<p>I was looking for any opinions from others about my current situation. I am a bioengineering senior at Cornell, and spent my last year applying to a number of MD/PhD programs. After going on a few interviews I decided that the programs were just not for me, and decided that I was going to go the straight PhD path. I wish to pursue either materials or bioengineering in grad school and settled on Stanford, Cornell, and MIT as places I would like to apply to. However, I decided late, missed all the application deadlines, and decided to take a year off to apply and work. In the meantime, I was offered a great opportunity to stay at Cornell for a PhD working in a well-regarded lab by a professor for whom I currently work. At this point I don't know whether to take the offer and remain at the same institution for potentially up to 9-10 years, including undergraduate, or take the year off and apply to Stanford. Of course, getting into Stanford is no certainty, and though I do think I might go there over Cornell should I get in (I do love Cornell though), I don't know whether it's worth the risk of not getting in and turning down a great offer...any suggestions?</p>
<p>Not worth the risk. Stanford's Bioengineering PhD is insanely hard to get into with an entering PhD Cohort in the single digits. If you're open to going to other places beside Stanford and MIT for Bioengineeinrg, I might reconsider.</p>
<p>Can you not just be honest and tell your prof that you want to go to Stanford, and ask him if he would still like you to continue working with him for another year in the meantime?</p>
<p>Can you do a masters at Cornell and then apply to other schools? Like what others have said, Stanford and MIT are pretty hard to get into. If you know exactly what you want to do in grad school, then it might be worth taking a year off. I did that and I got into a lot of great Bioengineering programs this year. I also could've done a master at my undergrad institution for 2 years and that would really improve admission chances. I didn't want to wait that long though so I just took a year off to do research.</p>
<p>Why pass on something that is in your hand for something that doesn't exist? It makes no sense. Obviously you have support at Cornell and that is key for landing jobs.</p>