A Guide to the Biology PhD Program Application Process

It is not obvious how to navigate the graduate school application system. I was phenomenally lucky to have friends, family, professors, PIs and other mentors who could give me advice, and even then I sometimes felt lost. So I decided to compile all of my knowledge here, to do my part to make academia a little more accessible.

This guide is “how to apply in an ideal world”. I didn’t do all of these things all of the time, or execute them perfectly, but I came out the other end in a great place. So don’t let this stress you out or overwhelm you — see what tips make sense for you to fit into your life.

There is a lot of information here, so I would advise you to skim and then read through the bolded topics in depth only when you come to that step.

Or read the whole thing all the way through, maybe you have a phenomenal attention span. #YouDoYou

The application process in brief

No idea what you’re walking into? You’re not alone. This process can be super opaque, vary between schools and programs, and include a lot of arbitrariness. Broadly, here is how a person becomes a biology PhD student:

• Stage 1: Applying. Application deadlines are usually in early December. Schools require: a personal statement that describes your research background, reasons for pursuing a PhD, and your career plans. They also ask for 3+ letters of recommendation, a transcript, a CV, general GRE scores, and sometimes a subject GRE test (more on that later). If you are an undergraduate: They also might ask you to send your 1st quarter/semester grades when they become available, even if that’s after the deadline.
• Stage 1.5: Waiting... From late December though January, programs will contact people who they have selected for a pre-admissions interview/recruitment weekend. (Some schools admit before interviews). Here’s the rub: If you have been rejected, you probably won’t be informed until late March
• Stage 2: Interviews. Interview weekends are held between January and March. The admissions committee meets again after the interviews and will either email or call those who are selected for admissions, anywhere between a week afterward to mid-March. Again, if you are not selected, you will not be informed until late March. You might also be placed on a wait list.
• Stage 3: Choosing your graduate program. The deadline for choosing where to matriculate is April 15, for all accredited graduate schools in the US.

Stage 1: Applying

My biggest tip: Give Yourself Structure.

Everyone says “start early”, and that’s important but it doesn’t help unless you structure all that extra time. For me, that meant sitting down and mapping out the process and putting important dates in my calendar. It also meant finding an application buddy — linking up with friends who were also applying to graduate school and pledging to keep ourselves on track, be each other’s sounding boards, and share tips.

Even if you don’t use my strategy, figure out a way to structure your process.

Summer

1. Take the GRE

It’s a good idea to get your GRE out of the way in the summer. Unlike the SATs, you can take the GRE at pretty much anytime at an accredited GRE testing facility. However, the schedules at these facilities can fill up quickly, so register as soon as possible even if you won’t take the test until late summer.

A note on subject GREs: I’ve only heard bad things about these. I was told by a Dean at Harvard that, typically, they can only hurt your application; a high score doesn’t necessarily mean anything real, and a low score can look bad. Some program websites say they require or “highly encourage” subject GREs —but this doesn’t always mean what it seems. Definitely contact the program to confirm that they want to see your scores before you put yourself through the subject tests.

2. Identify your recommendation writers, and your mentors

It’s a good idea to ask people well ahead of time if they will be able to write you a letter. Include at least one person who taught a class you took, at least one person who supervised your research, and (if applicable) at least one person who can speak to what you have done since graduating from college. Most schools ask for at least 3 letter writers. It is a good idea to have 1 or 2 more letter writers lined up; if the application doesn’t explicitly restrict you to 3 people, feel free to send in additional letters — but only if the additional letters are going to add information. For example, you might not want to send in two letters from research supervisors if the projects were very similar.

Also think about the people in your life who can give you advice and support (i.e. “mentors”). This might be an academic adviser who has a lot of experience helping people apply to graduate school; family members or friends who have gone through the application process; the administrator of a summer research program from a few years ago; etc… Reach out early to let them know that you are planning to apply, and to ask if they have any advice or resources to suggest. You might be surprised by how much assistance people will give you, even if you haven’t spoken in a long time!

