<p>I just received an email that all GMB interview invites have been delivered. Although, I’m not sure about the other GDBBS programs at Emory.</p>
<p>Has anyone heard anything from BU neuroscience? I have emailed them twice but haven’t gotten any response.</p>
<p>Just had my first set of interviews today! I’m at Johns Hopkins for the CMDB program. It’s not the actual interview weekend, but as I’ve said earlier in the thread, I’m going to be in Chicago for that weekend and had to come down at a different time. Bad timing, of course–Baltimore got less snow than Boston, but still couldn’t handle it, and it was actually lucky that 5 out of my 6 interviewers were here.</p>
<p>This is my first set of interviews, and OF COURSE the first PI to interview me grilled me. It was humiliating, and I was really angry. He basically started by talking about his research, admitting that he didn’t know about my experience because he only had been given my CV and nothing else. He then asked me about my research, but kept interrupting to ask about the protocols I use, specifically RNA isolation. He asked how I knew I had mRNA, and I told him we measured it with a Nanodrop, but that wasn’t what he meant, apparently. Basically, he spent the whole rest of the time asking similar questions, and essentially wanted to know if I knew how a Nanodrop worked.</p>
<p>He then wrapped up by saying that technicians wouldn’t be expected to know that sort of thing, but that grad students would. He knows I’m a technician. So we spent 30 minutes with him essentially learning nothing about my research or my interests, just so he could make me feel bad about not knowing something he wouldn’t expect me to know anyway. At lunch, one of the grad students who took me out was surprised, and said, “Uh, I didn’t know how the Nanodrop worked.”</p>
<p>The other 4 interviews went pretty well, and I enjoyed myself. So that was nice. I was just so annoyed at the first guy! And I didn’t know why I was interviewing with him because I had no interest in his field and hadn’t requested to meet with him (everyone else I’d either requested or was a chair/co-chair of the program). Then I realized that he shared a lab with two other PIs who all did neuroscience, and I had requested one of the other two PIs, but he was out of the country today. Bleh.</p>
<p>@ phirah…
calm down It’s ok. Maybe he was testing you to see how you deal with stress and if you can answer questions effectively under stress. Also, did you mention anywhere in your SOP/CV about measuring mRNA and using a nanodrop? If so this could be the cause of his questions. Also, maybe he is having trouble with grad students in his lab not knowing how or WHY the concepts in the lab work. I was told to not mention a specific technique unless I knew how it was used (I do thank fully). I have been told to be prepared for tough questions like that.</p>
<p>I am also a tech trying to get into grad school. I feel your pain and don’t appreciate when a tech’s experience is degraded. Think about all the hands on techniques you learned in your lab, think about WHY they work (wikipedia it if you need a refresher) and when you get to the next interview be prepared :)</p>
<p>The first one is always a little rough around the edges. Don’t sweat it and GOOD LUCK!!!</p>
<p>Just got a call inviting me to interview at SUNY Albany (Wadsworth Biomedical Science PhD)!! This was my first notification of any kind as all of the public health schools seem to be dragging their feet…</p>
<p>@phirah- That interview sounds super stressful, but hopefully you’re now prepared for the worst case scenario! I had an interview like this for an undergrad scholarship (history prof trying to convince me to go to a big research uni instead of that liberal arts school if I was interested in science) but it turned out ok.</p>
<p>Just got accepted into WashU DBBS: Immunology!</p>
<p>Also, does anyone how common it is for people to turn down interviews? One school told me I was on a waitlist for an interview, so that if anyone chose not to interview, they’d invite me.</p>
<p>But I’m not too concerned about that, because WashU’s program looks amazing!</p>
<p>
It’s not really all that unusual for a PI to have read your CV and nothing else. Actually, I had an interview where the PI hadn’t read anything in my file, because he’d forgotten he needed to interview me, and had showed up at his office 10 minutes after our interview was supposed to begin. </p>
<p>I actually think it’s kind of a great opportunity – you get to make an impression on someone who’s totally a blank slate, without having to defend yourself against the C you got in freshman calculus or whatever. </p>
<p>It’s true that you will probably run into jerk interviewers here and there. (Bigshot PIness is practically a personality disorder.) But I will pass on two pieces of advice I got from my PI when I was getting ready for my prelim defense: 1) Answer exactly the questions you’re asked, not the questions you think you’re being asked; and 2) It’s okay to say you don’t know the answer to a question.</p>
