Yes, in my department if you are invited out to visit on department funds you'd have to seriously try to not be accepted.

Congrats! When were your apps due? I figured most didn't send stuff out til February at earliest

Thanks,

Cornell was due for me on Dec 1st (about 6 of the 10 schools I am applying to had early December due dates). What field of study are you trying to get into? I am in the sciences and they usually reply pretty fast compared most non-science departments.

I also heard back from OHSU today (Oregon Health Science University) and they invited me to their Feb. interview.

I have applications due in Jan as well. I just submitted my Brown application today. I still have to submit my University of Illinois application next week as well. So I will probably be checking email constantly for the next 2-3 months. Hopefully I at least get 1-2 more interviews, but this is a great start and better than I could have ever hoped for.

Come on JHU one time! haha

Hopkins obv is a great school for everything even remotely related to medicine so I'm sure they have a top program in Biochem but Baltimore suuuuuckksss so hard.

There are *some* fun parts of town but none of them are very close to campus and public transportation is a joke. Not saying you shouldn't go there if you get in (I did for my masters and I don't regret it necessarily) cuz the school is prob worth it but just be prepared to be underwhelmed by the city itself.

otoh it's 2.5 hours to Atlantic City.

I applied for mathematical bio, I think 3-4 of mine were Dec 1st. Different departments apparently vary quite a bit in turn around time though so hopefully we both end the month with good news like yours

Did you apply to UCLA? Marc Suchard and Ken Lange are the nuts. Marc is my academic grandfather. They have lots of other good people too, definitely would be a great place to be.

I looked at UCLA but the stuff I'm more interested in is evolutionary game theory and dynamical systems modeling/group behavior. People like Martin Nowak, Simon Levin, Iain Couzin, etc. I was going to apply to UCLA applied math but unfortunately they require math subject GRE and since I did EE as an undergrad I just didn't have the background to take it in time.

I can't remember but you are at UW right? If you are, I applied to work with Mark Kot.

I see

I am at UW but I'm in Biostat, not Applied Math. Just looked up Mark Kot tho and his work looks interesting.

How did you guys deal with scheduling conflicts? I got a few more invites this week, and one of the schools interview dates is the same as one that I've already purchased a flight for. This school is probably on the bottom half of schools I'd like to attend and considering I already got invitations from the schools I really wanted to go to, should I just decline?

I might try to request a phone interview or something...just in case I get rejected after all my in-person interviews. They'll probably see me as a huge degen and reject me.

Also wtf, got the first rejection letter today. But it is from a school who enrolls 50-80 people (400-500 people apply every year but they admit 200-250 students) to the program I am applying to and they have an acceptance rate of 50%! Don't get it...

Damn your programs are on a way faster schedule than mine. I just got an email today saying one of my programs is beginning the evaluation process.

There are all kinds of reasons why you might get rejected that have nothing to do with you or your qualifications.

As for the scheduling, I would just contact them and explain that you have an unavoidable scheduling conflict and ask if there are alternative arrangements you can make. I'm sure there are.

Applying for EE MS at school that doesn't require prof recs but encourages them.

I graduated 3.5 years ago and didn't have any very memorable relationships with profs (goal to majorly improve upon that during this MS) and I also won't be able to meet with any in person to ask for a rec.

Should I send some email requests or just apply without them? The admissions guidance woman seemed to understand that the time gap could lead to not having any.

Also it asks for employment history (poker) and "Remarks". I should definitely explain poker and a bit about how analytical it is and then why I want to transition into EE/tech, right?

it can't hurt to email an old prof. they are in the business of writing these letters. they'll likely ask for your transcript, resume and what you want them to focus on. basically, you'll give them the guts of the letter that they are going to write. its really fine. lots of letters are written this way, even by some profs who people have more recent and stronger relationships with.

its probably a good idea to address poker in your statement of purpose if thats the main thing you've done since you graduated

I probably wouldn't add poker to your employment history...although it may be tough to explain what you did. Wait for others who are more knowledgeable about the whole process, but I would lean towards leaving it off the application because to many it is still considered gambling no matter what you say.

FWIW this is not in the US and their admissions seems very weighted towards a grade threshold. Also poker was the only thing I did for 2.5 of the 3.5 years so I don't think it's possible to avoid.

I think I'm going to email my guidance counselor from college and ask for his advice as well.

Mark Kot is the overlord of math bio.

Also, gotta call you out on the hating of Mobtown. Best live music scene in the country says Rolling Stone. You just have to know where to go and where not to go. (Plus, 1 hr+ from Delaware Park poker).

Finally, re: interview visits. It's my understanding that generally, if you're invited out for a paid visit, you're pretty much in, assuming funding and space. Since schools compete for the best students, it's understood that school x will lose some recruits to school y, so they invite/accept x+(a few) too many students in the knowledge that not all will matriculate.

Lots of good biomath folks reside in non-math departments, e.g. Priyanga Amarasekare at UCLA...Greg Dwyer at Chicago...Bill Fagan at UMd...etc

where all have you applied?