3. Build your list of potential schools

At this point, the world is your oyster. And because it’s the summer, you have a lot of time before you need to narrow down. Write down all the places in your head that you might want to attend, and ask your mentors for suggestions.

This is also an important time to start thinking about your criteria for schools: Research focuses, techniques and tools, location, opportunities for non-academic training, department size and culture, whether or not you already own clothes in the school colors. Whatever! Think about what you have loved about your past academic and research environments. And use google to find schools that offer the things you are looking for (another way to figure out what you want in a school: Look out for what people brag about on program websites). Don’t worry yet about whether or not you are likely to be accepted.

4. Start thinking about your personal statement narrative

You don’t need to start writing yet, but it can’t hurt to spend some time jotting down the reasons you want to pursue a biology PhD and the things in your life that have lead you to this decision and made you qualified. If you have a store of little notes, it will be helpful not only for writing your personal statement but also during interviews.

Fall

1. Finalize your list of schools

Continue to add schools, but set yourself a deadline to have a final list — early October is safe. There are no rules here, but 5–8 schools is probably a solid number.

From your big list, eliminate any schools where you aren’t interested in at least 3 faculty members. Think carefully about whether you would want to live there for at least 5 years. Poke around their website to make sure that you could find advanced training in the fields and techniques that you are interested in. Definitely reach out to your mentors to ask about the reputation of these schools. Don’t be afraid to get in touch with a few of the current students at that institution, if you can find contact information online or through your undergraduate alumni office, and ask them questions about their experiences there.

This is also the step when you think about your likelihood of acceptance. Ask some mentors who will be honest with you. You can email program administrators if you are highly uncertain. And if you really love a school, it can’t hurt to try.

2. Update your CV

The internet is overflowing with great advice for compiling CVs. In addition, a lot of professors will post their CVs on their university profile pages.

Two things that I have on my CV that people don’t always tell you to add:
(1) A list of upper-level courses that have prepared me for my graduate work (ex. “Advanced Topics in Developmental Neurobiology”), and (2) a summary of my research interests right above my “Research Experiences” section (“Neurobiology: circadian rhythm; stress; depression. Genetics: Genetics of behavior; Genetics of mental health”).

3. Email faculty members at each school

Really do this. Find 2 or 3 people whose work you are really interested in, and email them a short narrative of your academic and research background, why you are interested in their research, and any questions you might have about the school or the application process. If they don’t respond, don’t take it personally — these are usually busy people — but those who do respond might be helpful resources and give you information that you can add to your application essay. The tenor of their response might also give you an indication of your likelihood of acceptance.

4. Think about applying for a research fellowship,

Examples: the NSF GRF and the NDSEG (for US citizens), and the Hertz.

If you write an application for one, you have basically written your graduate application and you just have to tweak it for the other fellowships. It looks good on your graduate school applications if you say that you are applying to fellowships; it gives you a chance to really gather your thoughts about what you want to study in graduate school; AND it’s a great thing to bring up in your emails to faculty members of interest. That’s all before the benefits of the fellowships themselves: Potentially a higher stipend, having greater freedom in choosing your PhD lab, having greater freedom with your time once you enter a lab, and having a greater chance of winning additional future fellowships.

When writing a fellowship application, you write a very short proposal for a series of experiments. Remember that this is not at all binding. These organizations are looking to fund bright young scientists, not specific research projects.

Two logistical things about writing a fellowship before you enter graduate school: (1) You will need to indicate a specific university where you would do this work — it’s kind of awkward, but just put whichever school you are most interested in attending. The fellowship is transferable to whichever school you end up going to. (2) You will need to propose a specific lab (at that university) where you would do the work. Best case scenario, you choose a lab that you already have a relationship with and get help and a letter of recommendation from the PI. I came up with an idea, wrote a draft of my proposal, and then basically cold-emailed someone whose lab I would theoretically be able to do it in - and that actually worked out really well.

