<p>I don't know how accurate this is but Peterson's has rather very different statistics for each individual home program at for example, Stanford. So, my question is, when you apply to a big umbrella program, does your choice of home program influence your admissions <em>a lot</em>? I was originally planning on applying to neuroscience in most of these umbrella programs, but interesting faculty are often found in other depts (like molecular biology, cell & molecular physiology, developmental biology). Would it be worthwhile to apply to those instead since neuroscience is pretty popular = more competition.</p>
<p>Also. I'm confused about Harvard.. DMS, HILS, BBS is split up into like 6... What's going on. Some told me BBS is more international friendly (I'm international) than Neuro.. anyone concur? As well, for Weill-Cornell, does anyone know if you can rotate with anyone there or only the people in the program you apply to (I, unfortunately, have faculty I'm interested in in neuroscience, physiology, and their BCMB allied program).. hard decision to select which one to apply to. </p>
<p>My research interests are rather specific, although I have tangential interests of course too, my main one is sensory coding (visual, olfactory, mechano, thermo, chemo, etc.) in simple organisms, mainly c. elegans but also drosophila. Tangential interests are synaptogenesis in c. elegans, development of these sensory systems/neurons, perhaps characterization of ion channels involved in sensing the stimuli, etc. I'm not interested in anything to do with diseases/pathologies, psychology, humans, top-down processing, not too interested at how the info is integrated at higher levels either (if applies, of course, not talking about c. elegans anymore).</p>
<p>I think it varies a lot by program. I know at my school (Sinai) Neuro-track people are somewhat less likely to get in this year, as we have had 2 big Neuro classes in a row, and labs are loathe to take 2 new students in a short time. I seem to recall that at Weill you can rotate in whichever lab you want, regardless of intended Track. (notably, or maybe not, here at Sinai, I am neuro-track, but have just joined a lab in the Genetics department, and they are giving my PI a 2ndary appointment in Neuro so that my degree can be in that dept.) So at least some programs can be flexible. If you want a certain answer, I’d ask each program specifically.</p>
<p>At Stanford, the home program is the one that admits students, so some programs have more spots than others.</p>
<p>
DMS is the basic science aspect of the medical school. Neuroscience and BBS are two separate PhD programs within DMS. BBS is much bigger (~60 G1s per year vs. ~15 for Neuroscience), and it’s my impression that BBS has a higher percentage of international students than Neuroscience. About 15% of my cohort in BBS attended undergrad internationally, and I know several others who attended US undergrad schools as international students; I don’t know the comparable stats for Neuroscience.</p>
<p>Within BBS, your intended area of research doesn’t make it easier or more difficult for you to be admitted.</p>
<p>Are there any other Harvard questions I can answer?</p>
<p>molliebatmit: I am interested in metabolic diseases (diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome: chronic diseases)/energy metabolism. (Also, inflammation, steroid hormones (endocrinology-neuroendocrine), lipids). At the risk of sounding oxymoronic, I like basic research that is pathophysiology/disease focused. I like the sound of HHMI Med-into-Grad programs (like Stanford’s Masters of Medicine program) as I think the disease in context of the human body is as important as studying the individual liver cell. So, do I do DMS, BBS or what? I have been confused by Harvard’s website in the past trying to figure out all the acronyms of the programs, which one is the best etc. Thanks for your opinion! (In light of the other posts, I come from the US)</p>
<p>The Division of Medical Sciences (DMS) is not a PhD program, it’s a division of the medical school. DMS is the administrative department housing the BBS, Neuroscience, Virology, and Immunology PhD programs. </p>
<p>The two major biology PhD programs at Harvard are BBS (Biological and Biomedical Sciences; located at the medical school) and MCB (Molecular and Cellular Biology; located in Cambridge). BBS is a larger program, and serves the investigators at the medical school and Harvard’s teaching hospitals, while MCB serves the investigators housed in Cambridge. Overall, BBS is more focused on medically-related research and MCB is more focused on basic research, but it’s possible to rotate with or join the lab of anyone at Harvard from either program.</p>
<p>I know that systems biology and biophysics technically allow you to— but neither are happy about it and it is definitely out of the ordinary. HST is a joint program- but involves A LOT of class</p>