As many of you know, I have recently chosen to matriculate at Stanford University this fall for a Ph.D. in Bioengineering. Though I feel tremendously lucky to be admitted to such a fine institution, my decision only became possible after many weeks of agonizing and second-guessing, and it was only after speaking to almost everyone I know - including advisors, research mentors, colleagues and family members - that I could choose with any sense of closure. The reason behind my ambivalence lay in the following:

Washington University in St. Louis - Accepted 1/16, 1 year fellowship ($27,000)
Boston University - Accepted 1/23, 1 year Distinguished BME Fellowship ($27,300)
University of Southern California - Accepted 2/23, 5 year Provost’s fellowship ($30,000)
California Institute of Technology - Interviewed 2/20, Accepted 3/2, 1 year DEAS fellowship ($28,000)
Stanford University - Interviewed 2/27, Accepted 3/8, 2 year Bioengineering fellowship ($29,600)
UC Berkeley/UCSF - Interviewed 2/23-24, Accepted 3/9, 1 year fellowship ($27,000)
Johns Hopkins University - Interviewed 3/13, Accepted 3/22, NIH fellowship ($26,855)
University of Pennsylvania - Interviewed 3/6, Accepted 3/24, HHMI-NIBIB Interfaces Fellowship ($27,540)
Duke University - Offered interview, withdrawn
University of Washington - Offered interview, withdrawn
Columbia University - Offered interview, withdrawn
HST Medical Engineering/Medical Physics - Rejected 2/15

I had the extraordinary fortune to be accepted to twelve out of thirteen Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering programs I applied to this year, which led directly to my indecision during the past several weeks. During my five interview weekends I was able to witness a diverse range of schools, varying in location, size, research focus and program age, and met many wonderful people - fellow prospective students, current graduate students and faculty alike. To summarize some of my thoughts about the different schools:

California Institute of Technology. The campus was beautiful, and the faculty were absolutely brilliant - everyone I met had amazing ideas for their research in addition to the track record proving they could bring those ideas to fruition. I especially enjoyed speaking to the professors involved in imaging - Mory Gharib, Changhuei Yang and Chin-Lin Guo. However, being used to the behemoth that is UIUC, I felt the campus was too small and that there wasn’t enough to do in the surrounding area. In addition, as the Caltech campus is relatively far from the nearest large hospital, I felt that I would have to compromise my interests in translational research.

UC Berkeley/UCSF. I really enjoyed touring the UCSF Mission Bay campus and speaking to the professors at the MRI suite - Dan Vigneron and John Kurhanewicz especially. I was lucky enough to be given a tour of the Surbeck Center for Advanced Imaging and its multitude of MRI and NMR scanners, which was very exciting. On the other hand, I did not particularly like Berkeley’s campus and the fact that I would most likely have to commute between my apartment, Berkeley and the UCSF campuses for many of my classes - I really prefer having everything in one place as I feel dashing from place to place wastes too much time.

Stanford University. There is a short backstory to this: prior to my Caltech interview, I had to give a 45-minute presentation on directed evolution for my molecular/cellular bioengineering class at UIUC. This presentation introduced me to the field of synthetic biology, or the application of engineering principles to create molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids to serve novel functions, ranging from therapeutics to imaging agents to biofuels. I became increasingly interested in the field in the week leading up to my Stanford interview, and as a result I took the chance at Stanford to speak to a few professors working in the area - Christina Smolke and Jennifer Cochran. It was at Stanford that my research interests transformed from being undecided within imaging to specifically molecular imaging and synthetic biology, which was a huge deciding factor for me later on. Overall, my interview weekend was absolutely spectacular - I tremendously enjoyed speaking to the faculty, staff, and the current students, and I loved (of course) the gorgeous campus.

University of Pennsylvania. At Penn I applied to the HHMI-NIBIB Interfaces Program, a prestigious training program allowing students to take almost two years of the medical school curriculum with a focus on clinical imaging. Matriculating only 4-5 students per year, the program would provide an unparalleled educational experience, combining medical training with graduate work in order to maximize each student’s potential. Moreover, I think that ultimately I had the most fun during my Penn interview weekend - I truly enjoyed hanging out with the current graduate students, especially those currently in the HHMI program. However, during my interviews I only met one professor I was very interested in working for - Andrew Tsourkas - and given my newfound interests in molecular imaging and synthetic biology, I would have liked to have more than just one option for a rotation.

Johns Hopkins University. As this was my last interview, and having already received offers from Caltech, Berkeley/UCSF and Stanford, I was much less nervous during my Hopkins visit than the others.¬†It turns out that I didn’t need to worry anyways - apparently they accept the vast majority of the interviewees, and they would only reject a student if he/she really didn’t fit in or did something completely stupid during the visit. (Apparently, there was a prospective in the previous weekend who had sexually harassed some other students during the night out, which obviously resulted in him being kicked out.) At Hopkins I had the chance to speak to Elliot McVeigh and (briefly) Xingde Li, who work on translational MRI and optical imaging respectively. Though by this time my research interests had already evolved, I was extremely interested in both professors’ work, and in addition was in awe of the sheer volume of work conducted at the Johns Hopkins hospital. However, I was not as impressed with Baltimore in general, especially the aging buildings and obsolete architecture that make up much of the city.

My decision ultimately came down to between Stanford, Penn and Johns Hopkins. I loved the molecular imaging research at Stanford, the prestige and medical training at Penn, and the clinical and translational focus at Johns Hopkins. Stanford had the advantage of being in California and so close to both beaches and mountains, but Penn and Hopkins were closer to Boston where Morgan will be for at least a year. Hopkins had an extremely well-established program that had the track record of turning out superstars, but Stanford had a terrifically planned, newer department that still had so much nascent potential. There were just too many factors to consider, and even after I quantified them one night with a weighted metric system, I could not say for sure where I wanted to go.

With such a monumental decision on my hands I felt I could not decide logically on my own, and as a result requested help from my advisors, mentors, colleagues, and parents. Their replies generally centered on two common themes: Where did I enjoy the research most? And where would I be happiest living? After pondering these questions for a long time, running through my experiences at each school in my head, I realized that the answer to both questions was Stanford. Stanford had a terrific molecular imaging program headed by Sam Gambhir, and in addition recently hired two more really great synthetic biologists to their faculty. It was close to beaches (which I love) and mountains (which I also love), had a great hospital and medical school for my clinical work, and in addition had many opportunities for entrepreneurship in case I wanted to start a company. In essence, it would allow me to do anything I could ever see myself doing - a fact I realized did not apply to any other school. As a result, in the middle of night last Wednesday, I finally arrived at my decision.

Although I currently feel that I have made the right choice, I know that there will be a part of me that will always wonder how it would have been had I chosen any differently. On the other hand, I am tremendously excited for what Stanford has to offer, and I am definitely looking forward to this fall and the years to come.