If you, like me, are a member of a group that has been systemically underrepresented in STEM, there are lots of specialized fellowships out there. They may or may not be more competitive, and they might not offer as much money as the major fellowships, but they can have some great resources like special conferences and networks of mentors. One example is the Ford Fellowship.

5. Make an info packet for your recommendation writers

Send your letter writers (1) your CV, (2) the dates on which their letters will be due (this date is sometimes different from the application deadlines), and (3) a short paragraph on each school explaining why you want to attend and one or two people you want to work with there. This will help them write targeted letters. If you are also applying for fellowships, send them the dates and details for these as well.

6. Write your personal statement

Start early (I know, I know) and be prepared to write a lot of drafts and come up with a lot of terrible first sentences. Send it to friends and family members to make sure it gets your personality across, and send it to mentors to make sure that it expresses your background and research interests well. Remember to personalize it slightly for each school, and include information about why you are interested in that specific institution and a few professors you would like to work with.

7. Submit and congratulate yourself!

I always like to submit at least one day early because I am paranoid about websites crashing when everyone in the world is sending their applications in right before the deadline. It also gives me a little breathing room if I want to step away from the application, clear my head, and look at it one more time.

Stage 2: Receiving Invitations to Interview, Acceptances, Waiting Lists, and Rejections

For many schools, accepting a graduate student is a two-step process: First the paper application is reviewed, and suitable applicants are invited to travel to the school for in-person interviews with faculty members. Second, a subset of those who are interviewed are chosen to be accepted, while others are placed on a waiting list or rejected.

The purpose of the two-step interview process is to (1) confirm the positive impression the admissions committee gleaned from your application, (2) gather some of that intangible information about your fit at the program (especially if there are possible red flags in your application), and (3) give you the chance to decide if you would want to matriculate to that institution.

Although most schools have application deadlines around the same time, the timeline for reviewing applications will vary a lot. Some committees might meet the first week of December, some the last week of January. So, it is hard to predict when you “should” hear back. Also: If you are invited to interview, some schools will have a member of the admissions committee call you, so don’t be too sketched out by calls from numbers you don’t recognize.

Unfortunately, if you are rejected at this stage, you won’t probably will not be notified until March. If you must, http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/ is a good resource to check to find out if other people have heard back. But use it sparingly and with a huge grain of salt (nothing on there is confirmed). Typically, only people who attend the interviews will be placed on waiting lists. So, unfortunately, if you haven’t been contacted by February then you probably will not be accepted to that school.

Preparing for Interviews

Interview sessions are typically from Thursday to Saturday and are held between mid-January and mid-March. Most schools will feed and house you for free, and at least subsidize your travel costs (if not pay for them entirely).

These trips include 30–60 minute one-on-one interviews with 5–10 faculty members and members of the admissions committee, which will determine whether or not you are ultimately accepted. Sometimes schools will choose to nominate applicants with especially positive impressions for special internal Fellowships.

However, the weekends are also meant to be recruitment tools. Current grad students organize dinners, parties, and activities; you will go on tours of the fanciest new facilities; you will hear talks from promising and prestigious faculty members. There will be a lot of fruit and cheese platters, and sometimes free tote bags and mugs. It’s kind of the best.

1. Logistics

Scheduling: Do your best to space out your interviews.

If you applied to a lot of schools remember that these weekends can fill up quickly. Depending on the size of the program, some schools hold multiple weekends and allow you to choose when you would like to travel. Spacing out your travel is important: these weekends can be exhausting, especially if you are in school or working in between, and schools can start to run together in your memory. Spacing out also helps to prevent conflicts if two schools are holding interviews on the same dates. But don’t be stressed if you have to ask to reschedule your visit because of a conflict; this isn’t ideal, but schools are prepared to be flexible.

