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Update on Harvard BBS Acceptance Rate

By PhDHopeful3 January 12, 2017 in Biology

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PhDHopeful3

Hi everyone,

I just heard some information that surprised me today that I wanted to share (as it's quite different than previous post-interview acceptance rates that I had heard for Harvard BBS). There are ~70 people attending the first (January) interview weekend, and ~50 people attending the second (Feb) interview weekend. They're also still expecting to hear back from a few more people who haven't yet signed up.

They are looking to fill 65-70 spots for this cycle. 

I was quite surprised, because I'd heard for Harvard BBS that if you get an interview, you're pretty much good (~90% post-interview acceptance rate), but these numbers don't indicate that.

Just wanted to share this info, as I know people are often talking about acceptance rates!

I should have added that I was told that, yes, more offers go out than the 65-70 spots that they're looking to fill (makes sense, as we know students will choose other programs for various reasons). But absolutely not to the tune of 80-90% of interviewees receiving an offer of admission.

• Kaede and DecCat

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Jan 17 2017

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Epigenetics.

January 14, 2017

I can tell you fundamentally none of what you're saying is true. Yes they're trying to fill ~65 spots, because the program is large, but that is the post-acceptance matriculation number. They expect a

January 17, 2017

I actually found some data on HILS website and did some math based on the data. The result confirms what @Epigenetics just said: (source: https://gsas.harvard.edu/programs-of-study/divisions/harv

February 6, 2017

Got an offer via a phone call from BBS. Good luck to everyone!

Thank you for this information! Better to go in with a competitive environment than feeling overconfident.

• bioapplerobot

Exactly! I think I was feeling too confident before I found this out!

I don't think this is as bad as it seems at first glance. 70 admits out of a group of 120 is approximately a ~60% acceptance rate, but you have to consider that even top programs don't have 100% enrollment rates. The students that end up getting offers from Harvard are going to be getting offers from other excellent schools, so they always have to send out more offers than they have spots in order to fill out their incoming class. This means that the the actual post-interview admissions rate has to substantially higher than 60% - I figure that somewhere around 80% is reasonable based on the numbers you mentioned.

Edit: Didn't see OP's edit to his original post. But I do think it's reasonable to expect an 80% rate.

• Nomad1111 and hippopotamus

I can tell you fundamentally none of what you're saying is true. Yes they're trying to fill ~65 spots, because the program is large, but that is the post-acceptance matriculation number. They expect a large number of people not to attend, so if they anticipate a matriculation rate of 50% (from what I've heard that's about what they expect) then they have to accept 130 people to get that. I know for a fact their post-interview admission rate is 90-95%. Source: I work in a BBS lab.

• Nomad1111 , bioinformaticsGirl , MCF10A and 2 others

1 hour ago, Epigenetics said: I can tell you fundamentally none of what you're saying is true. Yes they're trying to fill ~65 spots, because the program is large, but that is the post-acceptance matriculation number. They expect a large number of people not to attend, so if they anticipate a matriculation rate of 50% (from what I've heard that's about what they expect) then they have to accept 130 people to get that. I know for a fact their post-interview admission rate is 90-95%. Source: I work in a BBS lab.

Whew! That is reassuring!

2 hours ago, Epigenetics said: I can tell you fundamentally none of what you're saying is true. Yes they're trying to fill ~65 spots, because the program is large, but that is the post-acceptance matriculation number. They expect a large number of people not to attend, so if they anticipate a matriculation rate of 50% (from what I've heard that's about what they expect) then they have to accept 130 people to get that. I know for a fact their post-interview admission rate is 90-95%. Source: I work in a BBS lab.

Wow that really relieved me! I feel kind of surprised by the ~50% yield rate tho, given that the MD and MD-PhD program at HMS both have 75%+ yield rates. Maybe many people who get in Harvard BBS tend to have multiple offers from other top programs, but getting into multiple top schools for MD/MD-PhD is way harder?

I actually found some data on HILS website and did some math based on the data. The result confirms what @Epigenetics  just said:

(source:  https://gsas.harvard.edu/programs-of-study/divisions/harvard-integrated-life-sciences )

(1)Last year all programs in HILS (BBS, BIG, MCO, immunology, chem bio, etc) accepted~396 students (2331 total applicants*17% admission rate), and the entering class is 210, which makes the yield rate ~53% .

(2)Since BBS is the largest cohort in HILS (~31% of the HILS), let's assume that the yield rate of BBS is similar to that number of the whole HILS. 

