<p>Finally called UMass Med today, the lady said my application was in a “hold position”. When I inquired if there were any more interviews going out she confirmed no. Why can’t they just officially reject me then if they aren’t going to even consider my application anymore??? I am pretty sure my app isn’t even on the wait list… what gives?</p>
<p>@grosse: I got rejected from one of my schools after interviewing there (its okay, I didn’t really like it anyways). And I’ve heard of a number of other people who have been rejected. As n1s2k9 said, it depends on the program. </p>
<p>Some schools will tell you how many they’re interviewing and accepting, and some won’t, but you could probably figure it out, by how many people are at your interview weekend, how many weekends, and how big the class size is going to be. They accept >2X as many people as they want in the matriculating class. So for some schools their acceptance rate could be ~50% (as it was for the place where I got rejected), or it could be up around ~80%.</p>
<p>I say just do the best job you can, and get your personality and what you want to get out of grad school across to the people in the interview and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Even if the acceptance rate is ~50%, the interviews are still not all that competitive.</p>
<p>Someone else brought this up, but I am also wondering. Is it better to go into a family-type mentor-style lab where you would be happy doing your PhD with some great people, but have the trade off of less publications in lower impact journals, or is it better to go into a rotation program at a school that has more prestige on the hope that you can find a good lab who publishes more often in higher impact journals?</p>
<p>In a sense, I am asking which is better: environment and happiness for productivity, or higher stress and push for publications at a more prestigious place?</p>
<p>@Imm2010 - UMass Med done making application decisions? I have not heard from them as yet. The applications says under review, have not even had an interview call.</p>
<p>@neurotexasgal</p>
<p>I had a similar dilemma, except the “family-type mentor-style lab” was also the prestige (really only by name) and there wasn’t much great high impact journal research. I absolutely loved how tight knit they were and also loved the faculty personalities. The other school had a large interdisciplinary program with a few scattered faculty with high impact, prolific research. I was really interested in working with one PI at the large program, who voiced similar thoughts. </p>
<p>I am about 95% sure that I will be going to the large program because in the end I will be spending most, if not all of my time in the research lab I choose at the end of the rotations. I think I am kind of in a unique position since my POI and I are pretty much already planning on the next five years, of course being cautious that it might not work out after the rotation there are still other high caliber faculty to work with.</p>
<p>@graddreams</p>
<p>They said they are still interviewing, but wouldn’t be sending out any more invitations to domestic students (still yes on phone interviews for int. students). I talked to my advisor and apparently there are “hold” spots that are separate from a waitlist, but really have no clue what that means. Maybe the waitlist are for people that have already interviewed for this type of application process?</p>
<p>@Imm2010 - I am an international student. I have sent out an e-mail to the graduate school… Hoping they will send out interview calls. Keeping my fingers crossed…</p>
<p>I got an email from UMass Med on Tuesday with a rejection, so I think at this point, if you haven’t heard from them, you can join me and we can have a UMass Med rejection party.</p>
<p>@graddreams</p>
<p>Great, best wishes on getting that phone interview!</p>
<p>@phirah</p>
<p>I am totally with you on this one, I just wish they could make it official. I have to say at this point it would make the decision process easier as the final three I am considering is starting to spread out in my rankings of preference :)</p>
<p>@ImmunoNIH. Thanks for the post:). I’ll Just wait it out.</p>
<p>UCLA ACCESS acceptance! I was there Feb 12-14.</p>
<p>Just got into UNC BBSP!</p>
<p>Am i the only one who has not received any acceptance letter as yet?</p>
<p>@graddreams: I also haven’t heard back from any of my 4 schools, and it’s been over a month for two of them. WashStL was mid-January, UMich was end of January, UDub was 1st week of Feb, and Duke was second week of Feb…</p>
<p>Haven’t even HEARD back, no acceptance, rejections, or even “waiting list”…Only hope I have is that UDub said they weren’t going to contact until around Feb. 28th or later, but my mind can’t handle the stress anymore, lol…thank goodness for labwork ;-)</p>
<p>@Geek4life - I interviewed at 2 places… have not heard back from them. Same here for the rest… no rejections, acceptances or waitlists…
All the Best.</p>
<p>Anyone else waiting on UCSD Biological Sciences? Interviewed there last week; admissions committee met yesterday… I feel really confident about the interviews, but that’s not the same as the official word!</p>
<p>@graddreams</p>
<p>Nope! You’re definitely not alone.</p>
<p>@amy…I haven’t even received an interview yet…any chance?</p>
<p>Hello, I have a quick question and I would appreciate if any of you could help me out here. </p>
<p>Do schools usually notify their decisions to ALL of those who went to their interview weekends even if they are rejected or waitlisted? Or, does not hearing back mean not accepted? Thanks!</p>
<p>@graddreams and @geek4life.
Same boat. International student as well. Good luck to you both!</p>
<p>Just got an email from UCSF BMS saying that it could be another 3 weeks before I may hear back regarding an admissions decision. I’ll take that as not a good sign…</p>