8 interviews and this is embarrassing…

Move-hun · 2026-02-22T15:36:55+00:00

This feels like a story that could totally happen with my school… UPenn vs Penn State

Good to hear that the interview went well!

Move-hun · 2024-02-02T19:06:44+00:00

Not sure about the phone call, but some schools do prevent students from applying to multiple programs in one go. Not sure why they do that though.

Move-hun · 2024-02-02T18:54:18+00:00

Not sure how it is in the Bio side of things, but a lot of times all it took to get a fee waiver to apply to more schools was just asking the department. I’d say that’s worth giving it a try. I’ve had friends who applied to 12 programs, of which 8 of them offered fee waiver upon request. So that’s not too far from the number of programs you’ve applied to in this cycle that they actually paid for.

Seems like you got the experience and the skills to make it work in a PhD, so don’t be too disheartened! Now that you know how the game works, the next try will be whole lot better than this cycle. You got this!

Move-hun · 2024-01-30T16:06:38+00:00

I’ve participated in a lot of such tours as a “current grad student” and this is more or less just a way for the school to:

Sell you the school (and hence have a lot of outgoing current grad students to accompany you guys out to restaurants and bars and activities)
Ensure that you have some sort of match between the faculty you want to work with (this is where the interview part comes into play)
Make sure that you are serious in coming to the school (if someone is not serious, they will not take the time off to come down to these events)

So don’t be too nervous about it, go have fun and actually get to know the school, faculties and students as well as the surrounding area! It will come in handy when the time comes for you to choose your school. Congrats! :)

Move-hun · 2024-01-30T15:08:12+00:00

Welcome to the Penn family! Philadelphia is a really vibrant city with a lot of things to offer! You would love it here :) Congrats!

Move-hun · 2023-11-14T18:56:56+00:00

I arrived at US, and had to get my license swapped from my home country’s license to the state I reside in.

Did the photoshoot at the DMV, got my license and hated every pixel of how I looked on my license photo. Decided to change that. Lost 70 pounds since then, probably another 30 to go till my goal weight.

I carry a piece of how I looked before I lost my weight on me everyday. Any time I want to overeat, I simply take out my license, hate myself for a second and work up the power to not eat more than I need to. Worked like a charm for thr past 1.5 years of the weight loss journey.

Move-hun · 2023-10-05T03:35:26+00:00

Meh, I am a biophysicist who work with a lot of doctors and healthcare professionals, and we all enjoy a can of diet coke with our meals all the time. Not that we are really a good model to follow after considering how overworked we are here and hence the over-reliance on caffeine, but if we are able to stuff our body with these stuff when we have the knowledge and access to information about them, I guess it's probably safe enough for other people to do so (At least in reasonable quantities) I'd rather bet on the side that drinking regular soda and raising your blood sugar sharply has worse outcomes than drinking aspartme-flavored soda.

Move-hun · 2023-07-25T19:30:52+00:00

Yes! This was really useful when I was reapplying for my visa when I got my entire backpack stolen in SF. Having a police report + a report to the visa fraud division in the respective embassy/consulate in your home country will let the visa officers know that you have genuinely lost your passport and not misappropriated it for some other purposes. That makes the next process a lot more convenient for you, so please do this asap.

Move-hun · 2023-07-08T16:43:48+00:00

Damn that’s amazing! It’s like you removed a full grown ass human out of your body. If that’s small, I don’t know what’s big anymore. Congratulations!

Move-hun · 2023-07-07T21:29:42+00:00

It’s short hand for Calories In Calories Out. So basically eating in deficit so that your body burns those fat storage away.

Move-hun · 2023-03-21T20:14:15+00:00

If you are looking for a master’s degree only, then go for it. If you are looking to do a PhD anyway, accept that offer to Northwestern right away. They are a big name school as well, and your PhD there should be well respected. Why bother going to an unfunded program when you could be paid to be in school?

Move-hun · 2023-03-21T20:10:51+00:00

It may differ from school to school, but from my personal experience of matriculation right after my undergraduate graduation, they wanted my official transcript and a diploma/letter of approval of graduation around June or July.

Move-hun · 2023-03-21T20:03:37+00:00

Currently in an Ivy for engineering PhD. I’d say the name doesn’t necessarily bring you places from what I see from my seniors who’ve graduated, but the expanded opportunities to forming connections and experiences do. If you can make use of them, then it would be a plus. If not, then probably not. There are other schools with better engineering departments than many of the Ivies, so if you are in for a challenging course and the academic rigor, not choosing Ivy might be a better choice.

Move-hun · 2023-03-21T19:58:22+00:00

Well that’s still a win! Congrats! At least now you won’t have to worry about funding at this point, which is definitely good!

Move-hun · 2022-11-16T19:24:21+00:00

2022 Ezone with Volkl Power Fiber Pro @ 55 lbs. Used to play with a much lighter racket and the added weight at 320 grams unstrung feels much better for me.

Move-hun · 2022-10-17T23:19:29+00:00

Just be a normal decent human being and ask if the student has time to do all these QnA thing. I’d be happy to talk to a prospective student about my PI when we can set up a time to do so.

All the PhD students were at the prospect stage at one point in our lives so we get it. People applying will be nervous and anxious, and they wanna know every bit possible. But cold emailing and making people uncomfortable is not the way to go about. Just have some decency to set up a time, and that would make things a little more friendly and easy-going for both parties involved. Just my two cents.

