Basically I attend a top 3 college [hyp] at the moment. I’m a researcher in the crispr field and I’m on a lot of papers but I’m banned from attending several related labs than I’m interested in. I pitched this startup idea to a renouned professor and the professor stole it and made a company out of it. I’m still looking to build it but when I’m looking for peers in the same field to help me, the professor and his colleagues in the college bans any researcher from talking specifically with me or else they’re fired.
I can’t do anything about it since its an incredibly specialized field and I also don’t have the resources. Filing a lawsuit won’t do anything because it wasn’t under NDA.
I’m looking to go to another university and create another research lab there for the field and start again. People tell me that I’m not supposed to be negative about the University I’m transferring from but this is the sole reason I’m transferring. I feel that I should be honest but I’m not sure how to go about my personal statement. Any advice?
Don’t mention it. Make up a reason, find something that the transfer schools offer that your own school does not and pretend that’s why you want to transfer. Create a storyline that doesn’t depend on the theft of IP and use it. Honesty is always the best policy - unless honesty consists of accusing someone of a crime you can’t prove and telling schools that you’ve essentially been black-balled at the school you attend. Find a fresh start and keep your million dollar startup ideas to yourself when you are there. Professors will always win out when it comes to who gets the credit / income for achievements in their lab.
I’m struggling to make up another reason, can you help? My current college has unlimited resources, classes, and the most renouned professors. I’m perfectly happy situationally, friends are great, it’s just that the stupid professors are literally banning me from going deeper into my subject field. If I’m honest, not sure how that would make me look. I’m personally well known in the field but saying the professors stole my idea might make me look bad, even though I have the research to support it.
Sure. You are “looking for places that have more opportunity for students to partner with the private sector on development projects”. You don’t have to say that the opportunities at your school are hogged by the profs.
Thanks that took a positive turn but it’s a 650 word essay. If I want to transfer to a place like MIT or Stanford, I would probably need to go into detail and show that through a background story rather than painting broad strokes. Not sure how I’m going to bs a whole personal statement though.
You can mention feeling creatively stifled -by the lack of opportunities for independant startup development - just don’t mention that came from IP theft or the blackballing.
Another school doesn’t want to hear a lot of criticism about your current university. They would be afraid that you’re a negative person who would have issues at their school, too.
Fill up the personal statement with what you’ve done and what you dream of doing. If you’re as good as you think you are other schools will want you. The only thing they won’t want is a good researcher with a chip on his shoulder or coming in under a cloud. You don’t have to hide your achievements or your ambition but you must hide your resentment and the bad status you have with this one professor’s group.
not really buying this story. “banned” from labs? Seriously?
but just so anyone reading this thread understands: Like most highly selective schools, Stanford takes few transfers and those accepted are focused on non-traditionals, or transfers with a great life story. If you are the typical high-performing 18-year-old, don’t waste the transfer app fee to Palo Alto bcos you have no shot.
Personally, I think you have no shot of transferring to another top 10 Uni. As you note yourself, your current school has unlimited resources. Thus, any school receiving your transfer app will ask, ‘Why our school, since current school as all those resources and more?’ If I was an Adcom, that would be a red flag.
I’m looking for advice approaching transfer essays, not skepticism. Yes, I was talking to a couple researchers and their advisor told them that they couldn’t talk to me anymore.
Things happens all the time, Harvard/MIT stole CRISPR from Berkeley, Zuckerberg stole Facebook’s ideas from friends, etc.
I already got into Stanford once before for undergraduate admissions, just looking for transfer essay advice for the essay such as taking another viewpoint or approach to things, not “you have no shot of going from HYP to any top 10 school, don’t bother applying”. You don’t know my background aside from one story I told here.
Constructive opinions on approaching transfer essays welcome, please don’t project your insecurities or your previous failings out on this thread.