<p>Pharmnerd, I got an email from Stanford Molecular.Cellular Physiology early January and it seemed they wouldn’t be sending out any more… I can’t say for sure, but they gave the exact number of applicants that they had chosen to invite this year and it was equal to the number of people on the recipient list.</p>
<p>@phirah</p>
<p>The 4 interviews that went well, what kinds of questions did they ask you? Also do they tell you if they want to accept you?</p>
<p>@neurosam
I haven’t heard anything either. I applied back in mid-December, so I’m hoping to get word in the next week or so.</p>
<p>Got rejection email from UCSF a while ago but not hearing back from the 5 other schools I applied to is driving me crazy right now… argggg</p>
<p>Haven’t heard anything back from these schools:
UCI
UCLA
UCSD
Emory
Sinai</p>
<p>Has anyone received interview invitations from Emory or Sinai? (I am inquiring about neuro programs). Interviews should be happening soon and not hearing anything back is quite annoying. Does this mean it’s a silent rejection or does this mean I am waitlisted for interviews? Thanks.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard anything from UCLA, Emory, or Mt. Sinai either.</p>
<p>For Johns Hopkins, it seems to depend on the department to which you applied. I applied to 4 departments and here’s the correspondence I’ve received:</p>
<p>-Biochemistry, Cellular & Molecular Biology (Rejected)
-Pharmacology & Molecular Science (Invited for Interview - Feb.3-6)
-Neuroscience (no response)
-Cellular and Molecular Medicine (no response)</p>
<p>@ aeSponge, wow one dept outright rejected you while another took you in… </p>
<p>Well it’s semi comforting other people haven’t received responses from all their schools yet. Maybe it means some programs are still making their minds up. I’m really looking forward to hearing back from Emory and Mt. Sinai as they’re my top choices.</p>
<p>For all those of you worried about not hearing from Sinai yet: Just a heads up, they review applications on a rolling basis (not track-based), so those of you who submitted your applications very close to the deadline likely won’t hear back until sometime in February anyways. I know that their adcom meets weekly and they interview until March, inviting people about 1.5-2 weeks before the interview date so definitely no need to freak out! Plenty of people get accepted from each interview weekend, so a late application doesn’t mean you’re out of luck, it just means that you’ll have to wait longer :)</p>
<p>hi kurplunk18, is the date of submission important or is the date your file is complete important for mssm?</p>
<p>@fallbiomed2011, honestly, I’m not sure. I know I submitted Nov 1, but my file wasn’t deemed complete until early-ish December and I heard back at the very end of December. I do think a lot of people had issues with their files being complete so I’m really not sure, sorry!</p>
<p>@SuperPiePie</p>
<p>They asked me about my research, and would also tell me about their research. For the most part, it was very laid-back and casual. One of the faculty members actually had both of her dogs with her, so that was pretty fun. I wasn’t nervous about any of the conversations, and besides the first one, didn’t really ask my any questions I found confusing or difficult.</p>
<p>Just to clarify about the first faculty member, I absolutely said that I didn’t understand his question when I didn’t understand (he would often repeat the same question), and that I didn’t know the answer (he would then ask a similar, equally confusing question). If the question had just been, “Do you know how a Nanodrop works?” and then we’d moved on, that would have been fine. It was just the 20 minutes of him asking me the same set of unclear questions. It was highly frustrating, and I didn’t even get to mention the biggest/best/coolest project I’m actually working on.</p>
<p>@Phirah: Much like you did, I had one bad interview out of 5 at my last interview weekend. I had no idea who was interviewing and it was my last one. He didn’t ask too much about my stuff but he dove into his and then asked me questions about what was going on in his data. I had no clue and just felt terrible and jittery for the rest of the interview, at which he continued drilling me about his research (luckily it was my last one of the day).</p>
<p>(In the case of your mRNA example, I believe he was asking how you prepped your RNA (ie. Did you use a protocol to enrich for PolyA RNAs or just a total RNA kit?) Nanodrop just quantitates things that will absorb light. DNA and RNA absorb at the same wavelength but have different extinction coefficients. So if you put RNase treated DNA in the nanodrop, and measure for both, you’ll find ‘RNA’ in there.)</p>
<p>for all those still waiting on rockefeller: just got off the phone with admissions and apparently the committee is meeting again next tuesday. all decisions will be mailed thereafter</p>