<p>Or Inbreeding. 
The basic arguments are that it is better to get a wider breadth of experience, period. More ways of thinking, learning, more potential contacts. That and going to different schools helps to show you have merit outside of being a ādepartmental favoriteā. Expand your horizons and all that.</p>
<p>aldo003b,
Did you ever try to contact Weill to sort out your case? (Or maybe you were not interested anyway).</p>
<p>I got into Einstein and got rejected by Mt. Sinai. I would say that Mt. Sinai has a better location but I donāt know about their housing. Also Einstein increased their stipend to $28,000 which is quite a bit since the housing there is so cheap.
Are you asking purely about academics? If so, I think the schools are so close in reputation/quality that it will be more important which advisor you pick than which school.</p>
<p>I know there were a few people on here waitlisted for interviews at Yale. I just got an email asking if I was still interested. People might be coming off this list soon. I still do not know how this will work and whether people will come off it before or after April 15.</p>
<p>anyone know which school gives the most stipend? Is it harvard?</p>
<p>Iām pretty sure it is Rockefeller at $31,000/year + $2,500-$3,000/year for research expenses (computer, textbooks, travel, etc.)</p>
<p>Here is a list of top graduate stipends from 2007:
[GRADUATE</a> STUDENT STIPENDS - Graduate Student Stipend Comparison - what PhD programs in biological sciences pay their graduate students](<a href=āhttp://www.wendychao.com/science/stipends/]GRADUATEā>GRADUATE STUDENT STIPENDS - Graduate Student Stipend Comparison - what PhD programs in biological sciences pay their graduate students)</p>
<p>I think now it would be fairly even between the three Upper East Side NYC institutions: Rockefeller, Weill Cornell, and Gerstner Sloan-Kettering when just comparing stipends alone.</p>
<p>Maco0708 - I did follow up somewhat (and in fact just today got another email from the program director asking if I wanna talk about it some more). It seems the neuro program sent their list of accepted students to the grad school and subsequently realized they had less space/funding and cut some people, but the letters had already gone out. Or something. I would pursue it if they were my top or only choice, (my boss does work for them, after all, and he could be persuasive) But i want to go to the school thatās falling all over themselves trying to attract me, not the one with second thoughts. </p>
<p>As for Einstein v. Sinai, i am mostly curious of the impression people have of them academically, but Iāve also heard some rumors that Sinai is struggling, and is diverting funds from the grad school to the med school, but I canāt verify. And Iām so ambivalent, iām afraid iāll pick out of a hat at 11:58 on the 14th!</p>
<p>columbiaās stipend is $29,016/year but no travel allowance : (</p>
<p>Does anyone know how much it would be after taxes??</p>
<p>aldo: I felt very comfortable at Einstein and thought that the students were happy and the professors were the nicest and most supportive (by far) than at any other place I interviewed at. However, the location is not the best (although cheap). I thought it was much closer to Manhattan. I chose Columbia over Einstein, but I would not hesitate to do a post-doc at Einstein later on down the road.</p>
<p>isnāt it strange this whole āhow bad do they want meā business? It all comes down to an energetic program manager, getting everybody to write you emails etc. on the other hand, i am hesitant to say yes to scripps because i feel like they donāt care as much about me as some smaller program would. totally silly, but canāt help it. the research should matter more, right, but i am trying to decide now and it seems some places are just pretty much the same, and it will be a matter of how good things happen to turn out for you in your grad school career.</p>
<p>Cornelli, for a standard case (single, no dependents, etc), a student on a $29,000 stipend needs to pay about $400-$500 per quarter for federal taxes. Not too bad. :)</p>
<p>Cornelli2008, I assume youāre coming to the Biological Sciences department. There IS a one-time travel stipend of $1500, provided that you pass your 2nd year exam. No partying before then. :)</p>
<p>If youāre moving into the city from far away, thereās also a moving allowance of $500. Not all departments offer this, but BioSci does.</p>
<p>astrina: iām going to the medical school (biomedical, mechanisms of health and disease, nutrition and metabolic biology) so I donāt think there is a travel allowance for that, but thanks!</p>
