2012 Official Biosciences Interviews and Results

<p>Hey Everyone,</p>

<p>I applied to graduate school last year (was addicted to this forum btdubs), and am currently a first year graduate student in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Just for the record, I love the place–it was in all honesty the only school I really really wanted to go to (although I loved a lot of the other places I got into).</p>

<p>First, I’d like to say that I went to a small liberal arts college and to any applicants out there who are secretly freaking out that having gone small liberal arts will hurt their chances: STOP IT. I worried about this constantly during the application process as everyone else seemed to come from an Ivy or a huge research university…but I ended up getting in everywhere I applied. Your ability to talk about your lab work and meaningful contributions you have made matters more than anything. That is what you will be judged on. </p>

<p>Second, GPA and GREs do matter. They are not unimportant. I know way too many people who think that if their research is great, it will totally make up for suck ass record. I know a couple of people who have won interviews based on purely impressive research as some schools take chances but in the end, you are a package and every aspect of that package reflects on your ability to survive grad school. Point: There is no way that GPA and GREs can get you into a school…but they can keep you out.</p>

<p>Third, I had all of my interviews (Yale, Princeton, Penn, UChicago, Duke, Chapel Hill, 4 departments at Hopkins, IU) two days before Christmas. I had my acceptances to programs that don’t interview (Harvard) by mid-January. Schools usually give interviews in two or three tiers. I knew people who were still hearing from Duke and Chapel Hill well into January. Don’t panic. Do not call the school a million times…THEY WILL NOT TELL YOU. Wait for the call, and sit patiently. Everyone else is going through the same thing.</p>

<p>Fourth, please don’t be that guy on the interview. Maybe you’ll win a Nobel Prize one day…but you don’t have to let everyone know. Also, be warned that if the current students think you’re an *******, they will tell the administrators and program heads–this can seriously affect your chances. So be nice, be social, and don’t do anything really stupid.</p>

<p>Fifth, sell yourself. I went into every interview telling myself to take the approach that said school was my top and only choice. I was passionate about the school and why I wanted to be there. I also made the point very firmly that a PhD in the biomedical sciences is the only thing I have ever wanted to do with my life–I’ve had successes and I’ve had huge failures in the lab but this is my path. I am going to finish the degree. From various sources, I’ve heard that showing absolute committment to grad school and getting the degree is really helpful.
Btdubs, if you have a research mentor that is a role model for you…talk that person up. What you’ve learned from them, how they influenced you to apply for a PhD. It’s a good talking point.</p>

<p>Sixth, let the PIs talk as much as they want in the interview. Some love to tell you about their research–it’s cool and it uses up some time if you’ve run out of things to discuss.</p>

<p>Sorry I am an ******* rambler. This is it for now. Feel free to ask questions!!!</p>

<p>Yo B boy, what were yo stats?</p>

<p>You can find them if you look through her older posts. Thanks for the guidance BMC! Really solid advice.</p>

<p>gawd if feels so good to get my first interview…UCLA ACCESS</p>

<p>thanks for sharing, can’t believe you gave up Harvard BBS.</p>

<p>@BMC</p>

<p>Sound advice.</p>

<p>When you say “I had all of my interviews two days before Christmas” does that mean you’d scheduled them by Christmas, or that you’d already gone to interview at the schools??</p>

<p>P.S. What’s your take on senior year grades?</p>

<p>@BMC2011: Thank you for the helpful advice.</p>

<p>BMC - thanks. useful and practical.</p>

<p>@looong, the grad student i work under chose Wisconsin over both MIT and Harvard. He made this decision after his interviews. Apparently, MIT and Harvard both gave him the vibe they don’t give a damn about grad students because nobody was interested in talking with him. Another grad student in my lab “dropped out” of Yale with a masters because her PI was not interested in training her, now she’s at Wisconsin finishing her Ph.D.</p>

<p>I think it’s important to keep in mind that certain schools have reputations for being VERY post-doc heavy and that most grad students have a<em>horrible</em>time because the PI does not pay attention to them. This is obviously a generalization, but I think it’s part of the reason people turn down places like Harvard.</p>

<p>@biochem2012
Thanks. It makes me proud to be a badger. I know a lot of great professors and PIs here. Some of them would love to have me work in their labs. But I don’t want to be stuck in the same place for 10 years…especially somewhere has 6 months’ winter every year.</p>

