<p>For those of you lucky enough to be sitting on a growing pile of acceptances, have you started declining those below your top choices? Or is it too early in the game? What other factors will come into play for you before the April 15 deadline?</p>
<p>Just a thought for those waiting to hear back from schools others have been accepted to.</p>
<p>Until I get financial aid packages from each and every one, I’m not turning down any offers. All the schools I applied to are my top choices, anyway :p</p>
<p>I have been accepted into just three out of twelve (rejected by one). Accepted: Colorado, Purdue, Illinois. Rejected: Wisconsin. Waiting: Cornell, Carnegie, Rice, Delaware, Texas, Ga-Tech, North Western. </p>
<p>My financial package are almost similar (~ 24,000 in stipend). I won’t deny any of them until mid March though.</p>
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<p>The same for me as well. Although I did apply to a relatively small number of schools (5) compared to other people here and have one acceptance so far, so I’m not about to turn anything down. I think all my potentials have a yearly stipend of $27,000.</p>
<p>I was just wondering in the case of people who have gotten accepted into their safeties as well as top choices and in between. One man/woman’s safety can be another man/woman’s top choice…</p>
<p>Unless you actually know the faculty member you want to work for and have met them, I wouldn’t consider turning down anywhere until you’ve visited a school or two and found people you’d like to work for.</p>
<p>Am I correct in thinking that most people accepted into biomedical sciences programs have already visited the schools?</p>
<p>Yes chibichan, that’s correct. Interview first, then acceptance.</p>
<p>I’ve already turned down one school. I couldn’t see any way it would be a better option than the other schools I’ve already been accepted to.</p>
<p>When you guys are talking about stipends, is that like free money or do you have to be a TA or research assistant? I’m starting to get some acceptance letters and one program offered me a package for being a graduate student instructor at 25% time for around 27,000 at a UC in California (I am an in-state student). Is this a standard package or do they only offer it to some people? This is for a Master’s program if it makes any difference.</p>
<p>Also, when do most schools give you a financial package by? I am also waiting to find out about financial packages from some places.</p>
<p>That’s a really nice package for a MS student. Generally MS students are unfunded or have to work a pretty significant amount of time in order to get funding.</p>
<p>As far as I know, being an RA just means doing the research you’d do anyways as a grad student, so it’s seen as the “better” award. I TAed a lab in the fall (6-8 hours a week) and earned a little bit extra money; maybe $200-$300 each month.</p>
<p>In general, you have to put in more time to TA a class than they’re paying you for (just like when you’re taking the class). I’ve heard for some classes it can go up to twice the hours they’re paying you for. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to TA a lab; there’s only so much class time the students can hang around. :)</p>
<p>I just accepted MIT, so I turned down Harvard and declined interviews at Berkeley, UCSF, and UCSD. If you know where you want to go (or are already accepted to one of your top choices), it’s courteous to let schools that you can’t imagine attending know so they can offer your spot to another student.</p>
<p>Turned down three; visiting four.</p>
<p>What kupolu said.</p>
<p>It’s wise not to make any rash decisions if you don’t have any funding in hand, but if you’ve got a clear ranking of choices – say you know that you would rather go to School A than School B, and you are accepted to School A and School B with similar funding packages. It’s courteous to turn down School B so that some student out there on the waitlist can be let in to decide.</p>
<p>I mean, think about your own preferences first, but there is no reason to hold onto acceptances to places that you definitely know that you don’t want to attend over another school to which you’ve been admitted.</p>
<p>I declined my interview with Vanderbilt IGP for personal reasons. Hopefully others can get that spot plus the very generous graduate fellowship I was offered.</p>