<p>For anyone at Columbia (med) now: how hard is it for a first year student to get the housing he/she wants? I know they give priority to students who are from far away from NYC, but Iām āfromā long island, although Iāve lived in Ithaca for 4 years. I donāt even have a room at my parentās house anymore, so I was wondering if anyone knew if they would still consider me a low priority. It would suck to not get housing b/c of that. Iām not sure if anyone is going to be able to answer that but I figured I would give it a shot.</p>
<p>PS Thanks mollie!</p>
<p>Actually Iām up at the medical center too! Also Mech of Health & Disease, but Pharmacology. There are so many more people in BioSci that I just assumed you were part of that gang. The nutrition folk are really cool; I took physiology with them last semester and one of my roommates is a 3rd-year in the program. </p>
<p>Housing here is tougher to get than the downtown campus, but if you do get it, itās cheaper and the rooms are generally bigger (I have a 12 x 18 single in a 3br/2ba apartment). My labmate is from the Westchester area; when he tried to apply for housing, they told him he was too close and didnāt assign him anything. My recommendation is that you pick the address farthest from us (so Ithaca would be fine) to show them that youāre not really a local student and should get housing priority. Then, once the housing forms start to come, fill them out QUICKLY and mail them back QUICKLY. Itās seriously a first-come, first-served world. I spent $35 to overnight the application back from CA and it paid off immensely. :)</p>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions. Welcome to our campus!</p>
<p>U Mass Med School will pay me $28kā¦but to be fair, they have REALLY hiked up their stipends last 2 yearsā¦wish they would give me a travel allowance too 
ā¦anyways, does anyone know how much tax do I have to pay in MA? I heard that NY and MA has highest tax ratesā¦is that true?</p>
<p>In the SOP I send up to Penn State Genetics, I mistakenly mentioned a faculty whoās at Baylor really :)ā¦the strange bit is that even after that, I was short-listed and interviewedā¦what does this mean? To me, the only logical conclusion is that they didnāt even bother to so much as read my SOPā¦the SOP which, I may add, took me a monthās work to tweak into shape. I feel cheated.</p>
<p>well you shouldnāt feel that cheated considering you probably spent a month to write the SOP for some other school, and just sent them a copy in such a hurry that you even forgot to double check it to make sure you got the names right.</p>
<p>But in any case, it is very common for schools to not read SOPs. However, it is also just as common for schools to put a large emphasis on the SOP, allowing it to make up for your shortcomings in other parts of the application.</p>
<p>Ah, the grad school application process. Iām SO glad itās over.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>hahahaā¦amen Lemonkid.</p>
<p>I feel like the time spent from November to now was all about PhD apps. From tweaking my SOP to getting LORs to simply filling out the damn apps, then 5 weekends of interviews and then picking a program. I am so glad it is done.</p>
<p>Now I just have to finish experiments, write my masterās thesis and defend it, find a place to live and move in the next 4 months. No pressure.</p>
<p>Seriously, I am hoping I have like 3 days in-between my masterās and the start of my PhD so I can, I donāt knowā¦sleep.</p>
<p>So I apologize for being another person to ask this type of question, butā¦</p>
<p>I canāt decide between Weill Cornell and UT Southwestern. This is for cell/molecular biology field with a special interest in cancer/stem cells. There are great advisers at both institutions who I feel I could work with. Any recommendations?</p>
<p>
MA has a 5.3% state income tax. On my stipend, I paid about $250 per quarter for MA state taxes last year.</p>
<p>I donāt know if all of you have been introduced to the joys of this yet, but graduate student stipends do not get money withheld from them by the school, so you have to pay quarterly estimated taxes to the federal government and to your state government. It is irritating and I am constantly in danger of forgetting to write the check each quarter because I have too much on my mind already. Hooray!</p>
<p>Masta Ace - who would you be interested in working with @ Cornell? I work there now in Heme/Onc, and I know a lot of the cancer/stem cell people, and if I know the folks youāre interested in, I can tell you what I know.</p>