering University

GRE Scores:
Q: 161
V: 159
W: 

LOR: 2 very strong from research advisors, 1 undergraduate advisor

Research Experience: 2 summers at strong research university working on biomaterials. 1 semester as graduate researcher at city hospital working on cell derived biomaterials. 8 months of materials research at top 5 engineering school as research associate.

 

Publications/Abstracts/Presentations: Two second authorship's, presentation

 

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: 

 

Fellowships/Funding:

 

Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Founded and president of two engineering organizations on campus

 

Other Miscellaneous Accomplishments:

 

Research Interests:

 

Institutions/Programs:

University of Pittsburgh

Comments:

[kangaroomr]

1 hour ago, Neuronophil said:

Did anyone get accepted into HST MEMP?

Got my rejection today...

It's competitive. My letter writer is on the Adcom and told me about 50~ were selected for interviews out of 300~

though I got rejected too. Don't fret, there are other schools I'm sure!

is anyone familiar with university of pittsburgh's bioengineering program timeline for interview invites?

[jw2899]

3 hours ago, Neuronophil said:

Did anyone get accepted into HST MEMP?

Got my rejection today...

I also got my rejection from HST as well.

[Extra Espresso]

23 hours ago, Neuronophil said:

Thank you for your thorough responses. I mostly meant asking about funding from program staff rather than the professors. I think the rule of thumb is that most of these schools keep it close to NSF fellowship as the benchmark with a little adjustment for the local cost of living.

No problem! It is definitely in ballpark range of NSF. (Although you do get a one-time bonus from Hopkins in addition to NSF if you win!) If you have any specific funding questions, definitely ask Hong Lan. She's our program coordinator, 

 

22 hours ago, skbts said:

Hey, saw this bit and was wondering if you have any opinions about doing that many interviews! I applied ChemE also so a lot of mine are visitation weekends and not interviews, but I'm approaching that number and am starting to feel a little overwhelmed. Why did you go for all of them, and do you recommend it or do you suggest trying to filter some out beforehand?

Yeah, I did eight interviews... I got ten offers and ultimately declined two, but I probably should have filtered a bit better. Part of my decision to go on so many came from the fact that I only applied to two schools for undergrad, and I chose my alma mater because they gave me a scholarship and the other school didn't. With graduate school, I didn't have to worry about the finances and could go wherever I wanted (and got accepted), so I had a really hard time narrowing things down before my visits! 

Ultimately, I don't regret it at all. I was considering every school I interviewed at, and the interviews gave me a great feel for where I was interested and what research excited me the most. Having so many interesting conversations about research helped me pinpoint what I was the most excited about, and visiting that many schools made me realize exactly what I wanted from the graduate school I attended. If I had done my research better before applying, I might have been able to narrow the list down, but it was a great experience for me to do it this way. 

The toughest parts of doing so many interviews are scheduling them all and the fatigue. By numbers 7 and 8, I was pretty fried (especially since both of those were after a week-long international trip with an organization at my school). I still tried to be as prepared as possible and consider each school fully, but I don't know if I got as much out of those visits as I could because I was pretty drained. Scheduling is also a pain. I actually set up as many in a row as I could, so my schedule was 1 by itself, 4 in a row, 1 by itself, international trip, 2 in a row. That helped cut down on time in airports and missed classes, and was less fatiguing than doing them all separately. I also had to do two alternate weekends because I couldn't make the main weekends due to scheduling conflicts. 

I was able to get away with it in coursework because I only had one regular class and my ChemE senior design project, and I basically did design non-stop in January so my group didn't hate me for skipping out on them for most of February/March. 

By the end of my visits, I had it narrowed down to three programs, and I pretty quickly narrowed it down to two due to fit. They both had pretty similar pros and cons lists, so from there, it was really a feeling more than anything else. I kept coming back to Hopkins for the intangible reasons, and everyone I knew said they knew I'd end up here just because of the way I talked about it. But Hopkins wasn't my first choice pre-interview, and may not have even been in my top three, and my top choice pre-interview didn't even make my short list after I visited because it's so different being at the school and interacting with the people in the program than it is looking at a website. 