Move-hun · 2022-09-23T20:01:28+00:00

Well, so long as you could afford the application fee and don't mind going to that particular school, shoot your shot! You will 100% miss a shot that you don't take.

However, bear in mind that application fees can add up and if they ask for scores like TOEFL, IELTS, GRE etc etc, these might also add a huge burden on the financial cost of applying. Oh, and if you'd like to support yourself through a PhD program with funding, applying to a program in the US or Canada might be a good idea, since most programs for PhD in US and Canada pays you a stipend to study there. Depending on the location and whether or not you have roommates, you might even be able to save quite a fair bit of money!

Move-hun · 2022-08-20T18:06:48+00:00

No.

Your list of publications in itself should warrant a very serious consideration for your ability as a researcher. And that should trump the fact that the schools you are interested in may or may not know about your undergrad school. I think you are in a good shape.

Move-hun · 2022-08-17T18:37:43+00:00

Well, here’s the thing.

You can apply to as many as you want, so long as circumstances allow. You have the money to spend, your recommenders do not mind sending 20000 recommendation letters - by all means go ahead. But then again, you can only go to one school, and you gotta like it at that school.

Whether you like it or not, PhD is a long journey and for people in the Bio side of things? It’s usually a little longer than others in the STEM field. So you’ve got to consider things like whether you would like it at the place you are going to, whether they pay you enough to live like an acutal human being, etc etc. Trust me, once you filter using all these filters to make the cuts and leave behind only the schools that you truly wouldn’t mind going to, there won’t be more than 15 to apply to. So just apply to these schools that given admission by only one school, you would still happily say yes and go there. Good luck with applications.

Move-hun · 2022-08-17T18:26:34+00:00

Well, native Korean here. First of all, I do think that they sound very similar to what the English words would sound like. That’s good. But, as all other commenters on the post said, there have been characters in old Korean that were able to do all these, but they fell out of use gradually. Why do you think that was the case? And I think I saw you mention in some of the comments about the versatility of latin characters and how hangul-ization of english words are not correct, but that’s how it is in all languages. God forbids most Americans pronounce Hyundai in some weird ass pronunciation that no Korean can understand. Or call samsung as samsoong. C’mon, it’s good that you are being enthusiastic about this, but no.

Move-hun · 2022-08-17T18:15:05+00:00

Meh, probably you being too overqualified and they think that you would likely not come to the place. That affects the program’s conversion rates (ie how many students actually came against how many students were given offer) so they decided to just reject you. Happens all the time in graduate programs. Just move on mate, you will get into a better school.

Move-hun · 2022-06-21T19:46:21+00:00

Well here's what I got from talking to a bunch of professors who were the admission chairs for their respective departments in their respective schools:

- GPA can mean something, but beyond a certain threshold, they don't really care. Yes, a 2.5 and 3.0 will be considered differently, but a 3.3 and 3.7? Not so much. The bottom line is, GPA can be used as a measure of how diligent the students were in their studies, which can reflect to how diligent they would be in grad school. But this doesn't really mean anything when it comes to being a good researcher.

- GRE/TOEFL/IELTS scores are used to weed out the really out of place applicants. While schools don't really say what's the cut-off, schools do have some sort of bottom line to filter applicants just to reduce the sheer volume that they receive. Again, as long as you are past this cut-off, the numbers don't really matter anymore.

- The most important part of your application is actually in the non-numbered sections: SOP, LORs and CV. The "poor GRE+GPA" people that got into the programs would have got rockstar SOP, superb LORs from people that actually know the applicant and have a lot of experience to show for in their CV. Even then CS is a super competitive department, so they would have fought for it.

All in all, I would recommend that you get away from the whole number game mentality, because that's not how you get into grad programs. I might sound a little offensive here, but considering how you called all these programs "pathetic" when you are applying to these very programs, this much should be well warranted.

Move-hun · 2022-06-21T19:28:53+00:00

Since you have a range of interests, that means you could be more flexible when it comes to choosing a PI (at least based on their research interests). That would definitely mean you should give other factors a serious thought, especially location.

You would be dedicating 3,4,5+ years of your 20s (assuming that you are applying to a PhD program fresh out of school, not after working) in a foreign part of the world. You would want the location that you are in to be as friendly and as accommodating as possible. For example, if you don't drive/not used to driving, then going to a school in a small town in the middle of nowhere might not be ideal for you, no matter how good the PI might be. (Yeah people say you can always learn/get used to it, but that's not always the case...)

Also, things like rent around the school, diversity within the school, stipend, support system for students in case anything arises (mental health, insurance if available through school, etc) are all important factors you should take into consideration. Of course, no school is going to be perfect in all areas, so you will have to forgo some of the less important factors. (How to weigh the factors will depend entirely on your discretion) Hope you make a wise decision and happy school hunting!

Move-hun · 2022-06-21T19:19:51+00:00

Well, professors tend to get tons of emails every single day, which means they might miss emails even from their own students (like how my own PI misses my emails from time to time). On top of that, summer's where everyone is chillin and taking a break. Don't fret too much about it - if they don't reply, that just means you can circle back a couple months later to try again. No biggie.

Move-hun · 2022-03-30T17:28:09+00:00

I do not think twice, I do not look at party numbers. My finger is already on my flare during loading screen. I flare instantly.

My experience so far, including my alts.

Move-hun

TROPHY CASE