Recruitment and Interviews

Schedule of Events

This schedule is tentative and subject to change! 

Monday, March 2nd

Travel Information

It is your responsibility to arrange all travel to and from UC Davis. Depending on your current physical address, the program may be able to reimburse your lodging and travel expenses. Please check your email for specific reimbursement limits.

You are strongly encouraged to buy refundable tickets; we take the inflated cost into consideration when offering you a maximum reimbursement amount. UC Davis is unable to reimburse incomplete travel (i.e., we cannot reimburse a flight if you get sick and cannot come).

UC Davis cannot reimburse expenses until travel has concluded. Reimbursement checks are typically received 6-8 weeks after your visit to campus.

Hotel Accommodations

You will have four scheduled interviews with Biophysics faculty. You will receive your interview schedule at least 3 days before your visit. These interviews are designed to gauge your preparation for graduate education and, specifically, for the Biophysics program. Therefore, you can expect questions related to your interests in the program and your previous research/academic experience. We recommend you briefly learn about the faculty you are interviewing with via their Faculty Profiles. However, you are not expected to have a deep understanding of the faculty's research.

We do our best to pair students and faculty with similar research interests. However, this may not always be possible due to scheduling conflicts; we hope you will still be able to connect with your preferred faculty during other program events. Biophysics is a rotation-based program, so students will have ample opportunities to meet and work with their preferred faculty before committing to a laboratory. 

After Your Visit

After your visit, the program will be busy at work processing travel reimbursements, evaluated interviews, and drafting offer and financial letters. Please be patient with us!

Reimbursements

The Graduate Program Coordinator will email you a reimbursement certification once your reimbursement report is ready for submission. You are required to sign and return this form; your reimbursement check cannot be mailed until you return the form.

Reimbursement checks will be mailed to the address you provided in your original RSVP. Checks may take up to 6 weeks to arrive after the recruitment event. Please let the Graduate Program Coordinator know as soon as possible if this is a significant financial burden to you.

Admission and Financial Offers

It is our intention to notify you if you have received an offer of admission by Friday, March 6th, 2026. You will receive an informal letter from us informing you that we have recommended you for admission. 

Technically speaking, the Graduate Group does not offer you admission; rather, we recommend to UC Davis Graduate Studies that they offer you admission, and you will receive your official letter of admission from them approximately 1-2 weeks after we reach out to you. This will take longer if your undergraduate GPA is below 3.0. 

We ask that you notify us whether you intend to accept our offer of admission by Wednesday, April 15th at 11:59pm. This deadline is the same every year, and is adhered to by most accredited PhD programs in the United States. UC Davis is a member of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), and per the Council of Graduate Schools Resolution, you are under no obligation to accept financial offers from UC Davis prior to April 15th.

If you are struggling to decide and need more time, please reach out to us. We cannot necessarily guarantee you funding after April 15th, but it's always a good idea to ask if we'll still accept your Statement of Intent to Register.

If you have been placed on our wait list, we cannot guarantee you a date by which we will let you know of our decision; we often make decisions about our wait list on the basis of how many people have accepted and declined the offers we've made. If you are waiting to hear from us before you accept an offer from another program, please reach out to us.

FAQ

• What exactly is a graduate group?
• It's a non-departmental PhD program, where faculty from all over campus can apply and leave voluntarily. 
  
  Faculty are often affiliated with more than one graduate group (the average for Biophysics-affiliated faculty is 2-3); they need to be in the graduate group in order to become PI to a student in that graduate group, which is a moderately common reason for faculty to join. More often, it's simply because their research interests are a good match for more than one graduate group. 
  
  Faculty often have students from different graduate groups in their lab at the same time; graduate groups have slightly different requirements of students and faculty, program cultures, etc., but their common characteristic is that any faculty member can join or leave a graduate group without it affecting their status in their home department.
• Can I bring my significant other or a plus-one?
• They can come with you, but we cannot support them financially. For example, we book double hotel rooms for two prospective students to share; it is absolutely understandable if you are bringing your spouse with you and want to share a room with them, but per University policy, we cannot reimburse you for that cost. Plus-ones are also not invited to the socials and meals in the program of events. 
  
