<p>Just got a rejection letter from UCSD. I sure am glad I got acceptance before the rejection or I think I’d be a little depressed.</p>
<p>NeuroTheory, just can tell you from my son’s recent experience–accepted to 2 programs so far after one in-person interview and one (unscheduled) phone interview. The acceptances were emailed immediately after the phone interview and the morning after the in-person interview, leading him to think they were somewhat of a formality and that the decision had already been made (unless he made some egregious misstep). Furthermore, the conversation was more of a recruitment attempt than what one might expect from an interview. One of these was a top 5 program. Perhaps this is why you are experiencing the casual treatment of your attempts to schedule. There must be great truth in the advice that LORs are key in the decision process. Some programs do not interview at all.</p>
<p>NeuroTheory:
I had interviews with two UK universities (Oxford and Cambridge) via Skype, and phone interview at UBC. I think skype is more interesting over phone, though I was asked few technical questions, but a longer discussion about the background and future plans.
Good luck on your interview. Let us know your experience.</p>
<p>recommended for admission from UCI, but no funding. *** is going on?!</p>
<p>:( admission without funding = giving hand shake with right hand and a slap on the face with left hand.</p>
<p>ducphan89: You are perfectly correct. Graduate study without funding? Incredible!</p>
<p>@ordinarylove, I interviewed at Penn BE last year. Their process is very confusing up until you are actually there for the interview, but they operate on a match system. You interview with ~4 different professors, and at the end of the visit you fill out an evaluation/ranking form of sorts - which professors out of those you interviewed with would you want to or definitely not want to work for? Simultaneously, the professors are evaluating/ranking you and their other candidates. If there is a good match (i.e. prof is high on your list and you are high on their list), the professor will sign your offer letter - basically, they are committing to fund you for the next 5 or so years of your PhD. You can also be matched to multiple professors (both of my top 2 choices signed my letter), and you would have the opportunity to rotate in each of their labs early in your first year before committing to one.</p>
<p>Also, professors are only allowed to make as many offers as they have open spots for grad students. So if every student who gets an offer from Prof X decides they want to work for him, he has to be able to support all of them. This has some bearing on when you get your letter - some give you an offer immediately after your visit, some wait until all the visits are done so they can judge all their candidates, some might give you an offer later on if their top candidate has turned them down, etc.</p>
<p>Students aren’t admitted without funding, so if there’s no good match (or if you’re not high enough on any professor’s list) you’re basically rejected after the interview.</p>
<p>As a corollary to all of that, I imagine it would be really difficult if you changed your mind about what you wanted to do AFTER entering the program - since you’re restricted to professors you interviewed with/who agreed to fund you, you can’t just join random other labs (I’m not in the program so there may be exceptional situations).</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>@bioenginerd, thanks for the help! that makes so much more sense. what are their interviews like? and just out of curiosity, why did you choose to turn down their offer?</p>
<p>thanks!!</p>
<p>For those who have been accepted to BioE or BME PhD programs with funding, how large are the stipends offers, and are they what you expected?</p>
<p>MomPhd – Son (bioE) got invited to two so far - one was 29500, the other was around 25-26k…</p>
<p>@ordinarylove: In terms of the interviews themselves, they’re about the same as for any other program. You do a one-on-one interview with each professor, and a tour of their lab with some grad students. But unlike other schools where interviews are basically a formality, I would take them more seriously because they determine your funding (duh). Since the professors usually handpick their interviewees, it was one of the few schools where I felt like all the professors I spoke with had actually read my application in any detail.</p>
<p>As for why I turned them down, partially due to research fit and partially personal reasons.</p>
<p>im wondering if anyone has heard back from mit biological engineering … specifically the applied biosciences stream
i seen nothing yet on thegradcafe …
urgh the wait …</p>
<p>@aer</p>
<p>4of my friends got interview …in mid-jan, but i called them and they said they will be done in 2 weeks. (the week of 13th) So I guess if we havn’t received anything by 17th, we are basically rejected.</p>
<p>Anybody heard from Berkeley EE yet? Last year official first (and main) round acceptance emails were sent out around 2/6-2/8, so I’m expecting positive results to be heard anytime soon. MIT EE will probably send their main round acceptances around Friday too. Stanford EE I’m guessing will be next week.</p>
<p>Congratutalions on your invitation to Cal Tech Visiting Days for Applied Physics bkiag1- I am invited to their opening day for engineering (Feb 15)> Have you heard what percentage of those invited receive offers of admission? I am thrilled ot receive the invitation, but it still seems very stressful- it’s my favourit program- I’m not sure if they take many of the people they invite or only a few. </p>
<p>It would be great if anyone could offer insights into Cal Tech Visiting Days. </p>
<p>Many thanks.</p>
<p>Stanford EE has disclosed their acceptance decisions as per the GradCafe posts. It is earlier this year. Have anyone got back from them?</p>
<p>I have - but this was only for the fellowship nominations.</p>
<p>So just be patient (Stanford accepts a lot (I mean a lot!) of applicants).</p>
<p>@itisallforgotten, no idea what percentage, but some people on gradcafe last year said they got rejected after going. good luck</p>
<p>no word yet from stanford, but informally accepted to Berkeley! flying out to meet prof in a few weeks.</p>
<p>@bkiag1
what field in EE are you doing?</p>
<p>^itisallforgotton</p>
<p>I’ve got some knowledge on the issue seeing as my department at Caltech (MS) and the APh majors are actually one joint department and operate really similarly.</p>
<p>There really is no set percentage that you are looking for. Really the idea is that they found you to be qualified enough to join Caltech and they want to make sure that you’re a good fit to caltech and vice versa. Some people do not get in because they didn’t hit it off with any of the professors, others withdrew and honestly said that they were not interested in joining. I can’t really give you a percentage and doing so would be useless. If I were to guesstimate I would say that most of the students that wanted to come ended up with offers though there are certainly some that did not.</p>