wife, mother, ph.d. student, hot stuff.

Monday, January 30, 2006

the trickle becomes a flood

This morning, I received a phone call from a Harvard Immunology professor to congratulate me on my acceptance to their program. And this afternoon, I spoke to a Johns Hopkins Immunology professor about interviewing at their campus.

That makes 6 interviews, 1 recruitment weekend, and 1 rejection thus far. 4 more programs to hear from.

I had my first interview last Friday at Harvard Systems Biology. It's a very new program (they have their first students in their first year right now) with many young professors from a large variety of backgrounds. A lot of exciting work is being done there, and the atmosphere is very collaborative and open. I really enjoyed the day.

I have a feeling this decision is going to be very hard to make. True, I applied to a LOT of programs, but I thought pretty hard about each and every one. They all have their strong points, and I'm genuinely excited about every single interview.

I'm still pinching myself to find out if this is all some crazy dream. A mechanical engineer being accepted to Harvard Immunology???? Holy Crapola.

6 comments:

Catarina said...

I'm really happy for you!!! :)) Whatever you decide, this is going to be a really great year for you, I'm sure!;):)

Anonymous said...

So if I haven't heard from Harvard SysBio am I SOL? What gives? I'm a Berkeley Bioengineer, lots of research experience.

W said...

Jon,

Harvard SysBio has had both its interview weekends already... so I suspect you may be (as you eloquently put it) shitoutofluck.... although I'm surprised they haven't contacted you to let you know this already. My rejection from UCSF was prompt, and I would imagine other schools would be so as well.

best of luck.

Anonymous said...

Oh well, there is still MIT. Yes, it would let people know that they were rejected. However, many institutions are notorious for sending out rejection letters last rather than first. Best of luck to you as well! By the way, I didnt know that you can apply to more than one department at Harvard.

Anonymous said...

Well, I stumbled upon here as a Harvard (undergrad) kid with likewise plenty of research experience, and I didn't get an interview there either. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people like us competing to get into the best university in the country :)

Both Harvard and MIT send out rejection letters months after they send out invitations to interview. Kinda jerky in my opinion. And Harvard will let you apply to two programs per year, if I remember correctly. But you can only apply to three programs total (as in ever).

Here's hoping my interviews at Princeton, etc. go well. Upenn admitted me, and it looked great, so the pressure is mostly off at least.

W said...

UCSF was kind enough to email me in the beginning of Jan. to let me know they didn't want me. At the time it sucked, cause it was the first program I heard from, and that didn't exactly make me optimistic about what was to come. In hindsight, I'm glad they didn't keep me on edge.

Grats on the acceptance; once you have one, at least you know you have good options somewhere :)