10 hours ago, skbts said:

Yeah, I have that same impulse right now because I feel like I don't have any more information now than when I applied, so it's hard to decide which ones to give up on. If you had to pick in retrospect, which ones do you wish you hadn't gone to (more like, how would you decide retrospectively which ones might not have been worth the time?) Do you feel like your feelings and impressions about schools before the interviews mostly turned out to be justified?

My feelings and impressions weren't justified in the slightest, but that might just be me. I was way off-base for several programs, especially about the personality of the program and the people in it.

There were two interviews I could have skipped, looking back. One of them I added at the last second even though I was starting to narrow down on where I wanted to go and the other wasn't a super great fit on paper, but I had fooled myself into thinking it was. The biggest thing you can't ignore is your research fit. From websites and papers, you can start to draw up a short-list of who at each school you think you would be interested in researching with, and if there are schools that really don't have a great fit, that's where I'd start to cut down the list. Also, if location is a factor for you, that's an easy one to cut your list down with. 

Seconded on the no stone unturned comment. I was afraid I'd end up regretting my school choice if I didn't check out every program I was interested, and I can say confidently that I made the right decision for me. By the time I decided, I knew for sure that Hopkins was the best fit and that I'd be happy here, and I was confident in it because I had looked everywhere. It was a really great feeling when I finally accepted my offer.

(Sorry for the novel guys...)

Edited January 20, 2017 by Extra Espresso

[Extra Espresso]

6 hours ago, hopefulandconfused said:

Thank you, Extra Expresso! I appreciate the thorough answer. I contacted them and I'm looking for tickets. I was planning to stay around a month in the US for this interview period, so I wanted to be as efficient as possible and ask you about your previous experience.

Do you think it's feasible to do a visit in the same week to JHU arriving Wed and leaving Sat and to Berkeley arriving Sat and leaving Wed? Or it's too tiring?

Totally doable (and actually exactly what I did for those two programs)! Be sure to request to stay with a current student on Friday night (that's an optional night, but we'd love to have people hang out in Baltimore a little longer). I will say Berkeley/UCSF's weekend is a little more tiring than others because you visit both campuses, but having the first day to just do fun things makes it easier. 

[jw2899]

I received an interview from Columbia. I know it is match-based, but does anyone have any idea about the percentage of people they invite to interview vs how many they offer admission. Thanks in advance!

[skbts]

2 hours ago, Extra Espresso said:

(Sorry for the novel guys...)

Haha didn't want to quote the novel again since it takes up so much space, but thank you so much for writing the whole thing! I guess we'll see what happens after I go on a few more of these visits and rethink programs some more. There were some programs I actually added as applications last minute after deciding not to apply, so maybe I'll look again and see if I was really deluding myself about some of them. I hope I reach the same confident conclusion you did about my eventual choice! 

[Extra Espresso]

47 minutes ago, skbts said:

I hope I reach the same confident conclusion you did about my eventual choice! 

When I was in the middle of interviews and trying to narrow down schools, I got so tired of people telling me I'd "know" when I had found the right school. I kept asking people how they picked, and several of them said they picked the place that felt right. It annoyed me because I wanted real advice on what to look for and how to decide, but I ended up doing the exact same thing. Once you find the top couple that check all the right boxes, the final decision really is which place feels right. Good luck!!

[WhyTry]

Interview weekend invite from U Washington! March 2-5

[Neuronophil]

8 minutes ago, WhyTry said:

Interview weekend invite from U Washington! March 2-5

Congrats!!!

[zebratography]

Has anyone gotten their travel arrangement for JHU interview weekend yet?

[Neuronophil]

31 minutes ago, jnfls0203 said:

Has anyone gotten their travel arrangement for JHU interview weekend yet?

I did. But I had to call. She (the travel agent) said that she is very busy and is getting to them one by one.

[Edotdl]

3 hours ago, jnfls0203 said:

Has anyone gotten their travel arrangement for JHU interview weekend yet?