In order to be a successful transfer applicant to a top 20 university, you will need to offer an explanation of why you want to leave your current top 3 university as well as a reason that the target school is a better match for you. Quite often the reasons revolve around a new found interest not available as a formal major at one’s current school, but offered at the target school. Other reasons often involve personal matters requiring one to be closer to an immediate family member in need of care & support.
Sometimes the proffered reason can backfire. For example, a claim that one’s current school is too competitive or too much of a pressure cooker environment may cause other elite schools to reject an applicant simply because the academic environment at the target school is also intense.
As presented in this thread, your reasons for wanting to transfer are not convincing and inadequate without a more reasonable and thorough explanation.
The story isn’t adding up. I’m sure there’s a lot more to it than what I’m hearing. You don’t have the skill, knowledge, education, credentials, or even licensing to be taken seriously in genetic research, much less form a functioning research company. I recommend just keeping the big ideas to yourself, then get your credentials. Once you have those, then start another big idea.
Did you pursue the theft of your idea through every possible channel within your university? This is something that the ombudsman would help you begin. You need to meet with that person and with the Dean. Academic dishonesty is something that institutions like yours take very, very seriously. If indeed the theft truly did occur, the institution will want to get this sorted out before the story gets out to the press.
I would also look carefully at any agreements that you sign before working in a lab, if any, once you transfer (or before you apply to transfer).
Many research unis don’t allow patents to be taken by individuals without including the uni–the unis want a piece of the pie that they helped to provide. The research done in their labs, they want some of that action. It may be that if you are part of a large research uni it’s impossible to allow you to market that intellectual property without including the uni, because of agreements such as these. Even if you personally didn’t sign that agreement, it may be that the PI of the lab signed an agreement that anything discovered in his or her lab is owned or co-owned by the uni. So it never belonged to you in the first place. Not that you would have known this.
It may also be that the uni (or in-house counsel of the uni) won’t allow the professors to speak with you once you’ve removed yourself from the lab precisely to keep boundaries about ownership of the intellectual property as clear as possible.
If you come off in any way as troublesome, that reputation can follow you from lab to lab. The world is very small and the world of research is even smaller. Transferring into a top uni may prove impossible if you burn bridges behind you. Getting into grad school with a reputation as a hothead may also prove difficult.
One thing I can advise is to attempt to make nice with the existing lab and the authorities. Take the hit on this bit of research and make nice in order to preserve your future career. “Stolen” ideas in research exist everywhere, small and large resentments, pettiness and vindictive pay-back is common. And once you have a reputation of being nasty, that could prove problematic–even if you’re the injured party. It’s one thing if you are a senior researcher, publishing like crazy, bringing in millions of dollars a year in grants and donations. Being less-than-perfect is somehow forgiven if you’re a star rainmaker. If you’re a lowly research assistant, then they can kick you to the curb as a disgruntled person who doesn’t understand his or her place, and probably only “thinks” he or she developed the idea independently. That could be “it” for you for grad school and beyond.
When you work in a lab, all of your ideas belong to the PI. The university gets a share in any profits that the PI makes. Unless you have your own lab, you really don’t have ownership over your own ideas. You can’t form partnerships with people in other labs because you don’t have the authority to do so.
It sounds like you’re annoyed because you don’t have the freedom to form partnerships or companies. You won’t have that freedom at any university, unless you’re faculty. Transferring to Stanford isn’t going to change that.
Are you an undergrad or grad? If you are known in your field and other people respect you, I would think going it would be easy to figure out if you have a shot at another lab.
Greetings from the land of palm trees OP. I wouldn’t hide what happened in your essay. No doubt professors pull this garbage from time to time. I’d also ignore all the bs spewing haters in here. You’ve got your reason, no need to hide it – whoever commented that Stanford only takes non-trads isn’t fully informed. Half the class of ~30 tends to be non-trads, the rest come from places like HYPM along with run of the mill schools like UNC and U-Washington.
As for the essay I’d avoid a bitter tone, but rather do some research into the clearly defined IP protections in place at Stanford - cite those as your reason to move.