<p>@february: Thank you! :)</p>
<p>UCLA Neuro acceptance!! Super happy to have ended up here. Congrats to all on acceptances and good luck on the next phase of your journey. : )</p>
<p>@Cassandra108: Congratulations!</p>
<p>Accepted to Rockefeller via email!!! :D</p>
<p>@bassish101: You’ve nailed the graduate school application process…Can you share some luck with me as I still got nothing good >.< (5 rejections already and only 1 school left…)</p>
<p>Are you guys sure you want to get a PhD in biosciences???
Hopefully you have all done your research. Most of you will spend 6 years getting a Phd, another 6 years doing a postdoc (getting paid 40K), and then not getting a job related to research or requiring a PhD. </p>
<p>[Is</a> America’s Science Education Gap Caused By Career Planning Fears?](<a href=“http://www.psmag.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/]Is”>http://www.psmag.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/)</p>
<p>[Fix</a> the PhD : Nature : Nature Publishing Group](<a href=“http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7343/full/472259b.html]Fix”>Fix the PhD | Nature)</p>
<p>I was a fairly successful PhD student from Hopkins. Only one person from my graduating class has a tenure track job after 5 years and one other person has an industry PI job.</p>
<p>The other’s have left science or are still postdoc’ing</p>
<p>BAF, what program/dept at Hopkins?</p>
<p>What did those 2 grads do differently than the rest of your class?</p>
<p>Accepted to UCSF Tetrad, Berkeley MCB, and Stanford MCP so far!! Whoooo!</p>
<p>BAFapoptosis - I’ve heard that you should only do science if there’s nothing else you can see yourself doing with your life. Speaking for myself, that is the case. I’ve heard all sorts of horror stories about how miserable life as a biologist can be but there’s nothing else I want to do, so one way or another I’ll figure out a way to be alright.</p>
<p>All the departments at Hopkins are strong. There were Nobel/Lasker winners, HHMI investigators, etc. It does not really matter, even students from strong programs have trouble getting decent jobs these days (I’d say its less than 10%). The problem is structural and supply side, there are simply too many PhDs chasing too few jobs. It is not going to get any better either. I hate to be a Debby Downer, but I wish people were more honest with me when I was signing up.</p>
<p>The two students who have PI jobs : 1) 2 Nature papers (you will not control the factors that determine whether you publish in Nature (Job) or Nature Cell Biology(No Job)); 2) Worked in industry before coming to graduate school.</p>
<p>Mary Mir. That is good that you are aware of the employment problems and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor.</p>
<p>@zebura: Thanks! I hope you get good news soon! How did your Stony Brook interview go?</p>
<p>@BAFapoptosis, if you dont mind me asking, what did you publish? and what are you doing now?</p>
<p>@bassish101 : Those 3 days are awesome. We stay in a really nice hotel (double room for single…), nice lunchs and dinners, and the retreat was really informative. I would say this trip was worth more than what I spent on application.</p>
<p>Talking about interview, the professors are really nice and one of them are really interested in my work. However, I really cannot answer his question since what he asked is still unknown as a whole so I think he really wants to see what is my opinion in those questions.</p>
<p>Overall, the interviews were nice. Professors were not grilling me. However, what I can do right now is hope that they will give me an acceptance and they said this can be LONG…</p>
<p>2 Nature Cell Biology papers (1st author)
2 reviews (1st author, and 2nd author)</p>
<p>Im in professional school now.</p>
<p>BAF- thanks for the specific information. </p>
<p>I’ve been in industry for 2 years (research associate) and I hope after graduate school I will have an easier time returning to industry with a job! (but at the same time am nervous to leave my job to go to graduate school when I hear these types of stats).</p>
<p>Hi guys,</p>
<p>I was wondering if any of you guys who went to Columbia biological sciences open house give me some feedback on how it was like.
Just the general atmosphere of the department, the faculty, other grad students, your impression of the program.
I really wanted to go but couldn’t…</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>decision time. I think I can narrow it down to Stanford Vs. UCSF, any advice?</p>
<p>@apple91:</p>
<p>Did you miss the whole open house? Will you still be considered for admission? I guess you had a Skype interview.</p>
<p>I went and it was pretty nice. Typical faculty meetings… we met four (some five) professors at their offices and talked for 20 minutes with each. We went to see a Broadway show (Once) and had dinner in two very nice NYC restaurants. We stayed in a four star hotel on Broadway… it was a great experience, well worth the $105 application fee!</p>
<p>The campus is gorgeous, a haven of peace in the City… I hope I can get in. </p>
<p>Some professors came to eat with us at the restaurant. They were very approachable. We discussed anything… science, non-science… the students seemed happy in this program… </p>
<p>I guess the only negative that I can think of is the average time to graduation. They said about 6 years, while all the other schools that I interviewed at said 5 to 5.5 years… or maybe Columbia is being more honest than the other schools.</p>
<p>Stanford has better name recognition outside of medicine and science.</p>
<p>This will probably help you when you can’t get a research related job and are applying in other fields.</p>
<p>Hi Merohedral have you heard anything back from Columbia yet? I was wondering if we are supposed to know the result during this week…</p>
<p>@mill37:</p>
<p>We should hear back by the middle of this week. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!</p>