  If you plan to book a hotel room using your own funds to share with your significant other, please notify the Graduate Program Coordinator.
• I'm not getting information in as timely of a manner as I hoped. Who do I contact?
• First and foremost, please double-check the information in your invitation; for example, if the recruitment itinerary will be sent to you "in the week of February 23rd," please do not email requesting follow-up until February 27th. 
  
  For most questions, you will likely contact the Graduate Program Coordinator. About a week prior to the recruitment event, you will be emailed contact information for your student "host," who will be your main point of contact and information about Biophysics from the student body. Your host might also be an appropriate source of answers to your questions.
• I have another commitment and can’t attend, but I would still like to be considered for the program.  
• Unfortunately, the likelihood of our ability to accommodate these requests is slim. If you cannot attend but still want to be considered, please email the Graduate Program Coordinator.
• I have a question specific to my own circumstances that the Graduate Program Coordinator hasn't answered. Who can help me if that happens?
• Unless it's an emergency that would put your attendance of recruitment in jeopardy, please give the Graduate Program Coordinator at least three business days to respond. Then email the Recruitment Committee Chair as well as the Graduate Program Coordinator.
• Meeting (name of my scientific idol) is important to me, and I'm not scheduled to meet with them when I visit the campus. Why is that?
• The most likely explanation is that the person you're interested in is unavailable. It's also in our best interest to connect you with the people you want to meet the most, but if they're not free, we will introduce you to prospective mentors who share similar strengths. 
  
  We understand better than anyone how siloed a field of research can become, so we know that you may end up talking with someone who is in your general wheelhouse (e.g., a plant biochemist, a cancer biologist, an -omics person), but not someone who shares your exact specialties. Many unexpected connections have been made in this way, and several successful rotations have occurred as a result. 
  
  If your heart was set on meeting someone and they weren't available, you are always welcome to reach out to them about a Zoom call independent of recruitment. Keep in mind that you still might not be able to make it happen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't want to talk to you; faculty are generally quite enthusiastic about meeting prospective students, and it's often the fullness of their schedules that keeps them from doing so.
• I am interested in faculty who are not affiliated with Biophysics. Can I meet them?
• Possibly! We aren't comfortable asking non-members to help a graduate group they're not part of; faculty already do plenty of service for the groups they are affiliated with, let alone others. That being said, if you end up joining Biophysics, you are totally welcome to rotate with non-members, and if there is a mutual interest in you joining the lab, they can accept you as long as they are willing to join the Graduate Group. (That's a UC Davis rule, not ours.) 
  
  An interview with a non-member is, unfortunately, impossible for us to schedule as a program. However, you are totally welcome to set up a meeting with them on your own, perhaps by arriving early on Sunday the 1st or staying late on Tuesday the 3rd. If you are contemplating this, the hotel check-in time is 3:00pm!
• Can you schedule additional interviews for me?
• We do not have the administrative capacity to schedule additional interviews. However, you are highly encouraged to reach out to your preferred faculty for informational interviews. Most faculty are happy to discuss their research with applicants. 
  
  Admitted students will have additional opportunities to connect with faculty prior to committing to a laboratory during fall and winter quarter rotations.
• I’m sick (or there’s been some other unexpected emergency) and I can’t make it. What should I do?
• Tell the Graduate Program Coordinator. Since the faculty have your interviews in their schedules already, we will pivot to Zoom if possible, and we have an array of virtual resources about the campus we can share with you.
• I want to visit Davis again. Can the graduate group support the costs?
• No, unfortunately. But you are always welcome to visit later in 2026 if it works with your schedule - please feel free to reach out to the students and faculty you met in February to schedule talks with them.