Contacts: Remember to reconnect with the professors you emailed in the fall, and any other contacts you have at that school. Let them know when you will be visiting, and ask if they are interviewing students this year so that you can request to interview with them. If they are not interviewing, ask if you can set up a private meeting during a gap in your schedule.

Dress code: People will care about this way less than you expect. You will need nice outfit(s) for the interview day(s) and casual clothes for social activities. Don’t wear a full suit; it’s not the worst thing to do, but it’s a little too much and can make you seem over-formal. Wear something that makes you confident, professional, and comfortable. If that is a full suit, okay, but it might be a nice dress and a cardigan or a button-up, slacks, and a new haircut. Also remember that you will be doing a lot of walking, including walking outside in the wintertime, and might not get a chance to change when you go to post-interview social activities.

Also, there is nothing wrong with wearing the same outfits ever weekend but be sure to choose clothes that you can wash between trips.

2. Practice your narrative

First of all, I promise that most of your interviews will be totally pleasant. During my interview weekends, I met with anywhere from 4 to 10 people and I never had more than one “intense” interview per weekend. Faculty members are people too, and most of them don’t want to spend all day aggressively interrogating people. It’s best to think about the interviews as conversations that you get to have with some amazing researchers and experts.

You will want to be prepared to answer a set of standard questions, and you do need to be ready for any “intense” interviews that come your way. I would ask friends and mentors in your field to practice interviewing you, and to make sure that you practice answering the questions below:

• “Tell me about your background and interests” — This is the first question that every interviewer will ask, so definitely be able to answer this concisely but with energy. Be sure to include enough details that there is something for an interviewer to hook a follow-up question onto, but don’t include the minutiae that won’t be interesting.
• “Why do you want to pursue a PhD?” — Interviewers want to know that you aren’t just getting a PhD because you don’t know what else to do with your undergraduate degree.
• “Explain this past research project…” — This is only going to show up in your more “intense” interviews. If a faculty member wants to make sure you know what you were talking about in your personal statement, or has some experience with a technique or subfield on your CV, they might ask you to explain the purpose of the experiments, the technical details of what you did and why, or ask you to come up with some future directions.
• “Explain X weakness in your application” — Again, this is a rare “intense” interview question. Sometimes, they are actually giving you an opportunity to strengthen your application. Think a little about what the weakness might be, and have a mature and respectful response.
• “Why did you decide to apply here?” — Definitely be able to explain the thought you put into choosing that particular school.
• “What are your career plans?” — An interviewer almost never expects you to have a solid plan, but does want to hear that you have thought about it.
• “Do you have any questions for me?” — This is usually the last question in an interview. Always have a few things up your sleeve, just to end the conversation on a strong note. People love to talk about themselves, so I always ask them about their research and their time at the university. Ask what students usually do once they leave their lab. This is also a good time to ask about your specific interests (ex. opportunities for translational research, or to take summer courses at NIH)— This is your chance to see if the school is where you want to be!

In summary: Be honest, relaxed, and know your “narrative”. Know what you have done, how it has lead you to apply to that school, and how it will lead you to do something interesting in the future. If you can speak about these things confidently, you will be fine.

3. Research Your Interviewers (but only a little)

Sometimes you will get your interview schedule two weeks before you arrive — sometimes you will get a copy a few hours before you walk into their office. You will also be talking to several people, and your conversations are often only 30 minutes long. Therefore, interviewers never expect you to arrive ready to discuss their papers. Many of them don’t expect you to have any knowledge of their research at all.

Here’s what I think you should know about your interviewers:

• Basic breadth of research topics, as can be found on their faculty profile webpage or lab website
• Topic of the last few papers they published
• The content of maybe 1 or 2 abstracts that you found particularly interesting
• If you specifically mentioned that person in your application: Be prepared to talk about why you would want to join their lab and, in addition to their research goals, be aware of techniques and model systems they use

My first interviews, I read and digested at least one paper from everyone I spoke to. My last interviews, I googled them as I was walking over. There was very little difference in our conversations.

