<p>@eeliye, I only applied to one of the schools that you’re still waiting to hear from (UCSC BME, Bioinformatics) and I haven’t heard anything from them yet either. Good luck!</p>
<p>Still wondering if anyone has heard from Harvard SPH’s BPH program at all. :-</p>
<p>@ polymerase: I’m still waiting to hear from penn pharmacology. My app was done on Dec. 7th.</p>
<p>@phirah: I’m still nervously waiting for HSPH BPH too. Have you tried contacting them? I haven’t because I’m afraid I’ll just get bad news…</p>
<p>@Orion</p>
<p>Which Penn’s immunology program did you apply? Penn State or UPenn, please let me know.</p>
<p>I applied to UPenn and have not heard anything yet, does anyone know if they are done interviewing, online it says my application is in review. Does anyone have info about UPenn Immunology program</p>
<p>thanks guys</p>
<p>@Doxorubicin- I applied to Pathobiology, but the first year sort of ‘wipes out’ your concentration. You can rotate in a bunch of programs and then select your lab from there. After the weekend, I am also considering their Molecular Oncology program. </p>
<p>The interview weekend was great. It was a lot of fun, but very tiring. They had a lot of good things lined up- a broadway show, karaoke dinner, a bar night. The students and faculty were really nice and pretty laid back. I actually had a great time there, and I was impressed by their weekend.</p>
<p>Is anyone going to the Yale Immunobiology recruitment weekend which starts tonight and ends on Saturday?</p>
<p>@microcycle</p>
<p>Yeah, I haven’t contacted them for the same reason. It’s pretty much my top choice, so I’m extra nervous and don’t want bad news.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if Tufts Immunology program is good? I applied to the MERGE ID track which has a clinical rotation component to it in the summer, does anyone has any info about it, i will be going to their interview soon, they dont have a formal recruitment weekend but interviewing on one specific day</p>
<p>I just wanted to say that for those who have not heard back do not lose hope unless you hear from the school itself that they have stopped sending invitations. I heard from schools long after I figured based on this forum that I should give up on hearing. This forum is great, but don’t take everything here as gospel… just because a school started invites awhile ago does not mean they are completely done! My status thus far:</p>
<p>U of Michigan Bioinformatics (Admitted)
U of Wisconsin-Madison Genetics (Interview 2/4-2/7)
Rutgers BioMaPS Institute (Visit 2/11)
U of Pennsylvania BGS Genomics and Computational Biology (Interview 2/17-2/20)
Boston U Bioinformatics (?)
Princeton QCB (was told today they are still reviewing apps and inviting applicants)</p>
<p>@hellosugaree</p>
<p>Congrats and thanks for the info! My session comes up next week so I appreciate the weekend rundown. It’ll also be my first interview of 5, so I’m pretty nervous as to how it’ll go.</p>
<p>I know being a domestic student is advantageous when applying to a graduate program, but does being a resident of the same state as the school you interview at give you an advantage over out-of-staters?</p>
<p>@hellosugaree did you receive an email or did ucsf call you? I was at the interview weekend at the end of Jan and I am waiting to hear back from them…agh yet another month of playing the waiting game for me I guess</p>
<p>@All4smylez</p>
<p>I don’t think it makes a difference, except maybe for state schools.</p>
<p>@immuno2011</p>
<p>I applied to UPenn’s Immunology program, not Penn State. In terms of invitations, I received it way back in December.</p>
<p>Not to burst your hopes, but I’m fairly certain there was only one interview weekend for the IGG program, which has already passed. I may also be wrong. Wouldn’t hurt to give them a call about it.</p>
<p>@ImmunoNIH -
I was also at Einstein then, and I haven’t heard anything yet.</p>
<p>UCSD email rejection, decision posted on website also. womp womp.</p>
<p>@n1s2k9</p>
<p>I received an email from 2 faculty I interviewed with letting me know I was in and that formal letter would follow. It’s a rolling admissions so don’t worry. They don’t invite everyone at once. If you’re not in the first wave that doesn’t mean you’re not in. Good luck to you. If you knew your research and could talk about in on a somewhat sophisticated level then you’ll probably get in. Check your email 60000000 times per day like I did. I got my notification at 1am!</p>
<p>@sdlifesciences: So I found out that they should be sending stuff next week. Keep your fingers crossed!</p>
<p>
The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if you go to a mid-ranked program over a higher-ranked one, as long as the PI you’re working with is top-notch. It’s the quality of your lab and your research that matters for high-impact papers and post-grad school opportunities, and the quality of the lab will be related to the quality of the PI, not to the quality of the program as a whole. </p>
<p>However, you’re putting all of your eggs in that one PI’s basket. If you get to the school, do your rotation, and find out that you don’t like the lab, there might be fewer high-quality labs (or labs of interest, I don’t know) for you to choose from. At a higher-ranked program, there are likely to be many high-quality PIs to rotate with and choose from. </p>
<p>Overall, choosing the great PI/lower-ranked school is a higher-risk proposition. But it has the potential to be high-reward as well.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean when you say that you don’t have a PI narrowed down at the higher-ranked school, “which could have potential funding issues in the future.” Most programs guarantee funding for graduate students for five years or so, and PIs will only take in graduate students if they know they can pay for them. Your PI can always ask you to apply for a fellowship, or to TA a few classes, but you won’t be left out in the cold simply because you didn’t pick a lab before coming to the program.</p>