<p>Rank shouldn’t be a deciding factor for a school. It should ultimately come down to the culture of the program and the research being done there. The “fit” everyone keeps talking about. Realistically, your chances of getting a job shouldn’t be any higher than someone getting a degree from Harvard. It comes down to networking, right?</p>
<p>When it comes to programs, it’s all about what you do there and who you know. One could make the argument that more well-known PIs are at the top ranked universities, and there are some there, but you’ll be surprised at who you find at mid-tier universities or so.</p>
<p>For people who got invites from CSHL, are you guys all going for the scheduled interview weekend? Has anyone tried to reschedule yours to some other time? Thanks.</p>
<p>I tried to reschedule CSHL, and was told to rearrange other interviews to go one of their actual weekends. I wonder if they’re interviews are extra special since they’re a day longer than most? Sounds like a blast so I hope I can make it work.</p>
<p>Hey @molliebatmit
Since now a lot of harvard’s bbs invites have gone out, do you think the program is still trying to not to reject anyone post-review? Thanks.</p>
<p>@ neurogirl85 No I’m sorry for initially posting such an insensitive comment. It looks really stupid now that I read it again. Those schools were basically my “dream schools” and after getting rejected from essentially all of them this past week, I started to feel a bit down. I guess I’m a bit paranoid about it because my relatives in Asia don’t know schools other than Harvard, Yale and MIT. They know I applied and when they hear I didn’t get in, knowing their personalities, I can already imagine what they’d say. But anyways, like you said, I should just appreciate the invites that I have.</p>
<p>@ Elocin, parafilm Thanks for giving your points of view on the matter. It gives me a different perspective when looking at research. Research should really be done but those who enjoy it and its not about which university you’re doing it in. As long as you’re happy doing what you want to do.</p>
Well, yeah – it’s a big program, and a lot of people are invited to the interview weekend. </p>
<p>Even before the program started interviewing (when recruits were accepted prior to attending the weekend), BBS has always invited probably 100-110 students over both interview weekends, in order to get an approximately 50-person first-year class. </p>
<p>I’m not saying BBS won’t reject anyone post-interview. But the goal is to pick all great people so that no one needs to be rejected post-interview, and the program won’t blink an eye if that happens.</p>
<p>That’s interesting - isn’t the class typically 60 people? What’s bbs post-offer acceptance rate? MCB is different; obviously they don’t interview people they know they will cut, but they are interviewing ~50 people and classes are around 16-22 people. So, they know they have to cut post-interview,</p>
<p>At the grad level it’s not so much about the reputation of the school or the program, but instead fit and individual achievement of the faculty. It’s very likely 50% of accepted applicants found more resonance with investigators at other places. For biomedical sciences, Harvard probably competes with all the top 10 research hospital schools for a common pool of applicants.</p>
<p>@hontoOishi I know the feeling >_< Just heard my mom talking to my aunt in China over the phone about how " well you know she went to a good school and had lots of research experience but she was too lazy to get a good gpa…if I was MIT I wouldn’t want her either". There’s something about Asian obsession with those “brand-name” schools that makes it impossible to describe how the most important thing for a phD is a good match.</p>
<p>Anyways, anyone know if Stanford MCP and Harvard BBS are all done sending out invites?</p>
<p>Yeah, dapi, the BBS class is typically 50-60 people – mine was 70, but that was unusually large. Last year, the post-offer acceptance rate was something like 95%, I think, but, as I said, last year was the first year BBS did interviews at all. The change to having interviews vs. accepting students prior to the recruitment weekend was imposed top-down by higher-ups in the Harvard administration, according to my PI. BBS hadn’t had problems with the previous system.</p>
<p>
Oh, ~50% is probably the typical yield for a top program – after all, virtually all of the students admitted to any one top program are also admitted to several others.</p>
<p>Cornell BMCB interview in 3 hours via skype… never had a skype interview before… does anyone have any suggestion??? they said it won’t be longer than 20 minutes, i wonder what they would ask…</p>
<p>Received an email from a professor on the admissions committee of one of my schools. He’s presenting my application this week and I need to have a phone interview before he presents. </p>
<p>Any tips? I have no idea what’s going to happen.</p>