(3)In order to fill 65 spots, BBS needs to accept 65/0.53=122 students . If the # of spots to fill is 70, they need to accept 132 .

(4)~120 people will attend two interview weekends, and there are more internationals do Skype interview. Harvard BBS has ~30% intl students, let's assume that among 30%, half (15%) reside in the US and are already included in the 120, and the remaining 15% will do skype. The total interviewee number (onsite+skype)=120/(1-0.15)=142 . 

(5) The conclusion: BBS will interview ~140 students and accept 120-130 students, which makes the post-interview acceptance rate 86-93% . Not bad at all.

• The Precambrian Rabbit , Nomad1111 , 564654899865 and 2 others

5 hours ago, MCF10A said: I actually found some data on HILS website and did some math based on the data. The result confirms what @Epigenetics  just said: (source:  https://gsas.harvard.edu/programs-of-study/divisions/harvard-integrated-life-sciences ) (1)Last year all programs in HILS (BBS, BIG, MCO, immunology, chem bio, etc) accepted~396 students (2331 total applicants*17% admission rate), and the entering class is 210, which makes the yield rate ~53% . (2)Since BBS is the largest cohort in HILS (~31% of the HILS), let's assume that the yield rate of BBS is similar to that number of the whole HILS.  (3)In order to fill 65 spots, BBS needs to accept 65/0.53=122 students . If the # of spots to fill is 70, they need to accept 132 . (4)~120 people will attend two interview weekends, and there are more internationals do Skype interview. Harvard BBS has ~30% intl students, let's assume that among 30%, half (15%) reside in the US and are already included in the 120, and the remaining 15% will do skype. The total interviewee number (onsite+skype)=120/(1-0.15)=142 .  (5) The conclusion: BBS will interview ~140 students and accept 120-130 students, which makes the post-interview acceptance rate 86-93% . Not bad at all. So guess we can just chill      

5 hours ago, MCF10A said: I actually found some data on HILS website and did some math based on the data. The result confirms what @Epigenetics  just said: (source:  https://gsas.harvard.edu/programs-of-study/divisions/harvard-integrated-life-sciences ) (1)Last year all programs in HILS (BBS, BIG, MCO, immunology, chem bio, etc) accepted~396 students (2331 total applicants*17% admission rate), and the entering class is 210, which makes the yield rate ~53% . (2)Since BBS is the largest cohort in HILS (~31% of the HILS), let's assume that the yield rate of BBS is similar to that number of the whole HILS.  (3)In order to fill 65 spots, BBS needs to accept 65/0.53=122 students . If the # of spots to fill is 70, they need to accept 132 . (4)~120 people will attend two interview weekends, and there are more internationals do Skype interview. Harvard BBS has ~30% intl students, let's assume that among 30%, half (15%) reside in the US and are already included in the 120, and the remaining 15% will do skype. The total interviewee number (onsite+skype)=120/(1-0.15)=142 .  (5) The conclusion: BBS will interview ~140 students and accept 120-130 students, which makes the post-interview acceptance rate 86-93% . Not bad at all. So guess we can just chill

Was told by the secretary during Sys Bio interview that the acceptance rate was ~60%

hippopotamus

Does anyone know if Harvard BBS sends out the list of faculty that you'll be interviewing with?

1 hour ago, hippopotamus said: Does anyone know if Harvard BBS sends out the list of faculty that you'll be interviewing with?

Don't think so. Still waiting on that.

Got contact with my student host though.

8 minutes ago, desmond.bo said: Don't think so. Still waiting on that. Got contact with my student host though.

Did your grad student host contact you directly?

32 minutes ago, hippopotamus said: Did your grad student host contact you directly?

Yep. I suppose they are doing these independently. 

• 2 weeks later...

Does anyone know when we hear back from Harvard BBS?

20 minutes ago, hippopotamus said: Does anyone know when we hear back from Harvard BBS?

From looking at the previous two years, it looks like the first round of interviews hears today.... not sure if that's the case this year, but that's how it has been previously.

10 hours ago, PhDHopeful3 said: From looking at the previous two years, it looks like the first round of interviews hears today.... not sure if that's the case this year, but that's how it has been previously.

Nothing happened to me today. Did you guys heard about anything?

56 minutes ago, desmond.bo said: Nothing happened to me today. Did you guys heard about anything?

i don't think anything came out today. maybe tomorrow

Nothing today!

Nothing in the results section either

Come on BBS, let's try for today for week 1!