When I went, I actually asked if I could do it myself and get reimbursed, and they agreed. Don't know if you'd prefer that but just letting you know.

[zebratography]

Just got rejected by Stanford... couldnt believe they were still working this late

[BrutalBrain]

Hi there,

5 hours ago, jnfls0203 said:

Just got rejected by Stanford... couldnt believe they were still working this late

Just received rejection from Stanford as well... Nothing from UMich though, seeing that they've already sent out some interviews should I assume rejection ?

Edited January 21, 2017 by BrutalBrain

[avin1103]

Just got a rejection from Stanford. Is the decision only for PhD admissions or is it also for the MS program? I remember having checked the option to consider my application for MS if not offered PhD. Does anyone have any idea with regards to this?

Thanks

[Tecumseh30]

4 hours ago, BrutalBrain said:

Hi there,

Just received rejection from Stanford as well... Nothing from UMich though, seeing that they've already sent out some interviews should I assume rejection ?

Last year, I got my interview to Michigan during the first JHU interview weekend, so there's still time.

Edited January 21, 2017 by Tecumseh30

[N.M.]

Does anyone know if all the decisions have been sent out for Georgia tech and UCSD?

[Tony_Krc]

Hey All,

Just want to start off by saying, good luck to everyone! Hopefully we will all be collaborating soon 

Here is my profile:

Undergrad Institution: National Technical University of Athens

Major(s): Materials Engineering
Minor(s): Materials and Metallurgical Engineering
GPA in Major: 8.48/10
Overall GPA: 9.2/10
Demographics/Background: White Male, Athens, Greece

GRE Scores:
Q: 161 yeah..
V: 149
W: 3.5

LOR:

2 solid From a Prof. with a PhD in Duke and Postdoc in MIT and Harvard and from my thesis advisor, 1 (I suppose good) from an Orthopedic Surgeon

Research Experience: 

2 years research experience working in 2 different labs ( Systems Bioengineering Lab), worked in Tissue Engineering, Systems Biology and regenerative medicine.

 

Publications/Abstracts/Presentations:

 1st author in 2 different manuscripts ready for publication

Oral Presentation at the 7th National Conference on Biomechanics

 

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:

 National Award for the Best Poster Presentation of an undergraduate student on Biomechanics.

 

Fellowships/Funding:

Nothing at all

 

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

 TA for 1 semester in 2 courses (Introduction in Biomedical Engineering and Principles of Biological Engineering).

 RA in a variety of projects regarding cartilage regeneration 

 

Research Interests:

Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine, Stem cells, Drug Delivery

 

Institutions/Programs: 

All BME: 1. Cornell, 2. Purdue, 3. Wisconsin 4. Tulane, 5. Clemson, 6. University of Miami, 7. Rens. Pol. Instit., 8. University of North Carolina, 9.  UC Davis, 10. Boston,
11. Washington University in St. Louis 12. Stony Brook, 13. Drexel, 14. Rochester

 

Comments: Had an interview with  a Prospective PI from Purdue University, she had a phone call with one of my  Referees (they Had the same PI when conducting their PhD in US so they knew each other before). Then the PI informed that she invited me at the Visiting Days 15-17 of February to meet in personal. Nextly, an official email came to me informing me about the invitation. I need your comments please. Is it worthy to go at the visiting days? What should I expect? What are my chances of being admitted??

!! Please I need an insight here guys... Thanks!!  

 

[LanMor]

Has anyone heard from Boston University? I saw that one person has received an admit. Have they already sent out all the admits?

[Leilajan8]

1 hour ago, LanMor said:

Has anyone heard from Boston University? I saw that one person has received an admit. Have they already sent out all the admits?

Well I didnot apply to BU but my friend (international) applied, and she got an acceptant email without funding details two days ago - without any interviews!! She was told that official offer would be there days after.

While I don't really think you should be too worried. I would believe the process for individual applicants are staggered. BTW, anyone applied to UT Austin? Didnot see...