<p>btw, i just want to say that this forum is so much better than thegradcafe.</p>
<p>also, how exactly are applications reviewed? are they sent to professors that you indicated you would like to work with? or are decisions made solely by an admissions committee?</p>
<p>There’s an admissions committee, but generally the professors you indicate have minor imput regarding whether or not they are interested in potentially taking you as a graduate student.</p>
<p>I don’t know what info they receive from your application, though, or if, in the case of schools that require interviews, their feedback is based mostly on their personal interaction with you.</p>
<p>In the program with which I’m most familiar, applications are assembled by administrative staff, then applications are given to faculty readers. (This particular program is an umbrella program, so different readers get applications for different areas.) The readers decide whom they would like to invite for interviews, then interviewees are asked to choose faculty members with whom they’d like to speak for interviews. After interviews, faculty submit feedback on students they interviewed, and admission offers are extended.</p>
<p>I’m not sure whether, in this program, faculty input is solicited prior to interview invitations or not.</p>
<p>Are you talking about BBS? They will not be doing interviews this year, apparently, just recruitment weekends.</p>
<p>I think the procedure depends on the size and character of the program. The one with which I’m most familiar, a relatively small one, has a faculty committee within the department that receives graduate applications once they are completed. This committee then makes most of the decisions by winnowing down the pool to a manageable size. The other faculty members only have input on the finalists. (This is not a program that interviews students prior to acceptance.) Occasionally, a prof from another university will notify one of the faculty members, who may or may not be on the graduate admissions committee, to keep an eye out for a particular student. That faculty member then alerts the admissions committee. Generally, the named student then makes it to the finalist group, regardless of his application, although he may not be offered admission in the end.</p>
<p>
BBS has never done interviews, at least not for the past many years.</p>
<p>I was talking about MIT BCS, which was my undergraduate program.</p>
<p>The Biosciences PhD program at Stanford is now throwing up page load errors for every program as well as the actual application gateway. Deadline’s tomorrow. I’ve submitted already, but man, that sucks for people working to get their applications in at the last minute.</p>
<p>It’s working now!</p>
<p>yay! finally submitted all 
now waiting begins!!</p>
<p>Me too!!!
Finally I’m done with all 13 applications…
I was wondering, some applications (actually, most of the ones I’ve seen) ask you (it is not mandatory) to state your race. Many of them ask you specifically if you consider yourself hispanic/latino.
What’s the purpose for this. I answered (because I thought it would be for stats, only), but now I am thinking that maybe I should have left it without answers…
Does anyone know why schools want to know your “race”, and specifically, what’s the big deal with hispanic/latino?</p>
<p>affirmative action duh~</p>
<p>wow 13 schools!!! good job!!!</p>
<p>I had 12 out of 14 apps submitted back in the first week of November, and tonight I finished the last two! Writing the diversity statement for Northwestern took alot out of me, but hopefully that goes well. My girlfriend was accepted to UIC Med, so Chicago is looking like a good city right now! Hopefully either Northwestern or U Chicago will be calling me in the coming month.</p>
<p>They are only suppose to utilize the race stats for reporting to NIH and other funding organizations, such as the government. They are suppose to encourage underrepresented minorities to apply, but I think most specifically state that they do not take race into consideration when making admissions decisions. So I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>Yah got done with all 14 of mine a little bit ago. Submitted Stanford last because I wanted to try and make some contacts with faculty first and list them as my potential mentors. Now we play the waiting game… Wish it wouldn’t take so long. I feel like I am in Limbo, well that and I am broke from all the application fees :(. Might I mention that I hate the GRE and how they charge freaking $20 dollars to send a damn email. Definitely robing us with that one.</p>
<p>Actually, that official score reports are sent by paper makes it a lot less heinous.</p>
<p>Just submitted my last application today (it seems like I procrastinated but these apps are due in 1-2 weeks). It feels good, but I have a question. The status pages that differentiate between GRE general and subject score say that they received my general but not subject scores (UChicago and Princeton, for one). To these schools, I sent the scores after recieving my marks, so somewhere early November and I indicated both Subject and General to be sent. How is it that they did not get the subject score? I am not insanely worried about this, because I am just glad all the necessary things are in - and maybe they just didn’t fill it in, or something… but I am wondering if this has happened to someone else??</p>
<p>I did quite well on the subject, so I want to get my money’s worth dammit. </p>
<p>Also is there a way to check your MIT application status? And Columbia’s application status? I am just hoping they received everything, since other schools that I sent transcripts, scores at the same time, did.</p>
<ol>
<li>i assume they take a while to process everything. wait a bit on the GRE scores.</li>
<li>you can check the columbia app status through a website they send you along with a student id number. they send an email with this info.</li>
</ol>
<p>Finally done!!!</p>
<p>I was waiting for one of my refs to send in my LOR</p>
<p>anyways how long does it take for univs to process transcripts? Ive sent my transcript like 2weeks ago and still my status page says they havent recieved it…</p>