As this application cycle comes closer to its end, I felt it necessary to string my thoughts together and attempt something coherent, which will hopefully be useful for anyone deciding to go through this grueling process in the near future. At the time of writing, my physical being is trapped on a train from the forest of steel jungle that is New York back home, as it has broken down on the tracks. But such is life.
The application process itself is confusing, with its own set of rules, some factual, some myth, some institutional knowledge, surrounding it. For the sake of this epilogue, let’s focus on the higher-level aspects and leave the technicalities of the process for separate discussion. In this narrative, I want to highlight a few areas where I could have done better and a couple that I like to think I handled well.
I have to admit, I don’t usually talk like this, but this seemed like the time to do it. In favor of this pensive retrospection, I will try to keep the tone consistent without consulting my dearest artificial friends who helped me tremendously throughout this entire process.
Going into the confusion that is the start of the season, I spent far too much time supposedly ruminating about the letters and words that would appear on the screen I am staring at now. Truth be told, that was mainly an excuse developed by the blob of lazy organic matter that is my cerebrum, in avoidance of actually partaking in the formidable labor that is writing. This has since proven to be one of my biggest pitfalls of the season. Several fellowship deadlines were missed because I had not formulated my thoughts early enough to be reviewed by a trusted mentor. Not to say fellowships are necessary in any way, especially for biosciences candidates, it is still worthwhile to prepare early, if only for peace of mind.
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A quick anecdote about mental health
The order of one’s mental realm is empirically one of the biggest factor in surviving this process. The monotonous pressure while constructing essays, the distress when recommenders take their sweet time before the deadline to submit hopefully endorsement, the weight of the final month of the year pressing through the hollow celebration of holidays that have long lost meaning, the constant anxiety before interviews, and the anguish after every interview. For the lack of better verbiage and the lack of better advice, seek out a way to cope before being tossed into the crevasse without a rope or ice axes. No offense to therapists, but their practical usefulness during this inherent emotional turmoil is minimal.
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The second mistake I made was less immediately apparent but soon proved detrimental. I had the false impression that if one wanted to pivot their field of study, graduate education would be the stage for that transition. In hindsight, this thought was overly idealistic and naïve. The uncomfortable truth institutions avoid addressing is that whatever one wants to do is often to the left of the point, despite all the propaganda about “interest” and “fit.” Although supposedly different in theory, similar principles to undergraduate admissions also apply to graduate admissions. The main goal is not to articulate what one wants to do but to construct a coherent narrative showcasing one’s willingness and readiness to pursue graduate-level research. One’s interest? Important but largely irrelevant.
I can’t justify it fully, but I did end up applying to a few clusters of programs outside my immediate background. Among these, I received interviews for umbrella biology programs, genetics programs, and systems biology programs, where I had strong academic and research experience. Programs focusing on computational biology and bioengineering, however, resulted in an unbroken string of rejections. Did I spend less time revising my writing to tailor it toward these disciplines? Maybe. Did I have the necessary background to justify readiness for graduate pursuit in these areas? Absolutely not. I don’t know what advice could help people switching fields or coming from nontraditional backgrounds, except to focus on what one has done when applying to umbrella programs.
Following that topic, one thing ended up helping, or will help, for the technicality, with the final decisions substantially in deciding which type of program best fit my pursuits. Without enough research into the concept, I applied to a mix of programs focusing on foundational science, translational and clinical research, or specialized areas like systems biology. Surprisingly, social evolution had coerced most programs into stable ecological niches defined by bidirectional selection between the program, i.e., professors and senior students involved in recruitment, and the habitants, i.e., current students and interviewees. Well-established programs often reached homeostatic states with defined parameters, even and especially among larger umbrella programs that drift considerable slowly. By no means does this qualify some programs as better than others, but exposure to these analogous structures made it clear that some clusters align better with the professional and social environment I want to be immersed in for the coming years.
One minor mishap that doesn’t quite qualify as a mistake is that, among the programs I applied to, one significantly reduced their cohort size due to the ongoing political travesty and absurdity washing over the country. Although this was not public knowledge, scuttlebutt suggested it would happen. I, however, somehow convinced myself I was special and went ahead with the half-lost battle.
Tying back to constructing this persona, one approach that worked for me aligns with an old proverb in Mandarin: talk to people in their language. Tailor the answers to the listener, though one should obviously avoid making it overly pretentious. For a program in the city, talk about looking forward to live there. So on and so forth. But what if that’s not where one’s interest lie? Short answer, lie. Long answer, that’s irrelevant. The goal of interviews is to gauge the program while trying to get in. A related mishap that ran over my head was knowing exactly for what one is interviewing. Should one tell their interviewer that they don’t care about cancer for a cancer biology program? I think we both know the answer.