• PhDHopeful3 and MCF10A

jeanetics17

Maybe they're adjusting how many people they admit this year based on last year's results which they told us was a very big class (~70-75). Since so many people accepted last year, they probably think a similar trend will occur this year, and of course those are huge numbers in terms of cost for the program. When we didn't hear back last week, I suspected something was up and perhaps (I suspect) the 1st group of interviewees won't hear back until after the 2nd interview. Basically, I think they are going to pool all interviewees and cut from that instead of each weekend (reducing the amount accepted in total). 

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Biological and Biomedical Sciences

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Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS)  is an area of study within the Division of Medical Sciences, an administrative unit based at Harvard Medical School that coordinates biomedical PhD activities at the Longwood Medical Area. Students who study in BBS receive a PhD in medical sciences. Prospective students apply through the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Griffin GSAS). In the online application, select  “Division of Medical Sciences” as your program choice and select "Biological and Biomedical Sciences" in the area of study menu.

This program trains you in the biosciences, starting with core training in contemporary genetics; biochemistry; and molecular, cellular, and mechanistic biology. You can customize your curriculum to allow you to align with your research interests.

You will have access to a vast wealth of resources, including more than 700 faculty, top scientists, core facilities and hospitals, cutting-edge research, and an extensive alumni network. You will be in close proximity to top nationwide hospitals and research centers and more than 130 biotech, biopharma, and pharmaceutical companies that have biological and biomedical sciences (BBS) alumni on staff.

Examples of specific student projects include “Development of nucleic acid detection methods for object provenance and viral diagnostics,” “Interrogating genetic diversity in Mycobacterium abscessus with transposon-sequencing,” and “Sexual dimorphism in hair follicle stem cells.”

Graduates of the program have secured faculty positions at such prestigious institutions as New York University, University of Minnesota, Harvard University, and University of Illinois. Others have gone on to careers with leading companies such as Novartis and the Broad Institute. Derrick Rossi, cofounder of Moderna, is a graduate of the BBS program.

Standardized Tests

GRE General: Not Accepted GRE Subject: Not Accepted iBT TOEFL minimum score: 100 IELTS minimum score: 7

See list of Biological and Biomedical Sciences faculty

APPLICATION DEADLINE

Questions about the program.

Harvard BBS chance?

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>please give me opinions on whether I got a shot at Harvard BBS…</p>

<p>My stats:

• undergrad institution: University of Toronto; honor BSc. with a specialist in human genetics
• undergrad GPA: 3.64; science GPA ~3.7-3.8
• GRE: verbal 630, quantitative 800, writing 4.5
• research: 3 summer research internships, senior year project
• LORs: 1 from senior year project supervisor who has got great connection with Harvard DMS (my junior year summer internship was also in his lab), 1 from sophomore year summer project supervisor, 1 from a post-doc I’m working with (senior year project). These letters are all pretty strong (according to them).
• no pub… except for posters</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

<p>Sent you a PM</p>

<p>Among Harvard applicants, this look like avg. level</p>

<p>@biomedfan: replied :)</p>

<p>@Mr. Zoo: I was thinking the same thing…everyone’s profile is really competitive eh?</p>

<p>man… it’s the #1 university in this universe, what do you expect… :)</p>

<p>I believe their student avg GPA is 3.6X, so you are around avg (GPA wise)</p>

<p>For an international, I wouldn’t say your chances are good. I have slightly better stats from UofT as well (3.91 GPA with around 3.95 for major, 800/670/5.5, 3 summer and 2.5 school years research, 3 letters from PIs, 2 mid-author papers, one submitted one in prep and mid- author poster at SfN) and I am rejected from (unofficially, except MIT, from MIT Bio, Rockefeller, Harvard BBS, Stanford Neuro, Yale MCGD, Columbia Neuro).</p>

<p>My suggestion is to apply broadly, to 12 or so top schools, you will get some interviews for sure, I’m assuming. It is a bit of a lottery for internationals in my opinion.</p>

<p>^^^ It is a bit of a lottery for all students. </p>

<p>Generally, universities with huge endowments known for funding students (HYPS) don’t make much of a distinction between international and domestic applicants. You can tell by looking at the graduate groups: they tend to be international in composition.</p>