<p>How do senior grades effect chances? If I get a D in one of my classes can thy revoke admissions? (other grades being all A or B) </p>

<p>BTW: applying to eeb/population biology
3.5, 3.8 if you take out fresh year.
VQA%: 79/86/72
2yrs in one lab and 1 each in two others related fields.</p>

<p>Applying to: UC Davis, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSF, uchicago, Stanford.</p>

<p>so stressed out waiting. hope it will help to write it out.</p>

<p>International student (from China) at a solid public research university
Majors: Chemical engineering (BS), Molecular Biology, Chemistry
GPA: overall 3.84, ChemE 3.63, MBio 3.91, Chem 3.92
GRE: V 166 97%, Q 166 94%, A 4.0 48%
Experience:
Worked in one lab for 2+ years on stem cells. Very nice PI but not very well known.
No publications yet, one 3rd author manuscript under review; two second author papers in prep.
Interned at a top biotech company (as an engineer though) and was invited back to work there (declined for PhD).
LORs: strong one from PI; strong one from a professor for two of my graduate level bio courses; third one not to0 sure from mid-level executive at the company i worked at</p>

<p>Programs:
Harvard (BBS, MCB)
MIT (BioE, Bio)
Stanford (BioE)
Yale (BBS)
Berkeley/UCSF joint (BioE)
Chicago (DRSB)
UWashington (BioE)
UPenn (BioE)
UCSD (BMS, BME)</p>

<p>Haven’t heard from any of the schools.</p>

<p>Concerns: declining GPA 4.0 from first two years but 3.6 for third. Low GPA on my main major (degree granting major), but I am changing my direction. One of the letters came from industry. International student from China. No publication yet.</p>

<p>@BMC2011</p>

<p>Thanks for the advice!!! It really helps to ease the pressure off.</p>

<p>

As someone who has been a student in both of those programs (MIT biology undergrad, Harvard BBS grad), I would speak up in their defense – doing great research and taking interesting classes with PIs who care about my education, training, and professional development. My classmates and I are emphatically not having a horrible time, except in the sense that all grad students everywhere are having a horrible time and love to brag about it. We are working hard and publishing lots of papers.</p>

<p>It’s true that most top labs (and, by extension, most top schools/programs) are relatively postdoc-heavy, but in my experience, that just means that grad students in a top lab are treated like postdocs. There’s no differentiation made in my lab between grad students and postdocs. We have the same access to interesting projects, the same access to lab resources, the same access to our PI. </p>

<p>People have their own reasons for choosing one school over another, and of course there are reasons not to choose Harvard. But institutional character should not be one of them – in terms of having nasty or uncollaborative people, Harvard is no better and no worse than any other program out there.</p>

<p>@eeb2012: I graduated last year and spent a year as a research tech before applying to grad school, but going through the process with my friends that applied senior year they had to justify to their schools if they received lower than a B in any class in their major, or a C in any class that wasn’t. Typically they still got accepted though.</p>

<p>Whether reality or not, it’s often perception that matters. Plenty of students are turned-off by the perception of MIT and Harvard. Not every grad student wants to be treated like a post-doc but rather like a grad student.</p>

<p>This is the advice my mentor gave me in an email about this:</p>

<p>"The PI’s have multiple grants and are usually very busy, and their relatively high profile labs attract the best postdocs. What that means is that the grad students
end up being completely ignored by the PI because A) the PI doesn’t
have any time and B) the postdocs are the ones making the big
advances, so the PI gives preferential attention to the postdocs. Not
all labs are like that of course, but many are.</p>

<p>Check to see if grad students are getting first author publications (most of these labs have their own websites with lists pictures of the grad students and postdocs in
them). Are most of the grad students publishing 2 or 3 papers or is
it essentially all postdocs?"</p>

<p>Looks like Sloan-Kettering should send out invites soon. From the GradCafe results, it looks like all invites were sent only on 12/21 last year. Of course it doesn’t mean today but might be this week or next.</p>

<p>JUST received email notice from Sloan Kettering!</p>

<p>Just received an invite via the phone for Berkeley MCB. Dates at Feb 5-6 and Feb 26-27</p>

<p>Looks like they are giving them out before the holidays!</p>

<p>Good luck everyone!</p>

<p>Just got an invite from Berkeley MCB by phone!!</p>