2012 Application Summary, offers from UNC and Penn State

presario1984UID: 2362407

Sorry, I have to type in English since I'm using the computer from work. It is kind of exiting to received the offer from UNC today.

Apply 10，2 Offers (UNC, Penn State), 5 Rej (UWM, UCSF, Stanford, Rockefeller, JHU), 3 No-response (MIT, UPenn, UPitt).
Background:

Biochem M.S. in US, and one year working experience in a well established lab;
1 publication 3rd author, 2 publications in manuscripts (2nd and 5th author);
4 strong recommendations, 2 foreign professors, 2 chinese professors;
Under GPA 3.6, Grad GPA 3.8;
GRE 680+800+3.0

Summary:
What I learned most from this application is it is very important to choose the "right" schools. The reason why I got so many rejections is because those schools are really competitive and they are really not taking much of international students. (Also, I am not good enough.) Since international students can only get funding from the schools, not from the NIH training grants, most of the schools have very limited sluts for international students, mostly around 2. You are competing with all the applicants around the world. So, my suggestion for the future applicants is looking up the program website more carefully to see what is the percentage of international students they have in their current students, then you might have an general idea what is your chance. For example, I didn't look at UWM that carefully. In their current students, there are only two Chinese-like students. So, it is reasonable to get rejections. And a lot of the schools, they already said they are taking very limited number of international students on their websites such as UCSF, JHU, UPenn, MIT. If they say so, they mean it. Therefore, it is worth to try some but not a lot.

If you really want to get into the top schools, you must be at least two times better than all the other American applicants. I have been to the onsite interview of Penn State and UNC. I feel the Chinese students they were interviewing are much more better than the American students. But the American students received about half interviews out of their applications, with average 5 schools in general. And most of them can get interview from all kinds of top schools, harvard, MIT, Duke, you name it. It is so "not fair"! The only way to be ahead of the American students and all the other applicants is to get as much as research experiences as you can, and as much as publications as you can, because they have better education background, and most of them have some research experience, but may not have publications if they are only undergraduates. So, get into a lab and get your name on publications ASAP.

Anyway, good luck in your applications.

newyork2010UID: 2548406

谢谢分享，小弟深有同感。选校上也出现了同样的错误，如UCSF等

1989919UID: 2752221

Thanks for sharing.

lzr0422UID: 2619791

big con! Thx for sharing.

doctorshuoUID: 2796878

Thanks a lot! wish me good luck too!

missmumuxiUID: 2710337

求教UNC面经

HYPS2011UID: 2618437

被DUKE 拒得很痛快。。。

bunnyfanfanUID: 3051873

谢谢分享，确实，如果要是去系里网页上看他们的current students没有一个亚裔或是零星的，就最好不要申了。不过，申请前问清楚真的很重要~~~

乖乖hylUID: 3162682

有时候人就是不撞南墙不死心。好几所学校T不够还是强申了。结果果然要求重考。不过还好，没直接把我pass算是幸运的了。

presario1984UID: 2362407

6# missmumuxi
建议你看一下 flandy 的这个贴 “https://bbs.gter.net/thread-423992-1-1.html”. 我的情况和她差不多，一天面试了5个教授，每个半小时。因为每个教授的风格不一样，所以我也很难给你具体的问题。教授基本上都很友好，不会为难学生的。面试的内容也主要是了解你的研究经历，确保与你申请中描述的相一致；另外，面试也是了解学校情况和教授的好机会，要准备一些问题，这样可以表现出你对学校和教授研究的热情。所以，建议提前简单了解一下面试教授的研究背景。

如果是电面的话，我不是很了解。

doctorshuoUID: 2796878

1# presario1984 敢问楼主Penn State是哪个项目阿？Biomedical Sciences吗？还是其他呢？多谢。。。

wonderfulsherryUID: 2809934

深有同感！投了很多名校果断被拒……Cong! By the way, I'm going to UNC, too.

elizabethzmyUID: 2869037

好人一生平安！

nhqylUID: 3312212

THX for sharing. It really helpful in my selecting of school!