I applied with Greg Dwyer, in alphabetical order:

Chicago - bio
Cornell - a math
Harvard - systems bio
Michigan - bio
Princeton - QCB
Washington - a math
Yale - bio

I actually had a surprisingly good correspondence with Simon Levin at Princeton. I told him what I was interested in and what I was writing my NSF app about at the time and he asked a few questions and wanted to see my NSF app when it was done. Obviously not a huge deal but was a nice confidence boost.

Amazing how faculty are interested in prospective students ideas, isn't it?

Here's a paper I found for anyone thinking of doing math-y publishing from Steve Ellner's (Cornell) web site.
http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/Ellner/CitedPapers.pdf

Hey, I have a situation and am not really looking for a clear-cut answer but I would like to get some opinions.

I'm a Dutch student currently getting my Master's at a Dutch university. I'll be done in August, and am currently working on the last major thing, my internship which is at Harvard in a bio-related field.

I want to get a PhD after I finish doing my study, and after spending a few months here in the US I really like it here (along with the fact that the best research in my field is being done here). However, I just missed the application cycle etc. so the earliest I could apply would be end of this year, leading to a start in September '13. That leaves me with one full year where I don't have anything to do, and the chance I wouldn't get accepted because I'd only be shooting for top schools to be honest.

My other option would be to get a PhD not in the US, of which I'm sure I can find a spot in the last half of '12, at a good European university. There's two options here, just do the PhD in Europe or do a sort of exchange program where I do most of my work at a top US university but get the actual PhD diploma from the European university. That means I would probably spend 3 out of the roughly 4 years in the US, and the rest (writing etc.) in Europe.
So the Europe option would allow me to start a year earlier and it's 4-4.5 years.
Doing a PhD here at Harvard for instance takes on average 5.5 years, although they're trying to reduce it somewhat. However, a top US school seems to carry a lot more prestige than a top European school.

So to summarize, I have three options that I can identify. European PhD, European PhD with work done mostly in the US, or a US PhD.
Taking into account the different timelines and the difference in prestige (along with admission chances for US programs), what would you do?
And as a sidequestion, if you would go for the US program, what would be the best way to fill up that empty year I have coming up in that case?

No help from me, but I'm also interested in how US vs. Intl looks, from an academia and industry perspective. Reading about MBA degrees I know the guideline is to get the degree where you want to work/live.

Why are you only shooting for top schools or EU schools? Do you feel that beyond the top schools the EU schools you could go to would be superior (ie superior than the better 2nd tier schools)?

[I don't actually know PhD specific info, but trying to be helpful with general knowledge:] You should be productive somehow until the applications go out, like continuing this internship or doing reseach elsewhere. After the apps go out you probably have more freedom and could do something else to actually earn money and/or maybe spend some time traveling, since you won't have much free time or income for the next 5 years.

Kind of related to Ph.D topic...but how are on-campus living facilities compared to undergraduate ones? Do they tend to be quieter/noisier? What kind of person/personality would like living on campus? Do they tend to be nitty people?

I just don't like living with nitty people who need everything to be quiet 24/7.

I lived in grad housing on campus all through grad school. It was very positive overall. I made a lot of friends there, b/c everyone else was some sort of grad student as well so you immediately have that in common. There was never any kind of quiet/noise issue. It was just like living in a normal apartment complex. It's not like living in a dorm, normally. It was just a big apartment complex owned and operated by the university. I guess this could vary by school. I suppose some might have more dorm-like facilities. Also, it was probably about 20-30% cheaper than market rates.

For biology the saying 'get the degree where you want to work' holds less true as a lot of people travel around, that's why I have these options.

And there's two things that most affect my decision to only go for top schools. First of all, there are not a lot of US universities that do good research in what I want to do (human stem cells) because of the legal issues and sheer amount of money you need to do effective research. So that limits the choices a lot already. Secondly, I feel that going outside of say, the top 10 schools will be worse than the top few schools in Europe, and probably considerably worse than doing my work at a top 5 US university and getting the actual diploma from Europe.

And what you're saying to fill up the year off is similar to what I thought of it myself, up until applications try to gain as much advantage as possible through relevant work/research and after that just have fun for a few months.

How do adcoms look at time off after graduation? I took summer classes to finish off my general education requirements, but as soon as that quarter ended it was time to prepare and take the GRE. Then as soon as I took the GRE, it was time to start searching for schools and fill out applications. This leaves me pretty much no time to look for a lab tech job or do some volunteer research at my local university. Besides, I doubt anyone is willing to hire a person who can only commit for 3-4 months. With that said, is it that bad that I kind of did nothing (and by nothing, I mean nothing related to my Ph.D degree) from mid-November to now?

TBH, I was kind of burnt out taking after 25 credits(15 credits is a typical full load at my school) during the summer and I really needed a break from 12 months straight in the classroom/lab.