During the interview weekend

Let yourself have fun. Really.

You have spent years on your grades and your research, you spent months on your application, and you have spent a few weeks practicing your interview answers. Just trust that you are prepared, and focus on the experience that you have while you are visiting. Though it is important to make a good impression, it is equally important for you to spend some time deciding if this is the right place for you! Smile, laugh, make friends, eat too much cheese.

I can’t stress enough, though: take notes! These schools will start to run together, and you will be making decisions in the not-too-distance future. Jot down your impressions of each faculty member in between interviews; scribble your impression of the school at the end of the day.

Ask the students about their experiences at the university: why they came, what they like and don’t like. Think about what you want and look around (and ask!) to see if they have it. Be aware of how you feel when you are there; try to get a sense of the culture and whether you would enjoy spending time with the other students, or living in the city where the university is located.

Also try to interact with the program administrators (the person/people who probably organized the whole interview weekend and booked your flights and know if you need the kosher meal). They will be an important resource during grad school because, no matter who you are, at some point you will need help or advice or permission from your program admins. Find out from the students if the admins are accessible and helpful, and try to assess if they are running a organized program that is responsive to student needs.

The last thing to remember is that interview weekends are phenomenal opportunities for networking. You are having conversations with faculty members, post-docs, and grad students whose papers you will be reading and who you might want to collaborate with. Be sure to exchange contact information with people you have strong conversations with.

Also keep in contact with the other applicants you interview with! Some of them will probably be your classmates, and before that they are going to be making the same decisions that you are. One great way to keep in touch is to start a Facebook group (for example “Immunology Recruits 2016”) to help people stay in touch and compare notes on the programs. I am still close with several people who I met during interviews and they still help me make career decisions!

After interviews

Immediately after the interview weekend, on the plane or train or bus back, spend some time reflecting and synthesizing. Mark down pros and cons so that you can come back to them later, and also write down the intangibles: Did you feel like you fit in? Did you feel comfortable on the campus? Can you see yourself there? Be honest.

In addition, remember to send short thank you emails to the people you interviewed with! Use the notes that you took after each interview to write the emails. I am still in touch with people I interviewed with even though I didn’t go to those schools, just because we had a great conversation; these people can be great resources for you in your career.

Stage 3: Choosing where to go!

This is easily the most emotionally challenging part of the whole process. It is a gift and a curse to have choices.

Go with your gut.

Be honest with yourself. If you have a feeling about a particular place, even if you can’t explain exactly why, that feeling means something. This is an important choice, and you should know why you are making it, but before you get sucked into emotionless pro/con lists you should do a gut check.

Think critically about what you need.

Now that you kinda know where you want to go (and where you don’t want to go), think about what you need in a graduate program and use the information from your interviews, and follow-up communication with people you met at those schools, to confirm that you will be able to find it. Be serious about the fact that you will be living there for 5+ years, and that you are going to rely on this program at many steps in your career well after graduate school.

Use logic and rational thought as far as they will take you, and then do what feels right.

Congratulations, graduate student! Now you just have to get your PhD…

One last piece of advice:

Some programs have summer rotations or bootcamps that can get you acclimated early (and get you a stipend earlier) and give you a little more flexibility in your first year. Be sure to take some time off before starting grad school, but also look into these summer programs.

Don’t underestimate the importance of a support network, whatever that means for you. Grad school is challenging, and it always helps to have people you can rely on if you need to borrow a textbook or don’t understand something or are locked out of the lab building at 2 AM in January. It’s also a period of time when a lot of people are at risk for mental health problems; just like a warm scarf helps to keep you from catching a cold, having people you can rely on will help ward away anxiety or depression.

Take care of yourself, take care of your classmates, and good luck!

I hope that you find this guide useful! If you have comments, additional advice, or other online resources to add, please add a note or post a response.

Also — Coming soon: A guide for transferring — how to decide if it is the right choice for you, and how to approach other programs and communicate with your own.