<p>But once you have the qualifying stats and excellent LORs, fit is everything. Unfortunately, you can’t always predict what a programs wants. For example, let’s say that Harvard is really strong in subfield X; it has a group of world famous researchers working in X, and because you’re also interested in X, you apply. But what you don’t know is that <em>everyone</em> who is interested in X has applied, and one of the profs is retiring. One has been denied tenure. Not only is the applicant pool more competitive, but the space for students is more limited in that area this year. Then you hear that another student, interested in subfield Y but with less impressive stats, has gotten in. It turns out that Harvard has decided to increase its profile in Y with new faculty hires. Plus, they’ve just been awarded an enormous grant to support work in Y.</p>

<p>Obviously, the above is highly hypothetical and overly simplified, but it gives you an idea of why no one can predict chances at the graduate level, even given excellent stats, LORs, research experience, and SOP.</p>

<p>^ I totally agree with MWFN. The people I would like to work with at Rockefeller, MIT, Columbia, Yale, etc… are pretty well established and some very famous. I’m sure everyone wants to work with them. I still applied - you never know and I did list others that weren’t so famous. </p>

<p>But places I’m interviewing with, Princeton and Chicago, for example, I want to work with people just starting their labs. It is the same area of research as the other places, but fresh faces. I think that definitely helped in terms of ‘fit’.</p>

Harvard BBS is actually only about 15% international over the past four years, which I assume is a significantly lower percentage of internationals than the applicant pool.</p>

<p>The really top programs tend to be fairly domestic student-heavy, because they get their pick of the top domestic students, and can put them on NIH training grants. It’s the schools a step down that accept many more international students, because the domestic student applicant pool is less strong.</p>

<p>Anecdotally, in my lab, all the grad students my PI has ever had have been domestic, and virtually all of the postdocs have been international.</p>

<p>One additional note: many internationals who apply to top programs are not qualified/competitive. Those internationals that do have outstanding experience and stats tend to stand out. International applicants would do well to research the individual programs to see whether they have a decidedly domestic bent or whether they seem open to other nationalities. I’d also bet that international students had better be applying from one of the top universities in their home country, mostly because the quality of the education from those universities is known.</p>

<p>^^ “many internationals who apply to top programs are not qualified/competitive.” I dont agree with this. Someone with stats like, say safetypin for example, is almost guaranteed to get into the most of the programs (like Yale, Columbia etc), if she were a US citizen.</p>

<p>You can’t really disagree with a fact. Compared to the applicant pool for undergraduate admissions, there is a much higher percentage of graduate school applicants, both domestic and international, who are obviously too inadequately prepared to be admitted.</p>

<p>That being said, I’m not sure what Momwaitingfornew is trying to infer by evoking this statement. That the difficulty of being admitted as an international has nothing to do with the size of the international applicant pool, since only a fraction is qualified enough to be considered in the first place? That certainly seems true enough.</p>

<p>^^^ Apologies if I caused some confusion. </p>

<p>Of the highly qualified applicants to a program, 15% might be international, hence the percentage. I doubt that subpar Americans are being accepted over highly qualified internationals. Programs want the best scholars, period.</p>

<p>According to some of my inside sources, many more unqualified international students are likely to apply, as opposed to unqualified US applicants, perhaps primarily because U.S. students have advisors more familiar with their students’ chances at various programs. International students are also less likely to be aware of the universities outside the top ten.</p>

<p>The international students on this thread are not typical of the pool as a whole. All you have to do is see their success in getting interviews to know that they have stood out. As I said above:</p>

<p>I am not in any way maligning international students like safetypin. Her interview results have exceeded many U.S. students, which just supports my statement: if you have impressive experience, whether you are international or not, you will get noticed and interviewed by top programs.</p>

<p>I think internationals applying to US schools, at least a lot of people I know from UToronto, are qualified and would get in if they were US citizens. Most people here apply to Canadian schools, so those that choose to apply elsewhere tend to be quite qualified, especially in terms of usually the quality and quantity of research experience. Just a broad generalization of course. I think they tend to be more qualified than many people applying from unknown or non-research intensive LACs/Universities, since a lot of universities in Canada have very good research as well. </p>

<p>The difficulty of getting in as an international, imo, is that you have to be REALLY worth it, money wise. They don’t want to train students and invest tons of money in them to have them go back to their home countries (which is, ironically, what I would love to do, live in Canada that is).</p>

<p>edit: just read MWFN’s post above. I think it is true that many people applying who don’t do research into the whole process, admit stats, etc… do far worse (instead of being a forum-whore such as myself). I do know people here who have no idea that it is virtually impossible to get into UC schools as an international, or what places are international friendly and which aren’t. I tried to be as strategic as possible and tried to apply to more or less international friendly places that also fit my research interests, but it is true, a lot of people I know want to go to UCSF, UCSD, UCLA, etc… and I tell them, it is better not to waste your money. You can always post-doc.</p>

<p>I don’t think that subpar domestic students are being admitted over internationals, but I do think it’s more difficult in the international pool, even for outstanding students. During interviews, I went around with two MIT friends of mine who were international. They were both outstanding candidates (as would be evident by the fact that they got into MIT as undergrads in the first place, where there’s a stringent international quota in place), but at least one of them didn’t get into UCSF, and both were warned at Stanford that there were limited spots for internationals. And these were for highly qualified people with excellent English who’d been educated at a top school in the US.</p>

<p>As safetypin points out, the UC system is especially tough on internationals, as are many other public universities. </p>

<p>But this year is particularly tough for graduate admissions, for whatever reason. Even programs way down the prestige totem pole are reporting record numbers of applications.</p>

<p>Anyone know if BBS is sending out any more acceptances? It seems like there was only 1 ‘wave’…Do you think we should just assume we got rejected at this point (if we have not received a phone call)?</p>

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A Latina Harvard grad advised women to marry older men. The internet had thoughts.

When she was 20 years old and a junior at Harvard College, Grazie Sophia Christie had an epiphany. She could study hard and diligently pursue her “ideal existence” though years of work and effort.

Or she “could just marry it early.”

Christie chose the latter. 

In a column for New York magazine’s The Cut, the Cuban American editor and writer extolled the value of marrying an older, wealthier man as a shortcut to the life she desired. Christie’s March 27 story went viral, topping the magazine’s “most popular” list and inspiring hundreds of overwhelmingly negative comments online and on social media. As Miami New Times described it , “The essay hit the internet with a virtual thud heard round the world.”

Readers were taken aback by myriad aspects of Christie’s florid essay, which runs nearly 4,000 words. Though she was an undergraduate, Christie lugged “a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School,” which she felt offered the best options for a suitable mate. “I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out," she wrote. "Older men still desired those things.” 

She crashed an event at the Harvard Business School and met her future husband when she was 20, and they married four years later.

Many readers were struck by the fact that Christie had the benefit of an elite education — she also completed a fellowship at Oxford University — yet chose to enter into an unequal marriage. “My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend,” she writes. “I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself. This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here; this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it and I did.”

Christie, now 27, writes that she enjoys time “to read, to walk central London and Miami and think in delicious circles.”

There is, Christie writes, a downside to her monied existence: “I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him. He doesn’t have to hold it over my head, it just floats there, complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction.”

By marrying so young — although as many social media users pointed out, her husband is only 10 years older — Christie was able to leave a “lucrative but deadening spreadsheet job to write full-time, without having to live like a writer.”

A recurring theme in the viral response to Christie’s article, ostensibly about age-gap relationships, is that it should have been titled “The Case for Marrying a Rich Man.”

Christie’s transactional approach to marriage and relationships resonated — negatively — with readers. An online parody of her original piece has already been posted by the literary magazine McSweeney’s. Her words have been dissected by a columnist at Slate, who called it “bad advice for most human beings, at least if what most human beings seek are meaningful and happy lives.”

Online, people who commented on Christie’s essay called it “an insult to women of any age,” “a sad piece of writing,” and “pitiful in so many ways.”  Some readers wondered if the article was a satire or a joke. One of the kinder comments on New York magazine’s website said: “This is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever read. I am truly mortified for the writer.”

Christie has so far not responded to media requests for interviews, and several attempts by NBC News to contact her were unsuccessful. Her Instagram account was recently switched from public to private.

According to her personal website , Christie is editor-in-chief of a new publication, The Miami Native, “a serious magazine about an unserious city.” Her website’s bio page, which appears to have been disabled, previously stated that she was “writing a novel between Miami, London, sometimes France.”

Christie grew up in Miami. Her parents,  Miami New Times has reported , are prominent in Florida’s conservative Catholic community. Her mother was appointed to the state Board of Education in March 2022. A senior fellow for The Catholic Association, she hosts a radio show , “Conversations with Consequences,” on the Eternal Word Television Network. Her father is a physician and an anti-abortion activist who, according to his website , lectures regularly on Catholic social issues, particularly marriage, family, and the dignity of life.”

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Raul A. Reyes, a lawyer, is a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors. He has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Texas Monthly and the Huffington Post.